The errors on which this science was reared, were not, however, peculiar to astrologers. They were engendered by ignorance, and nurtured by superstition and priestcraft. Every event happens in its own way, and cannot happen in any other way than that in which it has actually happened; or, in other words, an event cannot happen and not happen, or a thing cannot be and not be. This necessary determination of every event in a single manner, the consequence of commensurate proximate causes, which it is often difficult to analyse, served as a fruitful source of superstitious feeling, and as a handle for the priests among the early nations of antiquity. In whatever way an event happened, that was said to be its Fate, notwithstanding a slight exercise of reason would have shewn that what has happened in one way could not, at the same time, happen in another way. But, as it did happen in one way rather than another, the way in which it did happen was said to be predetermined; the kind of cause was not examined which determined it to happen as it did happen; the effect was even said to rule the causes; and all the causes, remote and proximate, were said to be operative merely for the sake of producing the ultimate effect!
As every event must happen in the way an which it has happened, a description of it, is but an expression of the certainty, that it has happened in such or such a particular manner. If this result be fortunate, then all the circumstances which led to it, however remote, are deemed to have been lucky; though, if it prove unfortunate, the same train of causes are then called unlucky. There was, however, neither luck nor ill-luck in these trains, because the remote or necessary physical causes did not determine the proximate and fluctuating mental ones. There existed no necessary connexion between these trains, besides the necessity or certainty that some result must be consequent on every train of events growing out of human life and action. These trains must, in all cases, produce some result, that is to say, a result of some kind, and not necessarily any particular result.
In considering the curious enigma in regard to FATALITY, men err in conceiving that all the remote causes which lead to an event, operate and combine for the sake of some particular result, instead of considering every personal or social event as the necessary single effect of the proximate causes; and they also confound the species of causes which produce events. There are two distinct sets of causes, the one physical and the other mental. The physical are determined by fixed, and often by known laws, and hence we are enabled to foretel the places of the planets and the moment when eclipses of the Sun and Moon will happen for a thousand years to come. The mental are governed by the varying experience, caprice, and self-love, generated within animal minds; and, being therefore measured by no fixed laws, produce results which cannot be anticipated, except in their proximate operation. These mental causes, so to speak, cross each other in every direction, and at one time may accelerate, though at another time they may retard, or give novel directions to physical causes; and, as they are generated in every successive moment by the errors and passions of fallible beings, and often have an extensive influence on the affairs of mankind, so they constitute an infinite variety of original causes, which, as no law creates them, no law leads to their effects; of course, therefore, their effects are not necessary, and no knowledge can exist, enabling men to anticipate that which is generated by no fixed laws, and which therefore is not necessary.
I lately met a friend, who justly passes for a philosopher. He mentioned the distress of a family which he had just been relieving; “and, would you believe it,” said he—“if I had not passed along a street where I seldom go, and met a child of the family, I should have known nothing of their situation? Was it not evidently pre-ordained, therefore, that I should walk along that street, at that time, for the purpose of relieving that family?” “So, then,” said I, “you make the consequence determine the cause, rather than take the trouble to examine whether the causes were not equal to the effect, without being themselves necessary or irresistible.” “But then,” he replied, “there was such an aptness, such a coincidence, such a final purpose!”—“Ah!” I rejoined, “you cheat yourself by not extending your vocabulary—why not say there was sufficient affluence, guided by a benevolent heart—and such distress, that they were called into prompt exertion? Is it to be regarded as a miracle, that a benevolent heart proved the sufficient cause of a good action, and that distress was an excitement equivalent to the effect which you describe? The street was a medium or stage of action, as capable of leading to evil as to good. You could not be in two places at the same time; nor could the result be and not be. Had you been in another place, some other family might have been relieved from the collision of the same causes; and each event would, in like manner, have appeared to have determined the causes, instead of being a single consequence of the causes. Nor were these causes more necessary than the result. Your feelings were spontaneous, but you may in future change the result by hardening your heart, like other rich men.” “I will do neither,” said he, quickly.—“No,” said I, “I know you won’t—you will not violate your habitual inclinations. In future, however, do them justice; and, when you perform a kind action, do not make the consequence the cause.”[5]
I sat on the tomb of Partridge, and thought it a fit place in which to ruminate on these involved points. Do the astrologers (said I) consider the stars as mere indices of pretended fates, or as the causes of the events which they are enabled to anticipate by the anticipated motions of the stars? In nativities, they seem to consider them as indices; but, in horary questions, as causes. They are treated as indices in all cases wherein arbitrary numbers or measures, or imaginary points are introduced; but deemed material causes when particular events are said to be coincident with actual positions. Both hypotheses cannot, however, be well founded; and his reason will call on the astrologer to give up the doctrine of indices of fate, and prefer that of secondary causes. Here then a still greater difficulty presents itself; the causes are general, and they must operate on the whole earth and all its inhabitants alike. A □ of ♂ and ☿, or a △ of ♄ and ♃, (that is, a square aspect of Mars and Mercury, or a trine of Saturn and Jupiter,) whenever they happen, are alike applicable to all the inhabitants and regions of the earth. It was plausible to talk of a planetary aspect as productive of rain or wind, when the geography of the astrologer did not extend beyond the plains of Chaldea, or the immediate banks of the Nile; but our better knowledge of cosmography now teaches us, that, at the time of every aspect, every variety of season and of weather is prevalent in different parts of the world; and every contrariety of fortune is happening to individuals in all countries. The doctrine that the planets are secondary causes, is, therefore, not supported by the circumstances of the phenomena.
