flown,) the civilised people may escape thither out of villages and cities; and consequently, against the Atheist, arts, and sciences, and histories, may be preserved, and derived to the succeeding world. Thirdly, let us imagine the whole terraqueous globe with its atmosphere about it; what is there here that can naturally effect an universal deluge? If you would drown one country or continent with rains and inundations, you must borrow your vapour and water from some other part of the globe. You can never overflow all at a time. If the atmosphere itself was reduced into water, as some think it possible, it would not make an orb above thirty-two foot deep, which would soon be swallowed up by the cavity of the sea and the depressed parts of the earth, and be a very feeble attempt towards an universal deluge. But then what immense weight is there above, that must overcome the expansive force of the air, and compress it into near the thousandth part of the room that it now takes up? We, that acknowledge a God Almighty, can give an account of one deluge, by saying it was miraculous; but it would be strange* to see an Atheist have recourse to a miracle; and that not once only, but upon infinite occasions. But perhaps they may endeavour to prove the possibility of such a natural deluge by borrowing an ingenious notion, and pretending that the face of nature may be now quite changed from what it was; and that formerly the whole collection of waters might be an orbicular abyss, arched over with an exterior crust or shell of earth, and that the breaking and fall of this crust might naturally make a deluge. I'll allow the Atheist all the fair play in the world. Let us suppose the fall of this imaginary crust. First, it seems to be impossible but that all the inhabitants of this crust must be dashed to pieces in its ruins so that this very notion brings us to the necessity of a new production of men; to evade which it is introduced by the Atheist. Again, if such a crust naturally fell, then it had in its own constitution a tendency towards a fall; [* be strange; 1st ed. "be a little strange."—D.] that is, it was more likely and inclinable to fall this thousand years than the last. But, if the crust was always gradually nearer and nearer to falling, that plainly evinces that it had not endured eternally before its fall. For, let them assign any imaginable period for its falling, how could it have held out till then (according to the supposition) the unmeasurable duration of infinite ages before? And again, such a crust could fall but once; for what architect can an Atheist suppose to rebuild a new arch out of the ruins of the other? But I have shewn before that this Atheist hath need of infinite deluges to effect his design; and therefore I'll leave him to contrive how to make infinite crusts one upon the back of another; and now proceed to examine, in the second place, the astrological explication of the origin of men. II. If you ask one of this party, what evidence he is able to produce for the truth of his art, he may perhaps offer some physical reasons for a general influence of the stars upon terrestrial bodies; but, as astrology is considered to bet a system of rules and propositions, he will not pretend to give any reason of it a priori; but resolves all that into tradition from the Chaldeans and Egyptians, who first learnt it by long observation, and transmitted it down to posterity; and that now it is daily confirmed by events which are experienced to answer the predictions. This is all that can be said for astrology as an art. So that the whole credibility of this planetary production of mankind must depend upon observation. But are they able to shew among all the Chaldaic‡ observations for four hundred and seventy thousand years (as they pretended) any tradition of such a production? So far from that, that the Chaldeans believed the world and mankind to have been from everlasting, which opinion I have refuted before. Neither can the Egyptian wizards, with their long catalogue of dynasties, and observations for innumerable years, supply the Atheists with one instance of such a crea [* years than; 1st ed. " years, suppose, than."-D.] [t to be; 1st ed. " as."-D.] [the Chaldaic; 1st ed. "the remains of the Chaldaic.”—D.] tion. Where are the fragments of Petosiris and Necepso that may countenance this assertion? I believe, if they had had any example of men born out of the soil, they would rather have ascribed it to the fruitful mud of the Nile (as they did the breeding of frogs, and mice, and monsters) than to the efficacy of stars. But, with the leave of these fortune-tellers, did the stars do this feat once only, which gave beginning to human race? or have they frequently done so, and may do it again? If frequently, why is not this rule delivered in Ptolemy and Albumazar? If once only, at the beginning, then how came it to be discovered? Who were there then in the world to observe the births of those first men, and calculate their nativities, as they sprawled out of ditches? Those sons of earth were very wise children, if they themselves knew that the stars were their fathers; unless we are to imagine that they understood the planets and the zodiac by instinct, and fell to drawing schemes of their own horoscopes in the same dust they sprung out of? For my part, I can have no great veneration for Chaldaic antiquity, when I see they could not discover in so many thousand years that the moon was an opaque body, and received her light from the sun. But, suppose their observations had been never so accurate, it could add no authority to modern astrology, which is borrowed from the Greeks. 