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FRAGMENTS OF A PRISONER'S DIARY
horizon of India is cleared of this sinister cloud, the health-giving ray of the sun of knowlcdge will not shine. The breath of criticisin must blow hard till it becomes a veritable tempest dissipating the cloud of vencrable superstitions from every part of the mental horizon of julia.
Astrology is a crcation of hurrian egoism, which places man in the centre of the entire cosmic scheme. This egoism reccived its cleats-blow when Copernicus founded hcliocentric astronomy. The deposition of the carth from the centre of the Universo logically gave a rude shock to human vanity. It could no longer bc maintainca " scientifically” that heavenly bodies were crrated by God to act as the guardian angels of mankind. Since the carth is not the centre of the Universe. the race of biped animals inhabiting its surface could not be regarded as playing the leading role in the cosmic drama.
Hindu astrology, bclicved in this country even to-dav, is yet more antiquated, and never could lay clair: io any scientific validity. It is a pure superstition. It is a relic of animism-the religion of the savage. The pseudo-scientific Western astrology pretends to be free of any belief in the super-natural. It inaintains that the stars exert physico-chemical influence upon the human beings inhabiting the earth. This notion is silly enough; but the doctrine of Hindu astrology is simply amusing
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