"Astrology" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that he not only shared in the belief in astrology, which was then universal, but considered it one of the most important parts of "mathematics." It was looked upon with disfavour by the Church as a dangerous study; Bacon defended its use in the interests of the Church itself. He maintained, like Thomas Aquinas, the physiological influence ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... Medieval astrology was a chief factor in promoting the use of amulets. Magic lent its aid to such an extent that, in certain lands, a chief part of Medicine consisted in the selection of suitable amulets against disease, and ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... here of those who throw themselves upon fortune because they have been happy before, as if there were something permanent therein. Their argument from the past to the future has just as slight a foundation as the principles of astrology and of other kinds of divination. They overlook the fact that there is usually an ebb and flow in fortune, una marea, as Italians playing basset are wont to call it. With regard to this they make their own particular observations, which I would, nevertheless, counsel none ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... literature and the exact sciences thus find protection. As if no subjects with which the human mind has occupied itself can be unworthy of investigation, in the Museum were cultivated the more doubtful arts, magic and astrology. Philadelphus, who, toward the close of his life, was haunted with an intolerable dread of death, devoted himself with intense assiduity to the discovery of the elixir of life and to alchemy. Such a comprehensive organization ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... the young Robert learnt to know each favourite author in the dress as well as the language which carried with it the life of his period. The first edition of 'Robinson Crusoe'; the first edition of Milton's works, bought for him by his father; a treatise on astrology published twenty years after the introduction of printing; the original pamphlet 'Killing no Murder' (1559), which Carlyle borrowed for his 'Life of Cromwell'; an equally early copy of Bernard Mandeville's 'Bees'; very ancient Bibles—are some of the instances which occur to me. Among more ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... government to the rank and dignity of a science by making it appeal to the reason instead of the fear and superstition of the people. The governments of the past, basing their claims upon divine right, bear about the same relation to democracy that astrology and alchemy do to the modern sciences of astronomy and chemistry. The old political order everywhere represented itself as superimposed on man from above, and, thus clothed with a sort of divine sanction, ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... classical, early Christian and medieval writers figure in his pages, and he was acquainted with the notable chronicles and romances of Europe and had studied the best Italian and Spanish authors. In addition, he had mastered the geographical system of the ancients and their astrology. As an historian he is laborious, accurate and conscientious, though his position did not allow him to tell the whole truth ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... and all sorts of paints. The chief of the fallen angels, Shemhazai, instructed them in exorcisms and how to cut roots; Armaros taught them how to raise spells; Barakel, divination from the stars; Kawkabel, astrology; Ezekeel, augury from the clouds; Arakiel, the signs of the earth; Samsaweel, the signs of the sun; and Seriel, the signs ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... the way for the expected conquest of their land by the English. Her influence increased through the prestige created by her wealth and magnificence, as well as by her imperious character and dauntless bravery. She believed in magic, astrology, and, incredible as it may appear, in ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... the present day had its origin in the Astronomical Ephemerides called forth by the needs of predictions of celestial motions both on the part of the astronomer and the citizen. So long as astrology had a firm hold on the minds of men, the positions of the planets were looked to with great interest. The theories of Ptolemy, although founded on a radically false system, nevertheless sufficed to predict the position of the sun, moon, and planets, with all the accuracy necessary for the purposes ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... that there is no such thing in nature as a basilisk; that temperance and exercise are the two great preservatives of health; and that the art of reconciling intemperance and health is as chimerical as the philosopher's stone, judicial astrology, or ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... age were the nobles so little informed as to natural science, and never was judicial