Creatures that were capable of detecting the influence of the planetary system on that portion of Nature which is unquestionably affected by it, and of imagining its presence in inanimate objects, which, to use cautious language, have never been proved by science to be sensible of such a power, of course magnified its consequences in all that related to the human intellect and character. The instant in which a man entered the world was regarded as the one when he was most susceptible. Indeed, a babe was looked upon as a piece of warm and pliant wax: and the particular planet which was in the ascendant when the nurse placed the new child of Adam amongst the people of earth stamped upon it a distinctive charactery. To be born under a particular star was then an expression that meant something. On the nature of the star it depended whether homunculus, squealing out its first agonies, was to be morose or gentle, patient or choleric, lively or saturnine, amorous or vindictive--a warrior or a poet--a dreamer or a man of action. Laughing at the refinements of absurdity at which astrology had arrived in his day, the author of "Hudibras" says:-- "There's but the twinkling of a star Between a man of peace and war; A thief and justice, fool and knave, A huffing officer and slave; A crafty lawyer and a pickpocket, A great philosopher and a blockhead; A formal preacher and a player, A learned physician and manslayer. As if men from stars did suck Old age, diseases, and ill-luck, Wit, folly, honour, virtue, vice, Travel and women, trade and dice; And draw, with the first air they breathe, Battle and murder, sudden death. Are not these fine commodities To be imported from the skies, And vended here amongst the rabble For staple goods and warrantable?" Involved in this view of the universe was the doctrine that some exceptional individuals were born far superior to the mass of their fellow-creatures. Absurd as astrology was, still, its postulates having once been granted, the logic was unassailable which argued that those few on whose birth lucky stars had shone benignantly, had a destiny and an organization distinct from those of ordinary mortals. The dicta of modern liberalism, and the Transatlantic dogma that "all men are by nature born equal," would have appeared to an orthodox believer in this planetary religion nothing better than the ravings of madness or impiety. Monarchs of men, whatever lowly station they at first occupied in life, were exalted above others because they possessed a distinctive excellence imparted to them at the hour of birth by the silent rulers of the night. It was useless to strive against such authority. To contend with it would have been to wrestle with the Almighty--ever present in his peculiarly favoured creatures.