It remains to consider Adelard’s attitude towards the stars, which is very similar to that of Plato’s _Timaeus_. We have already seen that he translated works of Arabic astrology. Such a work as the tables of Al-Khowarizmi evidently has an astrological purpose, enabling one to find the horoscope accurately. In the _De eodem et diverso_ he calls the celestial bodies “those superior and divine animals,” and “the causes and principle of inferior natures.” One who masters the science of astronomy can comprehend not only the present state of inferior things but also the past and the future.[92] The existence of music, says Adelard in another passage, supplies philosophers with a strong argument for their belief that “the soul has descended into the body from the stars above.”[93] In the _De eodem et diverso_ Adelard also expresses the belief that from present phenomena the mind can look ahead far into the future, and that the soul can sometimes foresee the future in dreams.[94] [Sidenote: Attitude to the stars: _Questiones Naturales_.] In the _Natural Questions_[95] Adelard again alludes to the stars as “those superior animals,” and when asked whether they are animated replies that he deems anyone to be without sense who contends that the stars are senseless, and that to call those bodies lifeless which produce vitality in other bodies is ridiculous. He regards “the bodies of the stars” as composed of the same four elements as this world of inferior creation, but he believes that in their composition those elements predominate which conduce most to life and reason, and that the celestial bodies are more fiery than terrestrial bodies. “But their fire is not harsh, but gentle and harmless. It therefore follows that it is obedient to and in harmony with sense and reason.” Their form, too, being “full and round,” is especially adapted to reason. Finally, if reason and foresight exist even in our dark and perturbed lower world, how much more must the stars employ intelligence in their determined and constant courses? When the nephew proceeds to inquire what food the stars eat, since they are animals, Adelard shows no surprise, but answers that as diviner creatures they use a purer sustenance than we, namely, the humidities of earth and water which, extenuated and refined by their long upward transit, neither augment the stars in weight nor dull their reason and prudence. But when the nephew asks whether the _aplanon_ or outermost and immovable sphere of heaven should be called God or not, Adelard answers that to assert this is in one sense philosophical but in another, insane and abominable, and he then avoids further discussion by terminating the treatise. [Sidenote: Astrology in an anonymous work, perhaps by Athelardus.]