Note 199 — Chapter VI · Critics of Magic
Reading edition
Favorinus declares that the astrologers may congratulate themselves that he does not propose such a question to them as that of astral influence on minute animals; Cicero says that if all animals are to be subjected to the stars, then inanimate things must be too, than which nothing could be more absurd.
“Illud autem condonare se iis dicebat, quod non id quoque requireret, si vitae mortisque hominum rerumque humanarum omnium tempus et ratio et causa in coelo et apud stellas foret, quid de muscis aut vermiculis aut echinis, multisque aliis minutissimis terra marique animantibus, dicerent? An ista quoque isdem, quibus homines, legibus nascerentur, isdemque itidem exstinguerentur.” Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, bk. xiv, ch. 1, sect. 12.
“Et si ad rem pertinet, quo modo coelo affecto compositisque sideribus quodque animal oriatur; valeat id necesse est etiam in rebus inanimis. Quo quid dici potest absurdius?” De Divin., bk. ii, ch. 47.
Favorinus, however, does hint in one place that the sole evidence that we possess of any influence of the stars upon us is a few such causal connections as that between the phases of the moon and the tides of the ocean.