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By Dante's master in theology, ThomaS Aquinas, the reali tyos astrological influences is laid down with persect clearn essin S. T. Pars Prima quaest. I 15, art. 3 and 4 . In thesirst instance the question is piat whether heavenly bo dies area cause of things that talae place in terrestriat hodies. This
em phaticalty in the amrmative. Celestiat Lodies causal lyaffect ali the varie d motions of terrestriat bodies J.' The se condquestion is, Are heaVenly bo dies a Cata SQ os human actions ΘThe authoritative conclusion here is, Directly Speat in theyare not. but indirectly they are . 'Indi rectly, and by accident, impressions os celestial bo dies may reach intellect and will, since both intellect and will receive sonae hat frona in serior faculti es whicli are bound up with bodily organs. A distinction is howeVer, to be made bet Oen will and intelleci. The intellect is os necessit y affected by the lo ver apprehensive faculties of imagination. thought, or memory. and whenthese a re Stirred, the intellect is stir red likewise. But thewill does not os necessi ty follow the promptingS Of thelower appetite. For although the paSsiones of angor an cldeSire haVe a Certa in power of moving the will : yet itrema ins in the power of will to Milo passion or to repudiate it. Thus the influence of celestial bodies, So far asit produces Change in the lower sacvities, has to do ratherwith intellect than with wili; and wili is the proXimate cause
Finalty Aquinas rem artis that most men fili Ow Passiones, whicli are motions os the sensitive appetite; and with these heavenly bodies may have to do. For se are the wi Se whowithstand such passions. And thus it is that astrologerAmay osten sore teli truly: but for the most pari rather in generat than in speciat, since nothing hinclers any on C many The word A are: Corpora caelestia cum tantum mobilia Sint Secundum lationis motum, Cau Sa Sunt omnium eorum quae in his corporibus inferioribus variis motibuS aguntur.' Cum intellectus et voluntas, quae humanorum actuum principia Sunt, Corporei S organis Vires alligatae minime Sint ; non poSSunt corpora ipsa caeleStia humanorum actuum Causae directe eSSe, Sed indirecte, agendo per Se in corpora quae ad utriuSque potentiae opera conducunt.'
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faculties, a re influenced by the motions of the heavens. Butthere is no direct action of heavenly bodies tapon the will
Eor the will, as Aristolle Says De Anima, lib. iii) resides in
appetite is the function actus) os a b odi ly organ. Where renothing hin clers impressions of celestial bodies Dona rendering Some mela BPt to anger, Or to lust, or to Some passion of this kinci ; and thus si om natural CompleXion many men folio Pas Sion S, and wise men alone with stand them. And so, in a generat way, are Uerified those things that are so retoid os the actiones of men in accordan Ce with the Consideration
aris en in the matter in conseque iace of the equi Uocat mean ingof the word, Mathemati CA so metimes held to be derived si om χαὶ τικil, SOm Otim OS frona The Character isti g, he sayS, os false mathematic, was to asseri that through the po ers Ofthe constellations ait things took place of necessit V. No placewas test for contingent matter. for jud gement, for si Ce wili. Such a View of nature was condemned not only by theologians but by philosophers. Aristolle and Plato, Cicero and Pliny. AUicenna and Album agar were unanimo his in holding that free will rema ined uncoerced by the motions of heaven lybodies. True mathematicians and astrologeres layclown no
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necessity, no in fallibili ty, in their predictions os Contingent
body may be assected by celestiat things, and the way in
things are those of the heavenly upon bodily organs, whichbeing Strongly moVed. men a re leo on to actions of whicli thev had not thought be fore, γ' et always with fuit reservation Ofthe freedom of the wili.'There a re perhaps few fictitio his cree 4s for the origin ofWhicli it is so ea sy to account as sor the belles that the positionof the plane is xvith regard to one another and to the constellations of the godi ac were of significance to man and hisenViron ment. With populations whose religion was astrolatric
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prolonged study might at last interpret pSo it was that with the growth of knowledge, and wit h
λ Com te has potnted otiti ilosophie Positive, vol. iii. pp. z73-28o, ed. Litire that in ordor to appreciate astrology with any approach to justice, it is needfulto keep Steadily in vi ew thC very real connexion belween the scien CeS of astronomy and biology. On the relations of masA and of distance belweenthe Stin and earth, involving as they clo the familiar sacts of weight. Equilibrium os fluids, temperature, ii se on Our planet is obviotasty dependent. Is we considertho period and veloci ty of the earlli's rotation, the degree of Elliptici ty of heroi bit, the angle at whieli the axis of rotation is incline d to the plane of the orbit, the Same truth is improSSed upon us even more Strongly In the early StageSof the human mind these connecting lin ks belween aStronomy and biolo were studi ed from a very different poliat of vlew ; but at least they were studi ed and nolle fi out of si glit, as is the common tendency in Our own time under the restrictinginfluence of a naScent and incomplete positivism. Beneath the chimerical belles of the old philosophy in the physiological influence of the Atars, there lay a Strong though confused recognition of the truth that the facts of life were in Some waydependent On the solar System. I ille ali primitive inspirations of man 'S intelligone e this seeling nee ded rectification by positives science, but not deStruction ;though unliappily in science, aS in polities, it is osten hard to reorganige without sonte bries period of overthrow.' This was written in 1836. Much has been done Since bb' Mr Spencer and others to familiari Ze the European mind withthe dependetace of life on iis astronomicat conditions. But the inbustice in Our historical judgement of mediaevat astrology Stili re mainS.
