But I cou’d not at the same Time carry these Things to the heighth that others did, knowing too, that natural Causes are assign’d by the Astronomers for such Things; and that their Motions, and even their Revolutions are calculated, or pretended to be calculated; so that they cannot be so perfectly call’d the Fore-runners, or Foretellers, much less the procurers of such Events, as Pestilence, War, Fire, and the like.
Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year
STEVEN WEXLER 