astrology held in greater honor; for at no period in history was there a greater general desire to know the future. This ignorance and this curiosity had led to the utmost confusion in human knowledge; all things were still mere personal experience; the nomenclatures of theory did not exist; ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... mixed with the juice of the sugar-cane. The contents of their books are little known to us. The writing of most of those in my possession is mixed with uncouth representations of scolopendra and other noxious animals, and frequent diagrams, which imply their being works of astrology and divination. These they are known to consult in all the transactions of life, and the event is predicted by the application of certain characters marked on a slip of bamboo, to the lines of the sacred book, with which a comparison is made. But this is not their only ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... though ignorant of its very name, despised and oppressed, and only tolerated when he furnished Religion with her trappings or War with arms. Thus the growth of chemistry was slow, and by reason of its backwardness it was longer than any other art in ridding itself of the leading-strings of magic and astrology. Practical discoveries must have been made many times without science acquiring thereby any new fact. For to prevent a new discovery from being lost there must be such a combination of favorable circumstances as was ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... agriculture was the sole employment of the ancients, they succeeded in persuading them that the rain and other blessings of the seasons were at their disposal. Thus the whole art of agriculture was exercised by rules of astrology, and the priests made talismans or charms which were to drive away locusts, flies, etc. See Maimonides, More Nebuchim, pars ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... that, as astrology led to the more useful knowledge of astronomy, this influence enabled us to comprehend our nervous system, on which so many conditions of health depend, and with which ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... astrology was, primarily and mainly, genethlialogical. It inquired under what aspect of the heavens persons were born, or conceived, and, from the position of the celestial bodies at one or other of these moments, it professed to deduce the whole life and fortunes of the individual. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... a few drops of the cup of astrology from the venerable Professor Vallier. Angelique's finger pointed to the star Algol—that strange, mutable star that changes from bright to dark with the hours, and which some believe changes men's hearts ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... the Middle Ages was the most advanced of any natural science, though the telescope and the Copernican theory [26] were as yet in the future. Astronomy, the wise mother, had a foolish daughter, astrology, the origin of which can be traced back to Babylonia. [27] Medieval students no longer regarded the stars as divine, but they believed that the natural world and the life of men were controlled by celestial ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... the leading forms of heresy which characterized the thirteenth century—naturalism with its tendency to magic, astrology, alchemy, etc., etc., and mysticism with its dreams of beatific visions, its self-torture and its lawlessness (see Goerres, 'Die Christliche Mystik')—were due largely to Averroes. In spite of this, his commentaries on Aristotle maintained ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... doctrines of judicial astrology were not only consistent with, but an aid to, the most spiritual and ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... that there would be little or no demand for the kind of knowledge classified in the West under the head of science. In so far as any demand existed, it did so, at any rate at first, only because it subserved vital needs. Thus, astronomy, or more properly astrology, was studied in order that the calendar might be regulated, and so the routine of agriculture correctly followed, for on that depended the people's daily rice, or rather, in the beginning, the various fruits and kinds of flesh which constituted their means of sustentation ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... and inquisitive as to futurity," said the King, "but I have seen so many false and improbable things, that I am satisfied there is no truth in that pretended art. Not many years since there came hither a man of great reputation in astrology; everybody went to see him; I went among others, but without saying who I was, and I carried with me the Duke of Guise and Descars, and made them go in first; nevertheless the astrologer addressed himself first to me, as if he had concluded me to be their master; perhaps ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... when too much belief is attributed to the arts themselves, or to