14. Now let us grapple with the question whether it is a fact that the stars are not in the least productive of human affairs, but only indicate them. It is quite plain that if the stars in a given position are thought to produce certain events in a human life----let us make that the precise point of the present inquiry----their position to-day, for instance, which concerns that one man, could not be understood to have produced the past of some other person or persons; for whatever produces precedes the thing produced. But, according to the teaching of the professors of the art, things that happened before this grouping of the stars are generally thought to be declared. For they profess, once they have ascertained somehow or other the particular hour of any given man, to be able to find the elevation of each planet, or in what minutest part of the sign it appeared, and what sort of a star of the Zodiac happened to be on the eastern horizon, and what on the west, and which star was on the meridian, and which on the opposite meridian. And when they have placed the stars, whose position they think they have determined for themselves, and which are thus grouped according to the season of the nativity of the person, from the time of the birth of him concerning whom they are inquiring, they investigate not only the future, but also the past, and things before the birth and begetting of the person we are speaking of; what manner of man his father was, rich or poor, sound in body or maimed, of good or bad character, with much wealth or little, of this or that condition; and, similarly, respecting the man's mother, and his elder brethren, if there happen to be any.