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| Concerning the Arguments Which Nigidius the Mathematician Drew from the Potter’s Wheel, in the Question About the Birth of Twins.
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Chapter 3.—Concerning the
Arguments Which Nigidius the Mathematician Drew from the Potter’s
Wheel, in the Question About the Birth of Twins.
It is to no purpose, therefore,
that that famous fiction about the potter’s wheel is brought
forward, which tells of the answer which Nigidius is said to have
given when he was perplexed with this question, and on account of
which he was called Figulus.191
For, having whirled round the
potter’s wheel with all his strength he marked it with ink,
striking it twice with the utmost rapidity, so that the strokes
seemed to fall on the very same part of it. Then, when the
rotation had ceased, the marks which he had made were found upon
the rim of the wheel at no small distance apart. Thus, said he,
considering the great rapidity with which the celestial sphere
revolves, even though twins were born with as short an interval
between their births as there was between the strokes which I gave
this wheel, that brief interval of time is equivalent to a very
great distance in the celestial sphere. Hence, said he, come
whatever dissimilitudes may be remarked in the habits and fortunes
of twins. This argument is more fragile than the vessels which
are fashioned by the rotation of that wheel. For if there is so
much significance in the heavens which cannot be comprehended by
observation of the constellations, that, in the case of twins, an
inheritance may fall to the one and not to the other, why, in the
case of others who are not twins, do they dare, having examined
their constellations, to declare such things as pertain to that
secret which no one can comprehend, and to attribute them to the
precise moment of the birth of each individual? Now, if such
predictions in connection with the natal hours of others who are
not twins are to be vindicated on the ground that they are founded
on the observation of more extended spaces in the heavens, whilst
those very small moments of time which separated the births of
twins, and correspond to minute portions of celestial space, are to
be connected with trifling things about which the mathematicians
are not wont to be consulted,—for who would consult them as to
when he is to sit, when to walk abroad, when and on what he is to
dine? —how can we be justified in so speaking, when we can point
out such manifold diversity both in the habits, doings, and
destinies of twins?E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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