certain authors in any art. The sciences themselves, which have had better intelligence and confederacy with the imagination of man than with his reason, are three in number: astrology, natural magic, and alchemy; of which sciences, nevertheless, the ends or pretences are noble. For astrology pretendeth to discover that correspondence or concatenation which is between the superior globe and the inferior; natural ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... and the sun-dial, caused its possessor to be suspected of unholy familiarity with the Evil One; perhaps also that astronomy, which was evidently the favourite study of Boethius, was perilously near to astrology, and that his zeal in its pursuit may have exposed him to some of the penalties which the Theodosian code itself, the law-book of Imperial ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... a law of degeneracy, of a "fatal drift towards the worse," is as obsolete as astrology or the belief in witchcraft. The human race has become hopeful, sanguine—SEELEY, Rede Lecture, 1887. Fortnightly Review, ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... conceived the heavenly bodies as the abiding-place of various of their deities, it does not appear that they practised astrology in the later acceptance of that word. This is the more remarkable since the conception of lucky and unlucky days was carried by the Egyptians to the extremes of absurdity. "One day was lucky or unlucky," says ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... impossible; for those who, like him, work for the general good cannot follow up their own advantage." But there was one subject upon which the two men loved to dispute. Melanchthon was a great admirer of astrology, but Luther looked upon this science with supreme contempt. On the other hand, Luther, through his method of interpreting the Scriptures—and alas! through secret political cares also—had arrived at the conviction that the end of the world was near. That again ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... that a man cannot have eminent skill in any one art, but they will, in spite of his teeth, make him a physician also, that being the science the worldlings have most need of. I pretended, when I first set up, to astrology only; but I am told, I have deep skill also in medicine. I am applied to now by a gentleman for my advice in behalf of his wife, who, upon the least matrimonial difficulty, is excessively troubled with fits, and can bear no ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... remarkable reputation, namely John Varley [54], the water colour painter and occultist, and the Rev. Robert Montgomery. [55] An artist of undoubted genius, Varley usually got fair prices for his pictures, but the expenses of a numerous family kept him miserably poor. Then he took to "judicial astrology," and eventually made it a kind of second profession. Curious to say, some of his predictions came true, and thanks to this freak of fate he obtained more fame from his horoscopes than from his canvasses. He "prognosticated," says Burton, "that I was ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... remote antiquity, in the twilight of natural astrology, a belief arose that changes in the weather were occasioned by the moon. [343] That the notion lives on, and will not soon die, is clear to any one who is conversant with current literature and common ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... through Greek literature of Stoic, Neo-Platonic, and Neo-Pythagorean ideas. But the Greek stream of thought as it now reappeared was fused with streams of thought from many other sources—medieval mysticism, Persian astrology, Arabian philosophy, and the Jewish Cabala, which, in turn, was a fusing of many elements—and the mixture was honestly believed to be genuine, revived Christianity, and Christ, as the new Adam, is throughout the central Figure ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... said to have written[319] a treatise upon Judicial Astrology, a work on Sacrifices, another on Oracles, a Life of Pythagoras, and an account of the answers which he received from Trophonius, besides the memoranda noticed in the opening of our memoir. A collection of Letters ascribed ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... an occult science forgotten in our day—that of astrology—supported Catherine at this moment, as it did, in fact, throughout her life; for, as she witnessed the minute fulfilment of the prophecies of those who practised the art, her ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... assembled by the king, composed the Sindhind. Further on[23] he states, upon the authority of the historian Mo[h.]ammed ibn 'Al[i] 'Abd[i], that by order of Al-Man[s.][u]r many works of science and astrology were translated into Arabic, notably the Sindhind (Siddh[a]nta). Concerning the meaning and spelling of this name there is considerable diversity of opinion. Colebrooke[24] first pointed out the connection between Siddh[a]nta and Sindhind. He ascribes to the ...
