immanent in which they were supposed to exist, and through
which they were held to manifest their powers. And astrology,
it must be remembered, is essentially a systematised animism.
The stars, to the ancients, were not material bodies like the earth,
but spiritual beings. PLATO (427-347 B.C.) speaks of them as
"gods". Mediaeval thought did not regard them in quite this way.
But for those who believed in astrology, and few, I think, did not,
the stars were still symbols of spiritual forces operative on man.
Evidences of the wide extent of astrological belief in those days
are abundant, many instances of which we shall doubtless encounter
in our excursions.

It has been said that the theological and philosophical atmosphere of
the Middle Ages was "scholastic," not mystical. No doubt "mysticism,"
as a mode of life aiming at the realisation of the presence of God,
is as distinct from scholasticism as empiricism is from rationalism,
or "tough-minded" philosophy (to use JAMES' happy phrase) is from
"tender-minded". But no philosophy can be absolutely and purely
deductive. It must start from certain empirically determined facts.
A man might be an extreme empiricist in religion (_i.e_. a mystic),
and yet might attempt to deduce all other forms of knowledge from the
results of his religious experiences, never caring to gather experience
in any other realm. Hence the breach between mysticism and
scholasticism is not really so wide as may appear at first sight. Indeed,
scholasticism officially recognised three branches of theology, of which
the MYSTICAL was one. I think that mysticism and scholasticism both
had a profound influence on the mediaeval mind, sometimes acting as
opposing forces, sometimes operating harmoniously with one another. As
Professor WINDELBAND puts it: "We no longer onesidedly characterise
the philosophy of the middle ages as scholasticism, but rather place