Abelard next comes to the problem of the influence of the stars upon this earth and man. He grants that the stars control heat and cold, drought and moisture; he accepts the astrological division of the heavens into houses, in certain ones of which each planet exerts its maximum of force; and he believes that men skilled in knowledge of the stars can by astronomy predict much concerning the future of things having natural causes. Astronomical observations to his mind are very valuable not only in agriculture but in medicine, and he mentions that Moses himself is believed to have been very skilful in this science of the Egyptians. It is only to the attempt to predict _contingentia_ as distinguished from _naturalia_ that he objects. By _contingentia_ he seems to mean events in which chance and divine providence or human choice and free will are involved. He gives as a proof that astrologers cannot predict such events the fact that, while they will foretell to you what other persons will do, they refuse to tell you openly which of two courses you yourself will pursue for fear that you may prove them wrong by wilfully doing the contrary to what they predict. Or, if an astrologer is able to predict such “contingent events,” it must be because the devil has assisted him, and hence Abelard declares that he who promises anyone certitude concerning “contingent happenings” by means of “astronomy” is to be considered not so much _astronomicus_ as _diabolicus_. This is the nearest approach that I have been able to find in Abelard’s writings to McCabe’s assertion that he once called mathematics diabolical. But possibly I have overlooked some other passage where Abelard calls _mathematica_, in the sense of divination, diabolical.[5] In any case Abelard rejects astrology only in part and accepts it with certain qualifications. His attitude is about the average one of his own time and of ages preceding and following. [Sidenote: The Magi and the star.]