— The Hindu-Arabic Numerals • David Eugene Smith
... are no more; their knowledge is deposited in the dead archives of literature; and probably had there been no Gypsies, with them would have died the belief in chiromancy, as is the case with respect to astrology, necromancy, oneirocritica, and the ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... less than 365 days to determine their lives in every year, that the first day should mark the last, that the tail of the snake should return into its mouth precisely at that time, and that they should wind up upon the day of their nativity, is indeed a remarkable coin- cidence, which, though astrology hath taken witty pains to solve, yet hath it been very wary in making predictions of it," should himself die on the day ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... predictions of haruspices, who pretend to read in the entrails of victims the signs of future greatness and prosperity; and there are many who do not presume either to bathe or to dine, or to appear in public, till they have diligently consulted, according to the rules of astrology, the situation of Mercury and the aspect of the moon. It is singular enough that this vain credulity may often be discovered among the profane sceptics who impiously doubt or deny the ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... translations of Goethe. The preliminary remarks are very characteristic, written with that intense enthusiasm which still animates all his writings. The notes at the end are full of curious information regarding the witchcraft and astrology of the Middle Ages, gathered with assiduous labour from the stores of the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... stomach doth gnaw. He cannot well fly Nor sing tunably. . . . . The best that we can To make him our bellman, And let him ring the bells, He can do nothing else. Chanticlere our cock Must tell what is of the clock By the astrology That he hath naturally Conceived and caught, And was never taught. . . . . To Jupiter I call Of heaven imperial That Philip may fly Above the starry sky To greet the pretty wren That is our ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... energy, we should shame the brook. The stream of zeal sparkles with real fire, and not with reflex rays of sun and moon. Nature may be as selfishly studied as trade. Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology; psychology, mesmerism (with intent to show where our spoons are gone); and anatomy and physiology ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... received an immediate communication from Heaven. A Spanish friar and almanac-maker predicted, in clear and precise words, the death of Henry the Fourth of France; and Pieresc, though he had no faith in the vain science of astrology, yet, alarmed at whatever menaced the life of a beloved monarch, consulted with some of the king's friends, and had the Spanish almanac laid before his majesty. That high-spirited monarch thanked them for their solicitude, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... and then one by the daughter of a Brahman. This gave great offence to the sacred order, but the ungovernable fury of the Raja’s temper hushed all complaints. As a means of disturbing him, however, the skilful in astrology (Jyotish) published a prophecy, foretelling that the Raja would not long survive his beauteous favourite of the sacred order, who would soon be seized with a disease. As the latter circumstance happened, the Raja, who, like other Hindus, had no doubt in the science, was in the utmost ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... ought to be, some collection of the nomenclature and mythological history of the heavens, with a familiar treatise on astrology ancient and modern. The Chaldeans, Egyptians, Grecians, Arabs, Celts, and Norsemen, must have had names and stories, whose relation (both in itself and to one another) would make a very pretty volume either of poetry or prose. Perhaps some of your ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 63, January 11, 1851 • Various
... of the various celestial bodies, men naturally considered them as small; and, concluding that they were comparatively near, assigned to them in consequence a permanent connection with terrestrial affairs. Thus arose the quaint and erroneous beliefs of astrology, according to which the events which took place upon our earth were considered to depend upon the various positions in which the planets, for instance, found themselves from time ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... was again the answer of her companion, and the carriage still drove on to the well-known residence of the young Baron of Ballochgray—a man who, knowing the weakness of his King, James the Third of Scotland, in his love of astrology and divination, and their sister black arts, had, with much address, endeavoured to recommend himself to his sovereign, by a character pre-established in his own castle, for a successful cultivation of the occult sciences. He had long withdrawn himself from ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... dreams, Mr. Lincoln had a philosophy of his own, which, strange as it may appear, was in perfect harmony with his character in all other respects. He was no dabbler in divination—astrology, horoscopy, prophecy, ghostly lore, or witcheries ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... all concerns of daily life, lands, houses, cattle, storing wealth or hoarding grain. All these should be avoided as we avoid a fiery pit; sowing the land, cutting down shrubs, healing of wounds or the practice of medicine, star-gazing and astrology, forecasting lucky or unfortunate events by signs, prognosticating good or evil, all these are things forbidden. Keeping the body temperate, eat at proper times; receive no mission as a go-between; compound no philteries; abhor dissimulation; follow right doctrine, and be kind to all that ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... devoted himself with indefatigable zeal to the study of letters and the sciences. He gave his nights to mathematics and music, which he called the two adorable sisters, the harmonious daughters of Number and Imagination. He was versed in medicine and astrology. He was suspected of practising magic, and it seemed true that he wrought metamorphoses ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... for the Chinese have no definite number of letters nor alphabet.... He translated a number [of Chinese books]; for like those of Seneca, though they are the work of heathens, they contain many profound sayings like ours. He taught astrology to some of them whom he found capable of learning; and to bring them by all means to their salvation also taught them some trades that are necessary among Spaniards, but which, not being used by the Chinese, ...
