&6 BACON 



west; the progressions, stations, and retrogradations of the 

 planets, the stoppage and accidents of their motion in perigee 

 and apogee, the obliquity of their motions ; why the poles of 

 rotation are principally in one quarter of the heavens ; why cer- 

 tain planets keep a fixed distance from the sun, etc. Inquiries 

 of this kind have hitherto been hardly touched upon, but the 

 pains have been chiefly bestowed in mathematical observations 

 and demonstrations ; which indeed may show how to account 

 for all these things ingeniously, but not how they actually are 

 in nature : how to represent the apparent motions of the heav- 

 enly bodies, and machines of them, made according to particu- 

 lar fancies ; but not the real causes and truth of things. And 

 therefore astronomy, as it now stands, loses its dignity by being 

 reckoned among the mathematical arts, for it ought in justice to 

 make the most noble part of physics. And whoever despises 

 the imaginary separation between terrestrial and celestial 

 things, and well understands the more general appetites and 

 passions of matter, which are powerful in both, may receive a 

 clear information of what happens above from that which hap- 

 pens below ; and from what passes in the heavens, he may be- 

 come acquainted with some inferior motions hitherto undis- 

 covered, not as these are governed by those, but as they both 

 have the same common passions. We, therefore, report this 

 physical part of astronomy as wanting, in comparison of which 

 the present animated astronomy is but as the stuffed ox of 

 Prometheus aping the form but wanting the substance. 



But for astrology, it is so full of superstition, that scarce any- 

 thing sound can be discovered in it ; though we judge it should 

 rather be purged than absolutely rejected. But if any one shall 

 pretend that this science is founded, not in reason and physical 

 contemplations, but in the direct experience and observation of 

 past ages, and therefore not to be examined by physical reasons, 

 as the Chaldeans boasted, he may at the same time bring back 

 divination, auguries, soothsaying, and give in to all kinds of 

 fables ; for these also were said to descend from long experi- 

 ence. But we receive astrology as a part of physics, without 

 attributing more to it than reason and the evidence of things 

 allow, and strip it of its superstition and conceits. Thus we 

 banish that empty notion about the horary reign of the planets, 

 as if each resumed the throne thrice in twenty-four hours, so as 

 to leave three hours supernumerary: and yet this fiction pro- 



