A favorable attitude towards astrology is found mainly in those essays by Plutarch which are suspected of being spurious, the _De fato_ and _De placitis philosophorum_. Of the latter we have already treated under Galen. In the former fate is described as “the soul of the universe,” and the three main divisions of the universe, namely, the immovable heaven, the moving spheres and heavenly bodies, and the region about the earth, are associated with the three Fates, Clotho, Atropos, and Lachesis.[948] It is similarly stated in the essay on the demon of Socrates[949] that of the four principles of all things, life, motion, genesis or generation, and corruption, the first two are joined by the One indivisibly, the second and third Mind unites through the sun; the third and fourth Nature joins through the moon. And over each of these three bonds presides one of the three Fates, Atropos, Clotho, and Lachesis. In other words, the one God or first cause, invisible and unmoved, in whom is life, sets in motion the heavenly spheres and bodies, through whose instrumentality generation and corruption upon earth are produced and regulated,—which is substantially the Aristotelian view of the universe. Returning to the _De fato_ we may note that it repeats the Stoic theory of the _magnus annus_ when the heavenly bodies resume their rounds and all history repeats itself.[950] Despite this apparent admission that human life is subject to the movements of the stars, the author of the _De fato_ seems to think that accident, fortune or chance, the contingent, and “what is in us” or free-will, can all co-exist with fate, which he practically identifies with the motion of the heavenly bodies.[951] Fate is also comprehended by divine Providence but this fact does not militate against astrology, since Providence itself divides into that of the first God, that of the secondary gods or stars “who move through the heavens regulating mortal affairs, and that of the demons who act as guardians of men.”[952] [Sidenote: Other bits of astrology.] One or two bits of astrology may be noted in Plutarch’s other essays. The man who learned “astrology” among demons in the isle beyond Britain affirmed that in human generation earth supplies the body, the moon furnishes the soul, and the sun provides the intellect.[953] In the _Symposiacs_[954] the opinion of the mythographers is repeated that monstrous animals were produced during the war with the giants because the moon turned from its course then and rose in unaccustomed quarters. Plutarch was, by the way, inclined to distinguish the moon from other heavenly bodies as passive and imperfect, a sort of celestial earth or terrestrial star. Such a separation of the moon from the other stars and planets would have, however, no necessary contrariety with astrological theory, which usually ascribed a peculiar place to the moon and represented it as the medium through which the more distant planets exerted their effects upon the earth.