— Doctrina Christiana • Anonymous
... Christian bishop Eusebius has handed down to us. From them we can gather some notion of the strange medley of fact and imagination which was composed to influence the Gentile world. Abraham is said to have instructed the Egyptians in astrology; Joseph devised a great system of agriculture; Moses was identified variously with the legendary Greek seer Musaeus and the god Hermes. A favorite device for rebutting the calumnies of detractors and attracting the outer world to Jewish ideas, was the attachment to some ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... for they were rising into power; nor were they local, but vagrant, restless, intrusive, and encroaching. Their pretensions to supernatural knowledge brought them into easy connection with magic and astrology, which are as attractive to the wealthy and luxurious as the more vulgar superstitions ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... walk out into the country; and here Alfonso confest to his friend that, since he had been at Rome, he had devoted himself to the science of astrology, divination, and other like things, which he had formerly held in abhorrence, having been of opinion that they could only be acquired by accursed means and by the help of evil spirits. "But since the day," he continued, "when I made acquaintance with the incomparable Castalio, ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... A Series of Essays contrasting our Little Abode in Space and Time with the Infinities around us. To which are added Essays on the Jewish Sabbath and Astrology. 12mo. ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... Provencal troubadours; the romances of chivalry; and finally the novels of this and the past century. For nearly four thousand years fiction has delighted and moulded mankind. It has survived, too, when all else has died. The Chaldean books of astrology are lost to the moderns; but the story of the Idumean has reached us unimpaired. The lawgivers of Judah are no more, and the race of Abraham wanders over the earth; but the simple tale of Ruth preserves the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... remained, however, the serious question whether Wallenstein would accept his dismissal. His huge and ever-growing army was absolutely under his control. His influence over the troops was extraordinary. A firm believer in astrology, he asserted that the stars promised him certain success, and his followers believed him. Tall and thin, dark and solemn, silent and grim, wearing a scarlet cloak and a long, blood-red feather in his hat, he was declared by popular superstition to be in league with the devil, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... "if you don't believe me, call in a consulting engineer. I've worked the blinking thing out three times. I admit the answers were entirely different, but that's not my fault. I never did like astrology. I tell you the beastly chest holds twenty-seven thousand point nine double eight recurring cubic inches of air. Some other fool can reduce that to rods, and there you are. I'm fed up with it. Thanks to the machinations of that congenital idiot ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... prosecuted his studies also under a travelling sage who united all the mysteries of medicine with magic and legerdemain. His mind, therefore, had become stored with all kinds of mystic lore: he had dabbled a little in astrology, alchemy, and divination; knew how to detect stolen money, and to tell where springs of water lay hidden; in a word, by the dark nature of his knowledge he had acquired the name of the High German doctor, which is pretty nearly equivalent to that of ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... printers were rapidly superseding the manuscripts of twenty years before: collections of sermons, of sonnets, lives of saints, editions of Virgil and Terence, quaint versified encyclopaedias, and even books on medicine and astrology. From these little woodcuts, groups of saints round the Cross, with Giotto's tower and Brunellesco's dome in the distance, pictures of Fathers of the Church or ancient poets seated at desks in neatly panelled ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... may be traced in the three or four first chapters of the work; but farther consideration induced the author to lay his purpose aside. It appeared, on mature consideration, that astrology, though its influence was once received and admitted by Bacon himself, does not now retain influence over the general mind sufficient even to constitute the mainspring of a romance. Besides, it occurred that to do justice to such a subject would have required not only more ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... assigned. To the superintendency of the Chinese members of this august tribunal is committed the astrological part, a committee of whom is selected annually for the execution of this important task. Whether the men of letters, as they call themselves, really believe in the absurdities of judicial astrology, or whether they may think it necessary to encourage the observance of popular superstitions, on political considerations, I will not take upon me to decide. If, however, they should happen to possess any such superior knowledge, great credit is