But the astrologers are not content with natural positions, but, like the eastern priests with their gods, they assign different parts of the heavens, and different countries, to each planet; and then found prognostics on these local positions of the planets. It is evident, however, that the apparent position of a planet depends on the varying position of the earth, and that an inferior planet may be in exactly the same point of space, and yet be seen from the earth in every sign of the zodiac; though, according to the astrologers, it would in that same place have very different powers! This doctrine was admissible when the earth was considered as the centre of the universe; when the geocentric phenomena were considered as absolute; and when the apparently quick and slow motions, the retrogradations, and the stationary positions, were ascribed to caprices of the planets themselves, or to motives of their prime mover, and therefore were received as signs of corresponding events and fates!
But the radical error of the art of prediction is more deeply seated than we are commonly aware of. There is a chance, however difficult it may be in all cases to reduce it to arithmetical precision, that any possible event may happen to a particular person. No possible event can indeed be conceived, that, with regard to a particular person, is not within the range of arithmetical probability; while all the probable events, such as predictors announce, are within very narrow limits. As an example, I assume, that, of any hundred ordinary events of human life, it may be an even chance that sixty of them will happen, or not happen; and, of the other forty, it may be as 20 to 1 that 10 of them will happen; as 10 to 1 that other 10 will happen; as 1 to 10 that other 10 will happen; and as 1 to 20 that the other 10 will happen. Then, by averaging all these chances, it will be found that it is an even chance that the whole will happen, or will not happen; or, in other words, that half will happen, and that half will not happen. If, therefore, a dextrous person foretel one hundred events, by means of any prognosticating key, or any index whose powers are previously settled,—whether stars, cards, sediments of tea, lines of the hand or forehead, entrails of animals, or dreams, signs or omens,—by the doctrine of chances it is an even, or some other fixed chance, that half, or some other portion, of such events will come to pass. Superstition will triumph if only 1 in 5, or 1 in 10, happen as foretold; but, if 1 in 2 or 3 should happen by neutralizing or generalizing the predictions, then the prophet is accounted a favourite of Heaven, or a familiar of Satan! For this purpose it signifies not what it is that constitutes the key of fate; it will sufficiently deceive the practitioner, if it relieve him from the responsibility of his announcements; and, if he prudently announce none but events highly probable, he will himself be astonished at the apparent verity of his art! In truth, he is all the while but the dupe of arithmetic; and a cool examination would shew him that, for the most part, it is an even chance that any predicted event will happen, which has been foretold by any key, or sign, or token. The planets, the signs of the zodiac, &c. serve as one set of these keys, or indices—dreams serve as another—the entrails of animals have been used as another—signs, noises, omens, tokens, sympathies, &c. are a fruitful source—lines of the hand, forehead, wrist, &c. are others—moles, marks, &c. furnish others—cards afford a rich variety—and the sediments of teacups, and I know not what besides, serve as means of announcing events by pre-arranged laws of association. The half, or more than half, of such events, must however necessarily happen by the averages of chances; and this unascertained and unsuspected coincidence has from age to age countenanced and confirmed the delusion.
All that a prophet or fortune-teller requires, therefore, is some set of indices, to each of which he can assign particular powers and significations, and then be able so to vary their order as to give them new and endless combinations, representing the fortunes of all mankind. When varied for a particular individual, he has merely to apply to that person the probable events indicated by the new combinations; and, according to the law of chances, he must necessarily succeed in a certain proportion of his prognostics, because it is within a certain numerical chance that any possible event will happen to any individual. The prognosticator in these cases is deceived, because he is solely directed by the order of his indices. As he finds that he has been enabled to foretel by their means a certain number of events, he conceives either that these indices must govern the fates; that the finger of Providence or the agency of the Devil governed his indices; or, with many grave writers, that there is a soul of the world which harmonizes all things, producing an accordance between the FORTUNES of the HUMAN RACE and the sediments of tea-cups, the arrangements of cards, the aspects and positions of the planets, the lines in the hand or forehead, the indications of dreams, and the entrails of animals! On the other hand, the dupes of these prognostics, when fortunate, often direct their best exertions to fulfil them; or, when unfortunate, they sink into a feeling of despondency, which leads to their fulfilment. And, should one in ten of the predicted events take place, they become firm believers in the doctrines of fatality, necessity, and other superstitions; “for,” say they, “how could an event be foretold, if it had not been irrevocably decreed that it must happen?” What a powerful handle for priest-craft, state-craft, and all the crafts by which mankind have been abused in every age of the world!
That this exposition of the true cause of the popular errors, in regard to any supposed connexion between certain accidents of matter, and unconnected future events, will not be without its uses, must be evident from the known influence which some of the means of prognostication possess over every rank of society. Such scenes as that described in the Spectator, where so much unhappiness was created by spilling the salt, are still realized every day in nearly every family in Great Britain. All phenomena which cannot easily be accounted for, and hundreds of trivial incidents, are considered by the gravest as portentous signs of events to come. The coincidence of any event and its prognostic, though it might have been ten to one that it would happen, is received as evidence of their connexion, which it would be impiety to laugh at! But need I quote a more striking instance than the still prodigious annual sale of 300,000 of Partridge’s and Moore’s Almanacks, whose recommendations are their prognostications, and which a few years since lost most of their patrons, because the Stationers’ Company, in the edition of the year, left out the predictions as an experiment on the public wisdom!
In returning from the tomb of Partridge, I beheld another, dear to patriotism and civic glory, that of Alderman Barber, Lord-mayor of London in 1733. His memory is still cherished among aged citizens, and the cause is recorded in the following inscription:—