ASTROLOGY, (from coo-reow, a star, and ).oye5, reason, information,) properly signifies, the knowledge relating to the heavenly bodies. For many ages it was consider ed as synonymous with astronomy. Both terms were-ap plied indiscriminately to denote the history of phenome na, the investigation of causes, and the prognosis of events connected with the appearances of the heavens. Tile first part of the ancient astrology, or astronomy, related to the motions, distances, and magnitude of the stars, and was called p.erfolexevice, the term p.ETEATCL in cluding all the stars, as web as those sublunary lumi nous bodies to which Aristotle appropriated the name. The second part related to the effects ascribed to these bodies, and was named woorrocv, which was subdivided into two branches, TO wivaxmov, describing the qualities and mutual relations of the signs, and TO predicting the eacts produced by the stars, either uni versal, extending to commonwealths and empires, or particular, affecting private individuals and families.
In process of time, however, the word astrology was restricted to that branch of the science which professed to discover certain connections subsisting between the motions and relative positions of the celestial bodies, and the affairs of this terraqucous globe. It was sup posed, that the rising and setting, the conjunctions and oppositions of planets, exerted a powerful influence over the fates of men, and the conduct of political bodies ; and from this idea the study of the heavens was pur sued chiefly for the purpose of divination.
Two kinds of astrology have been distinguished ; na tural and judicial. The former professes to foretell changes of the weather, as cold, heat, rain, wind, 8cc. The latter undertakes to predict the characters and for tunes of individuals, and public bodies.
With regard to the origin of this chimerical science, a considerable variety of opinion has been entertained. There are some who think, that astrology must have been at first the production of a barbarous age. Others are equally confident, that it has originated from the corruption of sounder knowledge, and that the date of its birth is greatly posterior to that of astronomy. Plu
tarch derives it from the doctrine of Zoroaster and the Magi, concerning a good and evil principle ; othe s say it has arisen from a blind polytheism, or from a belief in the doctrine of fate.
We are not satisfied by the arguments of those who insist that it could have only one origin. It is possible that in different countries it may have arisen from very different sources. In one, it may have been the first im pulse of the mind to believe that the stars possess an influence over the destinies of men ; and this notion would naturally act as a motive to observe the face of the sky with minute and incessant attention. In others, the idea may have been fortuitously suggested by the coin cidence of some remarkable fact, with particular astro nomical observations. For example, a battle, an earth quake, or the death of a monareh,licurring near the time of the conjunction or opposition of certain planets, might originally give the hint. In other cases, the opi nion might be the offspring of one of the prevailing ar ticles of belief in times of heathen superstition. When a lawgiver or a hero expired, his soul, according to the popular creed, ascended to one of the bright luminaries of the sky ; and by a very easy process of the mind, the attrihutes which distinguished him in his mortal state, were transferred to the residence of his deified spirit. The man whose fortune it was to be born during certain favourable positions of such a star, might therefore hope to be under the patronage of the hero or the sage, whose smile welcomed him to this lower world. For this reason, says Lucian, Ascalaphus was said to be the son of Mars, as having been born under the benignant aspect of that deity, and therefore he was destined to become a warrior. Thus also Minos was called a son of Jupiter, because, under the influences of that planet, he was born to a throne.