due to them for acting ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... mischief): perhaps some play upon words, a deception on the part of grammar, or an audacious generalization of very restricted, very personal, very human—all-too-human facts. The philosophy of the dogmatists, it is to be hoped, was only a promise for thousands of years afterwards, as was astrology in still earlier times, in the service of which probably more labour, gold, acuteness, and patience have been spent than on any actual science hitherto: we owe to it, and to its "super-terrestrial" pretensions in Asia and Egypt, the grand style ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... Ce Coatl, One Serpent, used in their astrology, was that of one of the gods of the merchants, and apparently for this reason, some writers have identified the chief god of traffic, Yacatecutli (God of Journeying), with Quetzalcoatl. This seems the ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... so great a degree, that though new impositions have been perpetually produced, the arts of detecting them have improved with greater rapidity. Hence since the introduction of printing, superstition has been much lessened by the reformation of religion; and necromancy, astrology, chiromancy, witchcraft, and vampyrism, have vanished from all classes of society; though some are still so weak in the present enlightened times as to believe in the prodigies of animal magnetism, and of metallic ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... submission to his opinion, that I never knew any man equal to him in the art of governing parties, and of making himself the head of them. He was as to religion a Deist at best: He had the dotage of Astrology in him to a high degree: He told me, that a Dutch doctor had from the stars foretold him the whole series of his life. But that which was before him, when he told me this, proved false, if he told me true: For he said, he was yet to be a greater man than he had been. ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... consequence. Comets, such as from time to time appeared, bright enough for naked eye observation, were still regarded as atmospheric phenomena, and their principal interest, as well as that of eclipses and planetary conjunctions, was in relation to astrology. Reform, however, was obviously in the air. The doctrine of Copernicus was destined very soon to divide others besides the Lutheran leaders. The leaven of inquiry was working, and not long after the death of Copernicus real advances were to come, first in the accuracy of observations, ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant
... except as, in some way or other, subordinate to theology. Philosophers—such philosophers as there were—obtained and half deserved the reputation of quacks and conjurors. Astronomy was confused with astrology. The physician's medicines were supposed to be powerless, unless the priests said prayers over them. The great lawyers, the ambassadors, the chief ministers of state, were generally bishops; even the fighting business was not entirely secular. ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... of Orleans, Regent of France in the minority of Louis XV., a believer in judicial astrology, though an unbeliever ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... chemistry arose from alchemy, astronomy from astrology, so hypnotism had its origin in mesmerism. Phenomena such as Mesmer described had undoubtedly been observed from early times, but to his work, which extended from 1756 to his death, in 1815, we owe the scientific interest which, after much error and self-deception, ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... With Arabic astrology we are not here concerned; it is only worth noting in this connection as the possible source of early Christian knowledge of the Southern Cross and other stars famous in the story of exploration, such as Dante shows in the first canto of his Purgatorio. ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... power, nor virtue." From these expressions, it is to be apprehended that while old David Ramsay, a follower of the Stewarts, sunk under the Parliamentary government, his son, William, had advanced from being a dupe to astrology to the dignity of being ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... of the myriads of hanging skeletons, bodies of animals, dried plants, minerals, and articles of all kinds that masked the walls; while on the floor were books, instruments for distilling, chests filled with utensils for magic and astrology; in one place I saw horoscopes and nativities, phials, wax-figures under spells, and possibly poisons. Tavannes and I were fascinated, I do assure you, by the sight of this devil's-arsenal. Only to see it puts one under a spell, and if I had not been King of France, I might have ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... great pains to explain. Not less than one-third of his work is given up to setting forth the methods of conjurers, card tricks, sleight-of-hand performances, illusions of magic, materializations of spirits, and the wonders of alchemy and astrology. In the range of his information about these subjects, the discoverer was encyclopedic. No current form of dabbling with the ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... like to believe in astrology, but I cannot. I should like to believe that the heavenly bodies sort themselves into certain positions in order that Zadkiel may be kept in touch with the future; the idea of a star whizzing a million miles out of its path by way of ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... workmen constructed the line itself, in important places, of successive minute touches, so that it became a chain of delicate links which could be opened or closed at pleasure.