From these two examples it would seem that this art of fortune-telling, if there be any truth in it, causes one to fall into the very evil one would be in dread of when one consulted it. But I will demonstrate and maintain that the art is false. I do not believe that Nature would have tied her own hands, and ours also, to the extent of marking our fate in the heavens. For our fate depends upon certain combinations of time, place, and people; not upon the combinations of charlatans. A shepherd and a king are born under the same planet: one carries the sceptre; the other the crook. The planet Jupiter willed it so! But what is this planet Jupiter? A body without senses. Whence comes it then that its influence works so differently on these two men? Further, how could its influence, if it had any, penetrate through endless voids to our world? * * * * * Do not attach too much importance to the two instances I have related. This beloved son and the good man AEschylus are beside the mark. Nevertheless, however blind and lying is the fortuneteller's art, it may yet hit home once in a thousand times. That is just a matter of chance. [Illustration] XXI JUPITER AND THE THUNDERBOLTS (BOOK VIII--No. 20) One day, as Jupiter seated on high looked down upon the world, he was incensed at the faults committed by mankind. "Let us," he said, "have some other occupants in the regions of the universe in place of these present inhabitants who importune and weary me. Go you to Hades, Mercury, and bring hither the cruellest of the furies. This time, O race that I have too tenderly nurtured, you shall perish." After this outburst the temper of the god began to cool. O ye sovereigns of this world, to whom it has been given to be the arbiters of our destinies, let a night intervene between your wrath and the storm which follow! Mercury, light of wing and sweet of tongue, descended to the abode of the dread sisters Tisiphone, Megaera, and Alecto, and his choice fell upon the latter, the pitiless one. She, feeling proud of the preference, grew so arrogant as to swear by Pluto that the whole of the human brood should soon people his domains. But Jupiter did not approve of the vow this member of the Eumenides had sworn, and he sent her back to Hades. At the same time he launched a thunderbolt upon one particularly perfidious race of men. This, however, being hurled by a father's arm, mercifully fell in a desert, causing less ruin than alarm. What followed from this was simply that the wicked brood took heart at such indulgence and did not trouble to mend their ways. Then all the gods in Olympus complained, until he who controls the clouds swore by the Styx that further storms should be sent and that they should not fail as the other had.