 Finally, there is Sanches’ tacit criticism of a theory based on nothing more than a syllogistic argument that fails to prove any connection between comets and human actions, not to mention, any connection between the appearance of a comet as a cause, and its putative effects on human actions, death, harvests, and diseases. For how many years could go by before a comet was witnessed, asked Sanches, and still harvests failed, earthquakes rattled the earth, and kings died? Not to mention the fact that comets were often witnessed by certain peoples around the globe and not by others. Did that mean that if the comet were only seen by the peoples of India, it would only have an effect on that particular population, and not on the peoples of the south of France? If comets only predicted certain things, one was left to ask: why these and not others? And what is more, why could they not equally be the cause of good things? “There is no reason for it”, says Sanches (CC: 186: 563). And as such, at the very core of Sanches’ poem, lies the kernel of his scepticism. After all, the Poem of the Comet of 1577 and That Nothing is Known were written at nearly the same time. In this respect, Sanches’ Poem is an attack on Ptolemaic astrology, which anticipated Pierre Gassendi’s (1592–1655) criticisms of astrology’s vis-à-vis its threat to the notion of free will (Sarasohn 1996: 99). Interestingly, Sanches and Gassendi shared what Popkin calls a “constructivist scepticism” (1964: 17); which in both cases resulted from their anti-Aristotelianism and scientific empiricism (Popkin 1964: 86–87). As such, then, from this perspective, Carmen de Cometa/Poem of the Comet ought to be considered one of Sanches’ philosophical works, and one which sheds light upon his more popular Quod nihil scitur/That Nothing is Known.