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stellar influences towariis the central potiat os a clo sed universes hould have arisen. ti ut that it Ahould So long and so persistent ly have sui vived the di SCOVery that the universe was notclosed but bound less. That Francis Bacon, who rejected Ordoubted the Copernican theory, should have reta ined his belles in astrology is not sui pri sing. But we Should have eYpected that with men like Kepler and Campanella, it would have vanis hed like the mori ing misi. Vet it was not So VII. THE PROPAGATION OF FORCE. Bacon 's vi eius os stellar influences must be taken in con-ne Xion with his speculations as to the tranSmissiones of forcethrough space. These a re set fortii briefly in the seconci and
third Distinctions of the solarili part of the opus Mai s ; and more in det ait in the special treatis e Des Mnltiplicatione
with iis substance or essen Ce. The fi rest result of this force, resembling it in character, is iis species, other vise calle dlikeness, or imago, or intention or impreSSion In otherword A, LOdy is a centre of acti Vlty Or force radiat ing in every direction. Species is the first result of this force, the ray
in Diogenes Laertius' account of the System os Epicurus, and in the traces that rema in to us of Older philosophers, notablyof Democritus. Aristolle, in his Shori treati se on Divinationby dreanas, alludes to the theory of Democritus that ει0ω χαHnd -ορροιαι were Continualty emit ted from objects whicli in the stiliness of the night were capable of affecting the si Ceper.
By Epicurus, in his letter to Herodotus quot ed in his biographyby Diogenes Laertius, the theory is more sully det allecl. There
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in the open a tr. if the heaven is Starry, in a moment the Clearradiant constellations. of aether in aged in the water correspondio those in the heaUen. Now do 3 ou See in What a moment
is not the case. Nor again cloes the agent Create the specieso ut of nothing. Nor cloes it collect the species frona sur- round ing space and Send it on in to the body on whicli actiontakes Place the patient. Nor, aS Some haUe SuPPOSed, doOSthe agent impress the patient as with a Seal.
What happens is that the agent stimulates the potentialacti Vity of the matter os the patient. The species is generate d
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out of the matter ac ted on. Fit specieS de potentia activa materiae patientis.' The agent acts on the first part of thebody of the patient, and stimulates iis latent energy to the generation of the species. That part thus transmuted acts onthe part neXt succeecling ; and so the action proceeds Douult.
While the agent acts on the patient, the Patient ro-actS Onthe agent. ' Omne agens Physico Patitur et tran Smutatur insimul dum agit, et omne patiens phySi Ce agit ' Do sinu. Dec. p. 439). Heavenly bo dieS a S thoy a Ct on one another. Sodo they receive emanations Of sorce stom terrestriat bOdies. Not that they a re so affected by them a s to be deStroyed, being incorrupti tile. Neverthel ess there is in this way an intercliange of force hetween ali paris of the univerSe p. 448). The ray, or species, is os corporeal Nature ; but this Corporealnature is not distinct frona that of the medium ; it is generat edfrom the substance of the medium, and is Continuat ly re- r medout of Successive portions of the medium occurring in the line
ori ving the air transversely to the line of sorce, this in no wayamecis this line. The species is formed and resor med frona particles of the medium presented in the line os propagation,
occupied in passing through So UaSt a Space a S the diameter of the universe is imperceptibi e to SonSO. It will be seen frona the so rego ing how wide is the divergen Cebet ween Democritean and Baconi an physic s. Though Baconreta in f the word species ' in his theory, the word has almostentiret y lost the significance attached to it by Lucretius. We are no longer dealing with the notion that bo dies emit Dona their sursace films or moulds whicli are transmitte dthrough Space. Lil e the word ray,' whicli is reta ined by the modern physicist who accepis the undulatory theory, species 'sor Bacon has be come a mere word to denote the Propagationos force in certa in definite directions. Inde ed the multiplication os species as defined by him has much in common with
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the undulatory theory. He formalty rejecis the contrasted theory of emission. The Species, like the waVe, is a motionor change in succeSSi Ve portions of the aerial or et herealmedium ; occupying time in iis transit: propagat ed so longas the medium be homogeneous, in direct lines : liable todeflection when the medium alters iis character. In Bacon 's theory of the radiation Os forces two very important potnis are to be noted. The fit si is his clear graspos the princi ple that time was occupied in their transmission. He discusses in the paSsageS at ready cited the View of Aristotie