[AC] If you will examine through a lens the outline of the face of this Astrology, you will find it is traced with an exquisite series of minute touches, susceptible of accentuation or change absolutely at the engraver's pleasure; and, in result, corresponding to the finest conditions of a pencil line drawing by a consummate ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... factors which make it possible to acquire the knowledge this world is designed to give. This fact was so amply illustrated in a recent experience of the writer:—A friend had been studying occultism for a number of years but had not studied astrology. ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... things. So engrossing and so marvellous were the results of investigation, the achievements of experiment, that it seemed to many as if the older literature of imagination and fancy had served its purpose as completely as alchemy, astrology, or ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... beyond their legitimate application was a source of confusion in the early ages of science. Most of the superstitions of primitive religion, of astrology, and of alchemy, arose from this source. A good example is the extension of the metaphor in the words generation and corruption: words in constant use in scientific works until the nineteenth century began. Generation is the production of a substance ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... Ellangowan, on the very night the heir was born. Our hero, Guy Mannering, entering into the simple humour of Mr. Bertram, his host, agreed to calculate the infant's horoscope by the stars, having in early youth studied with an old clergyman who had a firm belief in astrology. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... figures on the chemist's bottles are the signs denoting the seven planets, which the alchemist formerly employed in common with the astrologer. See a curious article entitled Astrology and Alchemy in the Quarterly Review, Vol. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 70, March 1, 1851 • Various
... asked of the sick and I answered. Again he sat looking through open door and window at blue water, a great figure of a man with a great head and face and early-silvered hair. "Do you know aught," he asked, "of astrology?" ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... & Sophistry [The absence of reasoning.] [False or vicious reasoning; show of reason.] — N. intuition, instinct, association, hunch, gut feeling; presentiment, premonition; rule of thumb; superstition; astrology^; faith (supposition) 514. sophistry, paralogy^, perversion, casuistry, jesuitry, equivocation, evasion; chicane, chicanery; quiddet^, quiddity; mystification; special pleading; speciousness &c adj.; nonsense &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... settled at Padua, where he speedily gained a great reputation as a physician, and availed himself of it to gratify his avarice by refusing to visit patients except for an exorbitant fee. Perhaps this, as well as his meddling with astrology, caused him to be charged with practising magic, the particular accusations being that he brought back into his purse, by the aid of the devil, all the money he paid away, and that he possessed the philosopher's stone. He was twice brought to trial by the Inquisition; ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... it was rejected by Apollonius Rhodius: doubtless it continued the same theme of how to live, showing how man can avoid disasters by attending to the omens to be drawn from birds. It is possible that the "Astronomy" or "Astrology" (as Plutarch calls it) was in turn appended to the "Divination". It certainly gave some account of the principal constellations, their dates of rising and setting, and the legends connected with them, and probably showed how ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... I love them. I'd like to talk to you about reincarnation and astronomy, of which I know something, and even astrology and the survival of the dead and lots of other things. But I have got to make my way in the world, and I've no time. You think me a heavy bore and an old fogey because I won't go to parties to which lots of those nice fellows ask me. ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... Society, averaging about forty works annually. His style was broad and simple, with tints beautifully laid, without resort to stippling. He wrote some works on drawing and perspective. He also was an enthusiast in astrology, and compiled a "Treatise on Zodiacal Physiognomy." John Glover was a landscape painter and produced works, both in oil and in water colours, into which he frequently introduced cattle. His father having been a small farmer may account for this partiality for animals. ...
