Chapter XIX.

How Stars Prognosticate, and what is the Cause of Winter and Summer.

Plato says that the summer and winter indications proceed from the rising and setting of the stars, that is, from the rising and setting of the sun, the moon, and the fixed stars. Anaximenes, that the rest in this are not at all concerned, but that it is wholly performed by the sun. Eudoxus and Aratus assign it in common to all the stars, for thus Aratus says:-

Thund'ring Jove stars in heaven hath fixed, And them in such beauteous order mixed, Which yearly future things predict.