Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos Author:Ptolemy Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: OF all sciences, whether true or false, which have at any time engaged the attention of the world, there is not one of which the real or assumed principles are l... more »ess generally known, in the present age, than those of Astrology. The whole doctrine of this science is commonly understood to have been completely overturned ; and, of late, people seem to have satisfied themselves with merely knowing the import of its name. Such contented ignorance, in persons, too, sufficiently informed in other respects, is the more extraordinary, since Astrology has sustained a most conspicuous part throughout the history of the world, even until days comparatively recent. In the East, where it first arose, at a period of very remote antiquity, and whence it came to subjugate the intellect of Europe, it still even now holds sway. In Sir Isaac Newton has the following remarks in regard to the origin of Astrology :—" After the study of Astronomy was set on " foot for the use of navigation, and the .-Egyptians, by the heliacal " risings and settings of the stars, had determined the length of the " solar year of 365 days, and by other observations had fixed the " solstices, and formed the fixed stars into asterisms, all which was " done in the reigns of Ammon, Sesac, Orus, and Memnon," (about 1000 years before Christ,) "it may be presumed that they continued " to observe the motions of the planets, for they called them after the " names of their gods ; and Nechepsos, or Nicepsos, King of Sais," [772 B.C.] "by the assistance of Petosiris, a priest of .¿Egypt, in- chapter{Section 4Europe, and in every part of the world where learning had "impress'd the human soul," Astrology reigned supreme until the middle of the 17th century. It entered " vented astrology, grounding it upon the aspecto of the pl...« less