Synesius explained that plants and stones are related by bonds of occult sympathy to the gods who are within the universe and who form a part of it, that plants and stones have magic power over these gods, and that one may by means of such material substances attract those deities.[228] He evidently believed that it was quite legitimate to control the processes of nature by invoking demons. His devotion to divination has been already implied. He regarded it as among the noblest of human pursuits.[229] Dreams he viewed as significant and very useful events. They aided him, he wrote, in his every-day life, and had upon one occasion saved him from magic devices against his life.[230] Of course, he had faith in astrology. The stars were well-nigh ever present in his thought. In his _Praise of Baldness_ he characterized comets as fatal omens, as harbingers of the worst public disasters.[231] In _On Providence_ he explained the supposed fact that history repeats itself by the periodical return to their former positions of the stars which govern our life.[232] In _On the Gift of an Astrolabe_ he declared that “astronomy” besides being itself a noble science, prepared men for the diviner mysteries of theology.[233] Finally, he held the view common among students of magic that knowledge should be esoteric; that its mysteries and marvels should be confined to the few fitted to receive them and that they should be expressed in language incomprehensible to the vulgar crowd.[234] Macrobius, who wrote at the beginning of the fifth century and displayed considerable interest in physical questions for a person of those days, reinforces the evidence of Ammianus and of Synesius, although he held no very extreme views. Unless, however, we except his Philonian notion that all knowledge may be derived from a few past writings. For Macrobius affirmed that Virgil contains practically all man needs to know, and that Cicero’s brief story of the dream of Scipio was a work second to none and contained the entire substance of philosophy.[235] Macrobius also believed that numbers possess occult power. He dilated at considerable length upon each of those from one to eight, emphasizing their perfection and far-reaching significance. He held the good old Pythagorean and Platonic notions that the world-soul is constructed of number, that the harmony of celestial bodies is ruled by number, and that we derive the numerical values proper to musical consonance from the music of the spheres.[236] He was of the opinion that to the careful investigator dreams and other striking occurrences will reveal an occult meaning.[237] As for astrology, he believed that the stars are signs but not causes of future events, just as birds by their flight or song reveal matters of which they themselves are ignorant.[238] The sun and planets, though in a way divine, are but material bodies, and it is not from them but from the world-soul (pure mind), whence they too come,