190 CHILDHOOD OF SCIENCE. 



the affairs of men and of kingdoms, was as nothing for the 

 logical vaulters of those days. In accordance with this theory, 

 the fixed stars in the zodiac, or sun's path, were divided into 

 twelve signs, each supposed to preside over a particular part of 

 the body, as Aries the head, Taurus the neck, and so on. In 

 this circuit of the heavens were also distributed life and death, 

 marriage and children, riches and honors, friends and ememies, 

 and the entire catalogue of human interests and affections. 

 Then that star of zodiac which rose in the east at the moment of 

 the birth of any child, became the controlling influence of that 

 life, and predictions were made for it in all after time according 

 to the approach of this, its " first house," to the influences of any 

 planet, the sun or moon. 



Through the long night of the middle ages the only observer 

 in the unexplored realms of nature was the astrologer, who cata- 

 logued the stars only to fill a fortune-teller's tables, who calculated 

 the intricate problems of siderial time and the precession of 

 the equinoxes only to cast back the horoscope, who configured 

 the mazy paths of the planets only to forecast their influence on 

 some " star of destiny/' Yet so fascinating were the pretensions 

 of judicial astrology, so sweeping its generalities, and so vague 

 its proofs, that it held captive the strongest minds of the age. 

 Roger Bacon, Kepler, and Francis Bacon consulted its divinations; 

 Tycho Brahe was extremely credulous of its presages ; and 

 Cardan, the great algebraist, died to accomplish an astrological 

 prediction. 



In experimental science, the only workers of the middle ages 

 were the alchemists. In dark and smoky cells, retired or hidden 

 from the sight of men, untold numbers of these so called chem- 

 ists wore out their lives at the furnace and smelter. With the 

 simple furnishment of mortar and crucible, of alembic and 

 aludel, of quick-silver and amalgams, of aqua fortis and aqua 

 regia, the old alchemist experimented with untiring iteration for 

 the three phantoms of the gold-seeker- the grand alkahest or 

 universal solvent, the philosopher's stone or the quintessence of 

 the metals, and the grand elixir or the universal panicea. With 

 the solvent all the baser metals were to be reduced to their primal 