'Tis well known that Berosus, or his scholars, new modelled and adapted the Babylonian doctrines to the Grecian mythology. The supposed influences of Aries and Taurus, for example, have a manifest relation to the Grecian stories of the ram • So Diodorus Siculus, lib. i. cap. 2. Φασὶ τοίνυν Αἰγύπτιοι κατὰ τὴν ἐξ ἀρχῆς τῶν ὅλων γένεσιν πρώτους τοὺς ἀνθρώπους γενέσθαι κατὰ τὴν Αἴγυπτον, διά τε τὴν εὐκρασίαν τῆς χώρας, καὶ διὰ τὴν φύσιν τοῦ Νείλου, &c. [t. i. p. 13. ed. Wessel.-D.] d Vitruvius, lib. ix. cap. 4. Lucret. lib. v. Ut Babylonica Chaldæam doctrina, &c. [v. 726. In 1st ed. Bentley gives "Chaldæum :" and see his Epist. ad Mill. vol. ii. p. 295.-D.] Apuleius de Deo Socratis: Seu illa (luna) proprio et perpeti fulgore, ut Chaldæi arbitrantur, parte luminis compos, parte altera cassa fulgoris. [Sive illa proprio seu perpeti candore, &c. : vide Appuleii Opp. t. ii. p. 117. ed. Ouden.-D.] that carried Phrixus, and the bull that carried Europa. Now which of these is the copy, and which the original? Were the fables taken from the influences, or the influences from the fables? the poetical fables more ancient than all records of history; or the astrological influences, that were not known to the Greeks till after Alexander the Great? But, without question, those fabulous tales had been many a time told and sung to lull children asleep, before ever Berosus set up his intelligence-office at Cos.* And the same may be said of all the other constellations. First, poetry had filled the skies with asterisms and histories belonging to them; and then astrology devises the feigned virtues and influences of each, from some property of the image, or allusion to the story. And the same trifling futility appears in their twelve signs of the zodiac, and their mutual relations and aspects. Why no more aspects than diametrically opposite, and such as make equilateral figures? Why are the masculine and feminine, the fiery and airy, and watery and earthly† signs all placed at such regular distances? Were the virtues of the stars disposed in that order and rank on purpose only to make a pretty diagram upon paper? But the atheistical astrologer is doubly pressed with this absurdity. For, if there was no counsel at the making of the world, how came the asterisms of the same nature and energies to be so harmoniously placed at regular intervals? and how could all the stars of one asterism agree and conspire together to constitute an universal? Why does not every single star shed a separate influence, and have aspects with other stars of their own constellation? But what need there many words? as if the late discoveries of the celestial bodies had not plainly detected the imposture of astrology? The planet Saturn is found to have a great ring that encircles him, and five‡ lesser planets that move about him, as the moon doth about the earth and Jupiter hath four satellites, which by their inter [* Cos; 1st ed. "Coos."-D.] [ earthly; 1st ed. "earthy."-D.] position between him and us make some hundreds of eclipses every year. Now the whole tribe of astrologers, that never dreamed of these planets, have always declared, that when Jupiter and Saturn come about again to any given point, they exert (considered singly by themselves) the same influence as before. But 'tis now manifest, that when either of them return to the same point, the planets about them, that must make up an united influence with them, have a different situation in respect of us and each other from what they had the time before; and consequently the joint influence must be perpetually varied, and never be reducible to any rules and observations. Or, if the influences be conveyed hither distinct, yet sometimes some of the little planets will eclipse the great one at any given point, and by that means* intercept and obstruct the influence. I cannot now insist on many other arguments deducible from the late improvements of astronomy, and the truth of the Copernican system ;† for, if the earth be not the centre of the planetary motions, what must become then of the present astrology, which is wholly adapted to that vulgar hypothesis? And yet nevertheless, when they lay under such wretched mistakes for many myriads of years, if we are willing to believe them, they would all along, as now, appeal to experience and event for the confirmation of their doctrines. That's the invincible demonstration of the verity of the science. And indeed, as to their predictions, I think our astrologers may assume to themselves that infallible oracle of Tiresias, O Laërtiade, quicquid dico, aut erit, aut non.‡ There's but a true and a false in any telling of fortune; and a man that never hits on the right side cannot be called a bad guesser, but must miss out of design, and be notably skilful at lighting on the wrong. And were there not formerly as great pretensions to it from the superstitious obser [* by that means; 1st ed. "therefore.”—D.] [+ and the truth of the Copernican system; not in 1st ed.-D.] ... dicam . . . .-D.] |