ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 87 



duced the division of the week, a thing so ancient and so uni- 

 versally received. Thus likewise we reject, as an idle figment, 

 the doctrine of horoscopes, and the distribution of the houses, 

 though these are the darling inventions of astrology, which 

 have kept revel, as it were, in the heavens. And we are sur- 

 prised that some eminent authors in astrology should rest upon 

 so slender an argument for erecting them, as because it appears 

 by experience that the solstices, the equinoxes, the new and full 

 moon, etc., have a manifest operation upon natural bodies, 

 therefore the more curious and subtile positions of the stars 

 must produce more exquisite and secret effects : whereas, lay- 

 ing aside those operations of the sun, which are owing to mani- 

 fest heat, and a certain attractive virtue of the moon, which 

 causes the spring tide ; the other effects of the planets upon nat- 

 ural bodies are, so far as experience reaches, exceeding small, 

 weak, and latent. Therefore the argument should run thus: 

 since these greater revolutions are able to effect so little, those 

 more nice and trifling differences of positions will have no force 

 at all. And lastly, for the calculation of nativities, fortunes, 

 good or bad hours of business, and the like fatalities, they are 

 mere levities that have little in them of certainty and solidity, 

 and may be plainly confuted by physical reasons. 



And here we judge it proper to lay down some rules for the 

 examination of astrological matters, in order to retain what is 

 useful therein, and reject what is insignificant. Thus, i. Let 

 the greater revolutions be retained, but the lesser of horoscopes 

 and houses be rejected the former being like ordnance, which 

 shoot to a great distance, whilst the other are but like small 

 bows, that do no execution. 2. The celestial operations affect 

 not all kinds of bodies, but only the more sensible, as humors, 

 air, and spirits. Here we except the operations of the sun's 

 heat, which may doubtless penetrate metals and other subter- 

 raneous bodies, and confine the other operations chiefly to the 

 air, the humors, and the spirits of things. 3. All the celestial 

 operations rather extend to masses of things than to individ- 

 uals. Though they may obliquely reach some individuals also, 

 which are more sensible than the rest, as a pestilent constitution 

 of the air affects those bodies which are least able to resist it. 4. 

 All the celestial operations produce, not their effects instanta- 

 neously and in a narrow compass, but exert them in large por- 

 tions of time and space. Thus predictions as to the tempera- 



