"Now, William," said Mr. Peyton, "I cannot flatter myself that I shall convince you of any errors, which, in my opinion, you have been guilty of in this respect. That is no reason, however, why I should not attempt to make you entertain a disbelief of all foolish impossibilities. For example, there is the fallacious science of astrology--it has been the game of a few designers in all ages, for sordid interest, to have duped others and been duped themselves. In ancient times they were, in Alexandria, compelled to pay a certain tax, which was called the 'Fool's Tax,' because it was raised on the gain that these impostors made from the foolish credulity of those who believed in their powers of soothsaying. Well may believers in this science be called 'fools,' when they do not seem to consider that if the principles of judiciary astrology were correct, and its rules certain, the hands of the Almighty would be tied, and ours would be tied also. All our actions, all our most secret thoughts, all our slightest movements: would be engraven in the heavens in ineffaceable characters, and liberty of conduct would be entirely taken away from us. We should be necessitated to evil as to good, since we should do absolutely what was written in the conjectured register of the stars, otherwise there would be falsehood in the book, and uncertainty in the science of the astrologer. How we should laugh at a man who thought of settling a serious matter of business by a throw of the dice. Yet the decision of astrology is just as uncertain. Our fate depends upon places, persons, times, circumstances, our own will; not upon the fantastical conjunctions inspired by charlatans. "Suppose two men are born on our planet, at the same hour and on the same spot. One becomes a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, and the other an emperor, or a commander-in-chief of an army. Ask an astrologer the cause of the difference. In all probability he will reply, 'It was so willed by Jupiter.'