but as affected by them in his constitution bodily and mental, and dependent on them for weal or woe, for good or evil fortune; as subjected, that is, according to astrological belief to The Stars, who, by I know not what strange right, Preside o'er mortals in their own despite, Who without reason, govern those who most, (How truly, judge from thence!) of reason boast; And by some mighty magic, yet unknown, Our actions guide, yet cannot guide their own.[2] Apart from what one of our Platonic divines calls “the power of astral necessity, and uncontrollable impressions arising from the subordination and mental sympathy and dependence of all mundane causes,” which is the Platonist's and Stoic's “proper notion of fate;”[3] apart, I say, from this, and from the Calvinist's doctrine of predestination, is it a humiliating, or an elevating consideration, that the same celestial movements which cause the flux and reflux of the ocean, should be felt in the pulse of a patient suffering with a fever: and that the eternal laws which regulate the stars in their courses, should decide the lot of an individual? [Footnote 1: WORDSWORTH.] [Footnote 2: CHURCHILL.] [Footnote 3: JOHN SMITH.] Here again a distinction must be made,—between the physical theory and the pseudo-science. The former is but a question of more or less; for that men are affected by atmospherical influence is proved by every endemic disease; and invalids feel in themselves a change of weather as decidedly as they perceive its effect upon the weather-glass, the hygrometer, or the strings of a musical instrument. The sense of our weakness in this respect,—of our dependence upon causes over which we have no controul, and which in their operation and nature are inexplicable by us, must have a humbling and therefore a beneficial tendency in every mind disposed to goodness. It is in the order of Providence that we should learn from sickness and adversity lessons which health and prosperity never teach.