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they have undergone a certain effect common to several of them,it may arise from the attraction of such a planet. If others,travelling to a greater distance, show a repetition of another anda different effect, they may indicate the power of another andstill more distant planet. Suitable calculations may point outthe position in which to search for such planets ; but any snchinvestigation must by its very nature be vastly less accurate thanone which follows the method of Adams and Le Verrier . It is,however, so ingenious that it well deserves some consideration.
We will now draw our remarks upon the planets to a conclu-sion by a brief reference to a hypothesis which we some timesince discussed more fully in another course of lectures de-livered at Gresham College . We refer to the suppositionthat important results may arise from the passages of theplanets, and especially of those of the larger planets, throughtheir Perihelia, or nearest positions to the Sun.
It is, of course, well known that the Conjunctions and theapparent near approaches of the planets to one another (whichonly involve their being seen very nearly in the same direction,although really many millions of miles apart), have always beenbelieved by astrologers to have a baneful or beneficent influence;a belief which is illustrated by the quotation from Shakespeare which forms a heading to this lecture. Aud any one mayassure himself that such opinions are still maintained, if hewill take the trouble to read “ Zadkiel’s Almanac,” or somemore elaborate astrological work. He will there find thatthese planetary positions are supposed to act in combinationwith the relation of certain planets and their houses in theheavens to individuals and countries ; nor need he be surprisedif a considerable proportion of the vague prophecies made inconnection with them sometimes come true, while probably amuch larger proportion, to the failure of which little atten-tion is subsequently paid, prove to be false.
We might quote many another poet in support of this belief,to which Byron refers in the well-known lines :—
Ye stars ! which are the poetry of heaven,
If in your bright leaves we would read the fateOf men and empires ! ”
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