It is unnecessary, however, to expose the frailties of this airy structure. We are considering it only as a cir cumstance worthy of notice in the history of the aberra tions of the human mind.
That astrology has arisen from different sources, ap pears highly probable also, from the marked diversity of opinions which have prevailed with respect to its founda tions among those who have given it the greatest credit.
Some have regarded the stars merely as signs of the events which are to follow : The heavens, they have said, are a divine volume, in whose lucid characters the skilful may read the various occurrences of human life. There all the chances and changes of temporal things are represented by a kind of prospective hieroglyphics. The actions of men, and the fate of nations, are all written by anticipation in the prophetic archives of the firmament. This is the theme which occupies the cu rious inquirer into the language of the heavens, whose object it is to detect such mystical relations as elude the notice of earth-born men : The more general opinion, however, has been, that the positions of the stars are not only the signs, but the causes of the changes which succeed them. The sun and moon, which rule the day and the night, are sup posed to rouse or still the raging of the seas, and to ex cite or assuage the fury of the people. In the same manner, every other change which occurs on the sur face of the globe, is ascribed to solar, or lunar, or plane tary influence; and every shade of character is account ed for, by recurring to the martial, venereal, mercurial, jovial, or saturnine influences which predominated at the natal hour, and which continued to operate till the latest moment of life.
Those who believed that the stars are animated, might entertain another idea, much more poetical than philo sophic. Between the most remote parts of the universe sympathies are established. All the divisions of nature harmonise, and reciprocally actuate each other. The stars may affect the earth, but the earth also affects the stars ; and it is possible to acquire such a knowledge of their mutual actions, as not only to predict the changes which the former may produce in the latter, but, to a certain extent, to regulate the operations of the cause, and modify the degree 01 the effect.
We forbear, however, to enter more particularly into the investigation of the sources to which astrology, may be traced. It is abundantly obvious, that it was at first very intimately allied with superstitious notions and ido latrous observances. It is equally certain, that all classes of men were long so deeply infected with it, that a know ledge of this art was supposed to be indispensable to men of every profession. It was the highest branch of divination ; and there was no enterprise which could be safely undertaken without consulting its rules. We do not wonder so much at the anxiety with which the stars were considered when a city was to be founded, or a military expedition commenced ; but that the func tions of the legislator, the judge, and the physician, could not be exercised to any good purposes, by a man who was not a proficient in the knowledge of celestial influences, appears to us a very extraordinary position. Hippocrates tells us, in his treatise 9rev C4ClJY, 6(3‘407COV, 707rtdv, that the art which lie calls astronomy, is the most important branch of a medical education, COux etifATSallArral 115 inTp:nv, elida In the same book lie says, that in the prognosis of dis eases it is absolutely necessary to consider the constel lotions, particularly the Dog, the Pleiades, and Arctu rus. Many observations to the same purpose are in terspersed through his works ; and an entire book is ascribed to him, de signfficatione vita' et mortis secundum 71l0t21712 Lux et aspectus planetarum. We do not believe that this idea was first started by Hippocrates, but his writings were the means of perpetuating it ; and it is not easy to calculate the effect which it produced on medical practice for many ages. To this hour, the doctrine of lunar influences, and of sol-lunar influences on fevers and other distempers, is not entirely exploded ; but there was a time when these influences were sup posed to be the chief causes of particular diseases, to which they gave a name.