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THE MEMOIRS OF A CAT
largest average span of human life. It is thus obvious that practically for all the stars it is physically impossible to exert any influence upon individual lives on the carth. The idea that a person is born under the influence of this or ihat star appears to be mcaningless which it is known that any such influence is a physical impossibility. The light cmitted froin the nearest star, to influence a particular person at birth, can reach the carth 4.3 light-years after the person is born). In case of practically all the astral bodies, a ray of light, beginning its journey through the interstellar spacc at the moment of the birth of a terrestrial human being, reaches the carth long after the death of the said individual !
If it is maintained that the influence is exercised not by the stars, but by the planets of the sun, then, astrology is a misnomer. Besides, such an argument would not improve the situation. It may overcome the difficulty of distance, but raises another difficulty of a different sort which is equally insuperable. Even among the plancts, the means of communication is light; but they are not luminous bodies, that is to say, they do not emit light. So, they have no means of exerting any influencc at a distance.
Now, Ict us measure man's insignificance in the cosmic scheme from still another angic of vision. Copernicus dethroned the earth from the centre of thc Universe. Later on, Darwin de
