This leads us to consider, more in detail, what sort of facts may be
predicted according to the inspection of the positions occupied by the
stars presiding over the birth of a man. They who, from the assertion
that the stars indicate a man's future, draw the consequence that the
stars produce them, are in error. In some person's horoscope which
indicates birth from noble parents, on either maternal or paternal
side, this nobility of birth cannot be attributed to the stars, as
this nobility subsisted already in the parents before the stars had
taken the position according to which the horoscope is cast. Besides,
astrologers pretend they can discover the parent's fortune from the
birth of their children, and from the condition of the parents the
disposition and fate of the unborn offspring. From a child's horoscope,
they announce his brother's death; and from a woman's horoscope, the
fortunes of her husband, and conversely. It is unreasonable to refer to
the stars things which evidently are necessary consequences of parental
conditions. We then reach a dilemma: the cause lies either in these
antecedent conditions, or in the stars. The beauty and ugliness of
children, when they resemble their parents, must evidently be derived
from them, and not from the course of the stars. Moreover, it is
probable that at any one moment are born a crowd of human and animal
young; now, inasmuch as they are born under the same star, they all
ought to have the same nature. How does it then happen that, in the
same positions, stars produce men and other beings simultaneously (as
Cicero asks[105])?