By: DAVID RICE
Re: Voltaire, Astrology

ASTROLOGY

Astrology may rest on better foundations than Magic. For if no one
has seen either Goblins, or Lemures, or Dives, or Peris, or Demons,
or Cacodemons, the predictions of astrologers have often been seen
to succeed. If of two astrologers consulted on the life of a child
and on the weather, one says that the child will live to manhood,
the other not; if one announces rain, and the other fine weather, it
is clear that one of them will be a prophet.

The great misfortune of the astrologers is that the sky has changed
since the rules of the art were established. The sun, which at the
equinox was in Aries in the time of the Argonauts, is to-day in
Taurus; and the astrologers, to the great ill-fortune of their art,
to-day attribute to one house of the sun what belongs visibly to
another. However, that is not a demonstrative reason against
astrology. The masters of the art deceive themselves; but it is not
demonstrated that the art cannot exist.

There is no absurdity in saying: Such and such a child is born in
the waxing of the moon, during stormy weather, at the rising of such
and such star; his constitution has been feeble, and his life
unhappy and short; which is the ordinary lot of poor constitutions:
this child, on the contrary, was born when the moon was full, the
sun strong, the weather calm, at the rising of such and such star;
his constitution has been good, his life long and happy. If these
observations had been repeated, if they had been found accurate,
experience would have been able after some thousands of years to
form an art which it would have been difficult to doubt: one would
have thought, with some likelihood, that men are like trees and
vegetables which must be planted and sown only in certain seasons.
It would have been of no avail against the astrologers to say: My
son was born at a fortunate time, and nevertheless died in his
cradle; the astrologer would have answered: It often happens that
trees planted in the proper season perish; I answered to you for the
stars, but I did not answer for the flaw of conformation you
communicated to your child. Astrology operates only when no cause
opposes itself to the good the stars can do.

One would not have succeeded better in discrediting the astrologer
by saying: Of two children who were born in the same minute, one has
been king, the other has been only churchwarden of his parish; for
the astrologer could very well have defended himself by pointing out
that the peasant made his fortune when he became churchwarden, as
the prince when he became king.

And if one alleged that a bandit whom Sixtus V. had hanged was born
at the same time as Sixtus V., who from a pig-herd became Pope, the
astrologers would say one had made a mistake of a few seconds, and
that it is impossible, according to the rules, for the same star to
give the triple crown and the gibbet. It is then only because a host
of experiences belied the predictions, that men perceived at last
that the art was illusory; but before being undeceived, they were
long credulous.

One of the most famous mathematicians in Europe, named Stoffler, who
flourished in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and who long
worked at the reform of the calendar, proposed at the Council of
Constance, foretold a universal flood for the year 1524. This flood
was to arrive in the month of February, and nothing is more
plausible; for Saturn, Jupiter and Mars were then in conjunction in
the sign of Pisces. All the peoples of Europe, Asia and Africa, who
heard speak of the prediction, were dismayed. Everyone expected the
flood, despite the rainbow. Several contemporary authors record that
the inhabitants of the maritime provinces of Germany hastened to
sell their lands dirt cheap to those who had most money, and who
were not so credulous as they. Everyone armed himself with a boat as
with an ark. A Toulouse doctor, named Auriol, had a great ark made
for himself, his family and his friends; the same precautions were
taken over a large part of Italy. At last the month of February
arrived, and not a drop of water fell: never was month more dry, and
never were the astrologers more embarrassed. Nevertheless they were
not discouraged, nor neglected among us; almost all princes
continued to consult them.

I have not the honour of being a prince; but the celebrated Count of
Boulainvilliers and an Italian, named Colonne, who had much prestige
in Paris, both foretold that I should die infallibly at the age of
thirty-two. I have been so malicious as to deceive them already by
nearly thirty years, wherefore I humbly beg their pardon.


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