Kepler, the great Astronomer, not only affirmed his belief in the principles of Astrology, but gave illustration of them by his prediction of the rise and fall of Wallenstein.
Of Jerome Cardan, the astrologer and mathematician, who compiled the Centiloquia of Ptolemy, and made important contributions to the study of Algebra, there is a remarkable story on record concerning his prescience of his own death and the manner of it.
It appears that from a study of his own horoscope he came to the conclusion that at a certain time he would be in danger of death by human violence. He therefore took precautions, and, having stored his larder with sufficient material to see him through the evil period, he securely bolted and barred all the doors and windows of the house, and thus thought himself to be in great security. But it happened that a band of robbers passing that way saw the house closed up, and, finding it to be very securely protected, they fancied that some great treasure might lay hidden away in it. They were not long in breaking into the place, and, meeting Jerome at the foot of the stairway, brutally murdered him.
John Dryden, the poet, studied Astrology very carefully, and the excellence of his faculty may be judged from the precision with which he predicted the career of his own son Charles. Congreve gives us the account very circumstantially. It is said that when his lady was about to give birth to this child, Dryden left his watch upon the table, instructing the attendants to be very careful in noting the time of the child’s birth. The event having been carefully timed, Dryden computed the horoscope and made the usual calculations. He was thus able shortly to inform his lady that at eight years of age the boy would be in danger of death by a fall. If he survived this he would be again in danger from a similar accident at twenty-three years of age, but that should he yet survive then at thirty-three or thirty-four he would certainly succumb to the malefic influences which then had indication in the horoscope.
In effect it was seen that when the boy arrived at the age of eight years he nearly met his death. His father, being intent on going to a hunt, left the lad at home with a Latin exercise, enjoining him strictly not to leave the house until his return. As fate would have it, however, the stag in breaking away from the hounds jumped the wall of Dryden’s garden, and the boy running out to see what the noise was all about, came by the wall just as the hounds were scaling it. The wall gave way under the pressure of the pack, and Charles was buried beneath it. After a long illness he was restored to comparative health. At twenty-three years of age, when descending the steps of the Vatican, he fell and received such a severe blow upon the head as to render him unconscious. From this, however, he recovered, and might have lived to defeat the sinister predictions of his father, but that at the age of thirty-three he was tempted one day to indulge in a swimming feat in the Thames. Having crossed the river twice in succession he essayed to perform the feat a third time, but being caught with cramp or heart failure he was soon seen to be in difficulties; and before assistance could be rendered he sank and was drowned.
Thus we see that among the readers of the Symbols some were able to admonish others and to give timely warning of the evils which beset them, while themselves unable to provide against those troubles of which they had equal prescience. One is indeed tempted to say with Philip Bailey, “Free will in man is necessity in play.” But we know that the reading of the symbols is not the same as the understanding of the law, and it is quite reasonable to affirm that the ability to foresee and predict a danger does not carry with it the ability to avert it. That such power lies to the hand of man we may assume from the fact that successive rulers of ancient China were able to continue in vigorous life long past the age at which astrological indications extend. Thus Fuh Hi reigned 115 years, Shin Nung 140 years, while Hwang Ti lived 110 years and reigned 100. Show Hao lived 100 and reigned for 84, and several others lived over 100 years each, and according to astrological principles all the “arcs of direction” would be completed in 112 years. Thus Fuh Hi began the Patriarchal Dynasty in 2943 B.C., and the obliquity of the Ecliptic was then 24° 7´, and taking the capital of the Yellow Empire as in latitude 39° 54´ the product of their tangents will amount to about 22°, which added to 90° will give 112° or about the same number of years.
But we are also told that these men understood the Tao-tien, or universal laws, and were in possession of the efficacious Word, so that by their knowledge, allied to their great virtues and simplicity of life, they were enabled to withstand the assaults of cosmical forces and extend their years beyond the low average to which modern civilization has brought us. It has been suggested by some controversialists that the age of Methuselah, which is given as 969 years, should be reckoned as lunar years, that is to say, as nine hundred and sixty-nine lunations. But this would yield a period of about 78 years and 120 days merely, and by the same computation he would be just over 15 years of age when he begat Lamech, for it is said that he was then 187 years of age, and 187 lunations equal 15 years and 47 days. But this would falsify the whole of the chronology, which, although not established, is found to be consistent in itself. Thus both the Chinese and the Hebrews agree as to the date of the Flood, 2348 B.C. At that time Noah was the Patriarchal ruler in Chaldea and Yaou and Shun were joint riders in the Yellow Empire. The curious agreement of the Hebrew and Chinese records is presumptive evidence of something in the nature of a vast and probably universal cataclysm. The following is the computation from Genesis—
Age of Adam at the birth of Seth, 130 years.
” Seth ” ” Enos, 105 ”
” Enos ” ” Cainan, 90 ”