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76
ASTROLOGY, DIVINATION, AND COINCIDENCES

of Gemini on the 22d of May, and on the 2d of July, 1881, Garfield was shot.

Another class of coincidences is striking. It is claimed by astrology that mental disease is likely to occur when Mars and Saturn—to which modern research has added Uranus—are at birth in conjunction, quadrature, or opposition with Mercury and the moon, but Mercury more particularly. The "Science of the Stars," from which we take some of these coincidences (quoted by it from another work), says: "It is by no means asserted that insanity always or even often occurs with such opposition; what is asserted is, that it rarely occurs without it." This proposition should be scrutinized, for it contains a serious if not fatal weakness.

There are nine great princes notoriously insane or deficient in intellect, upon whose birth Mercury or the moon, or both, will be found to have been afflicted by Mars, Saturn, or Uranus. These are: Paul of Russia, George III. of England, Gustavus IV. of Sweden, Ferdinand II. of Austria, Maria of Portugal, Charlotte, Empress of Mexico, Charles II. of Spain, Murad V. of Turkey, and Constantine of Russia. Six persons of genius, born under the same configuration—Gérard de Nerval; Alfred Rethel, the painter of "Der Tod als Freund"; Agnes Bury, the actress; Julien; Paul Morphy, the chess-player; and Pugin—became insane. Four distinguished men who lost their faculties in old age are also given—Swift, Southey, Moore, and Faraday. The histories of the Bourbon family, as derived from documents now in the British Museum, agree with the state of the heavens at the time of their births, according to the theories of astrology; their misfortunes, insanity, violent deaths, etc., are too well known to need recapitulation. Many coincidences between the aspect