Still more the authority of the Greeks and Romans, which had been
set up by the revival of learning, was, without their realising it,
heavy even upon thinkers like Bodin, who did not scruple freely to
criticise ancient authors. And so, in his thoughtful attempt to find
a clew to universal history, he was hampered by theological and
cosmic theories, the legacy of the past. It is significant of the
trend of his mind that when he is discussing the periodic decline of
science and letters, he suggests that it may be due to the direct
action of God, punishing those who misapplied useful sciences to the
destruction of men.

But his speculations were particularly compromised by his belief in
astrology, which, notwithstanding the efforts of humanists like
Petrarch, Aeneas Sylvius, and Pico to discredit it, retained its
hold over the minds of many eminent, otherwise emancipated, thinkers
throughout the period of the Renaissance. [Footnote: Bodin was also
a firm believer in sorcery. His La Demonomanie (1578) is a monument
of superstition.] Here Bodin is in the company of Machiavelli and
Lord Bacon. But not content with the doctrine of astral influence on
human events, he sought another key to historical changes in the
influence of numbers, reviving the ideas of Pythagoras and Plato,
but working them out in a way of his own. He enumerates the
durations of the lives of many famous men, to show that they can be
expressed by powers of 7 and 9, or the product of these numbers.
Other numbers which have special virtues are the powers of 12, the
perfect number [Footnote: I.e. a number equal to the sum of all its
factors.] 496, and various others. He gives many examples to prove
that these mystic numbers determine the durations of empires and
underlie historical chronology. For instance, the duration of the
oriental monarchies from Ninus to the Conquest of Persia by