TWO PSEUDO-SCIENCES 



c-alk-d forth thr skill and imagination of the astro! 

 In this interpretation, not in his mere observations, 

 lay the secret of his success. Nor did his task cease 

 with simply foretelling future events that were to hap- 

 pen in the life of the newly born infant. He must not 

 only point out the dangers, but show the means where- 

 by they could be averted, and his prophylactic meas- 

 ures, like his predictions, were alleged to be based on 

 his reading of the stars. 



But casting a horoscope at the time of births was, 

 of course, only a small part of the astrologer's duty. 

 His offices were sought by persons of all ages for pre- 

 dictions as to their futures, the movements of an 

 enemy, where to find stolen goods, and a host of every- 

 day occurrences. In such cases it is more than prob- 

 able that the astrologers did very little consulting of 

 the stars in making their predictions. They became 

 expert physiognomists and excellent judges of human 

 nature, and were thus able to foretell futures with the 

 same shrewdness and by the same methods as the 

 modern "mediums," palmists, and fortune-tellers. To 

 strengthen belief in their powers, it became a common 

 thing for some supposedly lost document of the as- 

 trologer to be mysteriously discovered after an im- 

 portant event, this document purporting to foretell 

 this very event. It was also a common practice with 

 astrologers to retain, or have access to, their original 

 charts, cleverly altering them from time to time to fit 

 conditions. 



The dangers attendant upon astrology were of such 

 a nature that the lot of the astrologer was likely to 

 prove anything but an enviable one. As in the case of 



