Others have ascribed the invention
of this deception to the Arabs;--be this as it may, Judicial
Astrology[67] has been too much used by the priests and physicians of all
nations to encrease their own power and emolument. They maintain that
the heavens are one great book, in which God has written the history of
the world; and in which every man may read his own fortune and the
transactions of his time. In this department of astrology (judicial) we
meet with all the idle conceits about the horary reign of planets, the
_doctrine of horoscopes, the distribution of the houses, the calculation
of nativities, fortunes, lucky and unlucky_ hours, and other ominous
fatalities. They assert that it had its rise from the same hands as
astronomy itself;--that while the ancient Assyrians, whose serene
unclouded sky favoured their celestial, observations, were intent on
tracing the paths and periods of the heavenly bodies, they discovered a
constant settled relation or analogy between them and things below;
hence they were led to conclude these to be the fates or destinies
(Parcae) so much talked of, which preside at our birth, and dispose of
our future state.
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