by his voice, and by the beating of his hand or foot attuned to the music, gives token that he perceives and approves the harmony: just so does sublunary nature, with the notable and evident emotion of the bowels of the earth, bear like witness to the same feelings, especially at those times when the rays of the planets form harmonious configurations on the earth," and again "The earth is not an animal like a dog, ready at every nod; but more like a bull or an elephant, slow to become angry, and so much the more furious when incensed." He seems to have believed the earth to be actually a living animal, as witness the following: "If anyone who has climbed the peaks of the highest mountains, throw a stone down their very deep clefts, a sound is heard from them; or if he throw it into one of the mountain lakes, which beyond doubt are bottomless, a storm will immediately arise, just as when you thrust a straw into the ear or nose of a ticklish animal, it shakes its head, or runs shudderingly away. What so like breathing, especially of those fish who draw water into their mouths and spout it out again through their gills, as that wonderful tide! For although it is so regulated according to the course of the moon, that, in the preface to my 'Commentaries on Mars,' I have mentioned it as probable that the waters are attracted by the moon, as iron by the loadstone, yet if anyone uphold that the earth regulates its breathing according to the motion of the sun and moon, as animals have daily and nightly alternations of sleep and waking, I shall not think his philosophy unworthy of being listened to; especially if any flexible parts should be discovered in the depths of the earth, to supply the functions of lungs or gills."
In the same book Kepler enlarges again on his views in reference to the basis of astrology as concerned with nativities and the importance of planetary conjunctions. He gives particulars of his own nativity. "Jupiter
