Peter Hopkins had believed in astrology when he studied it in early life with his friend Grey; his faith in it had been overthrown by observation and reflection, and the unperceived influence of the opinions of the learned and scientific public; but there was more latent doubt in his incredulity than had ever lurked at the root of his belief. He was not less skilled in the kindred, though more trivial art of Chiromancy, Palmistry, or Manual Divination, for the divine origin of which a verse in the Book of Job was adduced as scriptural proof; “He sealeth up the hand of every man, that all men may know his work.” The text appears more chiromantical in the Vulgate. _Qui in manu omnium hominum signa posuit._ Who has placed signs in the hand of all men. The uses of the science were represented to be such, as to justify this opinion of its origination: “For hereby,” says Fabian Withers, “thou shalt perceive and see the secret works of Nature, how aptly and necessarily she hath compounded and knit each member with other, giving unto the hand, as unto a table, certain signs and tokens whereby to discern and know the inward motions and affections of the mind and heart, with the inward state of the whole body; as also our inclination and aptness to all our external actions and doings. For what more profitable thing may be supposed or thought, than when a man in himself may foresee and know his proper and fatal accidents, and thereby to embrace and follow that which is good, and to avoid and eschew the evils which are imminent unto him, for the better understanding and knowledge thereof?” But cautioning his readers against the error of those who perverted their belief in palmistry and astrology, and used it as a refuge or sanctuary for all their evil deeds, “we ought,” said he, “to know and understand that the Stars do not provoke or force us to anything, but only make us apt and prone; and being so disposed, allure as it were, and draw us forward to our natural inclination. In the which if we follow the rule of Reason, taking it to be our only guide and governor, they lose all the force, power and effect which they by any means may have in and upon us: contrariwise, if we give ourselves over to follow our own sensuality and natural dispositions, they work even the same effect on us—that they do in brute beasts.”