It is evident that the revolution of the stars exercises an influence
first by disposing them in different arrangement; then the things
contained within its spheres; then terrestrial beings, not only
in body, but in soul; further, each part of the heavens exercises
influence on terrestrial and inferior things. We shall indeed inquire
whether the lower things in turn exercise some influence on the
superior ones. For the present, however, granting that the facts
admitted by all, or at least a majority, are what they seem to be,
we shall have to try to explain how they are produced, by following
them up to their origins. We must indeed not say that all things are
caused exclusively by heat or cold, with possibly the other qualities
named the "primary qualities of the elements," or with those that
derive from their mixture[157]; neither should we assert that the sun
produces everything by the heat, or some other star (like Saturn), by
cold. For indeed what would cold amount to in the heavens, which are a
fiery body, or in fire, which has no humidity? Moreover, in this manner
it would be impossible to recognize the difference of the stars. Then
there are many facts that could not be traced to their influence. If
the influence of the stars is to be made to account for the differences
of human character, which are supposed to correspond to mixtures of
corporeal elements, producing a temperament in which there is an excess
of cold or heat, to which such causes would one trace hate, envy, and
malice? Granting even that this were possible, how would one then by
the same causes explain good and bad fortune, poverty and wealth,
nobility of fathers and children, and the discovery of treasures? A
thousand facts equally as foreign to the influence exercised by the
physical qualities of the elements on the bodies or souls of animals,
could be cited.