the passage. But when light PaSSeS from east to west throughthe universe, the Space is so Vast that is time were occupi edwe could not fati to deieci it. Bacon 's conception os the subject is far more scienti sic. Our inabili ty to perceive minute intervals of time is no eviden Ce he sa id, sor thoir non-OXistenCe. Imperceptibi e time, he re mari S, haS many degrees. Thereis, first, the intervat of time OCCupied by a Single propagationos force sor, as we Should Say, undulation in sollowed by the
intervat of rest be re the neXt propagation begins. Tal esuch a multiple of that intervat as would suffice for the whole distance belween the eX tremitteS of a diameter of the universe and that multiple may Stili rema in below the limits of ourpower os perception. Ιt is interesting to compare with this passage the speculation S Os the Second Bacon On the fame subject Nov. Orgi ii. 46). Erancis Bacon had formed the conjecture that the transit os light from the stars occupied time. But he did not grasse this conjecture with the fame firmneSs as Roger BaCon, and he followS it up with ingenio us
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VIII. BACON'S OPTIC S. The most strii ing illustration os laws goVerning the tranSit Of force through space was obvioris ly to be looked for in the Science of Optics spretiva). The fifth section of the ornes Majus, amotinting to abo ut one- fifth of the whole, is devote ito this science ; and much supplementat matter is ad ded in the treati se Des Multiplicatione Spescierum. Optics had been studi ed by the Greelis to much purpose. The workS Os Euclid, Theon and Ptolemy were translated into Arabic, and were care fully studi ed by Arabian men of science, notably by Abu'Ali al Hasan ibit at Hasan ibia Athaliam, bet ter known to Occidentales under the nam e of Allia Zen. Their principal
that light proceeded in strat glit lines, and that Ui Sual rab S were reflected from plane mirrors in such a way that the an gles
in Helberg, in his recent edition os Euclid'S Optica forming the Sevenili volumeos the complete edition of Euclid, edited by Helberg and Menge , remari S p. xxviii of Protegomena , Optica qualia hic e codice Vindobonensi maxime
primo loco repetivimus, Euclidis eSSE, non CSt cur dubitemuS. Sed cum recentioreS tantum eXtent codices, mirum non OSt locOS nonnulloS tam corruptOS esse ut verba Euclidis restitui nequeant.'
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ceived the assem blage of rays as a Cone having iis apex in theeye, and iis base in the boundary os the object se en : that theapparent magnitude of the object depended on the magnitudeos the angle of the cone. The iace follo ed the ordinary principies of perspecti Ve, as that of equat magnitudes at unequal
In the Campirica attributed to Euclid. but probab ly due to Theon , frona the equali ty of the an gles of reflexion and inci
Ptolemyy Carried the science much fui ther than Euclid. Tothe study os reflected light he added that of refraction. Thechi es interest of his work lies in the application to the subjectos the e X perimental method. an instance Os it unique, is we OX-Cept the Pythagorean e X periment S in a colasti CS, in the historyos Greeli science. Using an e X treme ly Simple but ingeni Ous apparat US, he discOVered not me rely that the luminous ray in paSSing si Om One medium to another was deflecte , hui, with in certain limits . he ascertain Od the amount of cle flexion and iis depende iace on two distinct factores, the angi eos incidence, and the nature of the twO media Concernod. Ptolemy distinctly describes and e X plains the error introduce dby refraction into astronomical obserUations. The faci that in his great astronomical treati Se there is no mention Os refraC-tion had ted to the conclusion that the A agrat and the optios must be attributed to distinct authors. The optio howeVer, may be a later Work. we know it only Dona a translation frona the Arabic into Latin. made in the twel fili century ;it has been recent ly edi ted by Gilberto Gola, of Turin. Theresearches of Euclid, Ptolemy, and others On Opti CS, en gaged the attention of the Arabian schoois from an early Period.
x On Ptolemy's Optios there is a very in foresting chapter in Delambre'sAStronomiis Ancierine, Vol. ii. pp. 4 II 43O, ed. IBII. See alSO a note On p. li ofPresa e to vol. t whicli modi fies sonae of his conclusions.) All our knowled geos Ptolemy'S optical work comes from an imperfeci Latin translation Do in the Arabic made in the twelfth centuita by Admirat Eugenius of Sicily. There a relate MSS. of this work in Paris and in the Bodleian Librata. But Govi's recent edition is froni a much older MS. in the Ambrosian Library of Milan.