— Masters of Water-Colour Painting • H. M. Cundall
... year Bredon vicar of Thornton a profound divine, but absolutely the most polite person for nativities in that age, strictly adhering to Ptolemy, which he well understood; he had a hand in composing Sir Christopher Heydon's defence of judicial astrology, being that time his chaplain; he was so given over to tobacco and drink, that when he had no tobacco, he would cut the ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... horoscope. A diagram of the heavens by which astrologers calculated nativities. Dryden resembled Chaucer in his belief in astrology. ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... should be kings, hoped, after the election of her second son to the throne of Poland, to find the full accomplishment of the prophecy in the advancement of the youngest to the matrimonial crown of England. So serious was the belief of that age in the lying oracles of judicial astrology! ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... Ashmole noted every trifle, even to the paring of his nails; and being as believer in astrology, and a student in the occult sciences, occasionally mentions his own superstitious observances. Thus, April 11, 1681, he notes—"I took, early in the morning, a good dose of elixir, and hung three spiders about my neck, and they drove my ague ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... following: conchology, biology, morphology, phrenology, physiology, osteology, histology, zoology, entomology, bacteriology, ornithology, pathology, psychology, cosmology, eschatology, demonology, mythology, theology, astrology, archeology, geology, meteorology, mineralogy, chronology, genealogy, ethnology, anthropology, criminology, technology, doxology, anthology, trilogy, philology, etymology, terminology, neologism, phraseology, tautology, analogy, eulogy, apology, apologue, eclogue, monologue, dialogue, prologue, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... in many lands and among many peoples is also attested in its remarkable nomenclature. Consider its range in ancient, medieval and modern thought as shown in some of its definitions: Magic, sorcery, soothsaying, necromancy, astrology, wizardry, mysticism, occultism, and conjuring, of the early and middle ages; compacts with Satan, consorting with evil spirits, and familiarity with the Devil, of later times; all at last ripening into an epidemic demonopathy ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... stars of those two gentle eyes 10 Will shine no more on earth; Quenched are the hopes that had their birth, As we watched them slowly rise, Stars of a mother's fate; And she would read them o'er and o'er, Pondering, as she sate, Over their dear astrology, Which she had conned and conned before, Deeming she needs must read aright 19 What was writ so passing bright. And yet, alas! she knew not why. Her voice would falter in its song, And tears would slide from out her eye, Silent, as they were ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... to what I have to say," returned the king, graciously taking my arm and leading me to a window overlooking the river. "I hear from De Grammont that the Abbe du Boise is a firm believer in the teachings of astrology. I want you to arrange, without letting any one know that my finger is in the pie, to take Lilly to see the Abbe, or the Abbe to see Lilly. I'll whisper a word in your ear. The stars will tell our friend, ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... not noticed the means by which she effected the abrupt transition—of familiar beliefs of old Egypt; of the Ka, or Double, by whose existence the survival of the soul was possible, even its return into manifested, physical life; of the astrology, or influence of the heavenly bodies upon all sublunar activities; of terrific forms of other life, known to the ancient worship of Atlantis, great Potencies that might be invoked by ritual and ceremonial, and of their lesser influence as recognised in certain lower forms, hence ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... On the other hand, astrology, witchcraft, and the transmutation of copper and lead into gold were generally believed in. In preaching before Queen Elizabeth, Bishop Jewell urged that stringent measures be taken with witches and sorcerers, saying that through their demoniacal acts "your Grace's ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... found material for profane merriment in some of the unquestionably absurd inquiries made or suggested by the natural philosophers. "Science was then only just emerging from the Mists of Superstition." Astrology and Alchemy still infected Astronomy, Chemistry, and Medicine. A Fellow of the Royal Society, along with the Puritan, made a ridiculous figure on the stage. But Puritanism and Natural Philosophy both survived the "test of truth," and were better ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... country to the other. But does romance disappear from the farm with machinery and scientific agriculture? There are farmers who follow Luther Burbank's experiments with plants, with all the fascination which used to attach to alchemy and astrology. The farmer has no longer Indians to fight or a wilderness to subdue, but the soils of his farm are analyzed at his state university by men who live in the daily atmosphere of the romance of science, and who say, as a professor in the University ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... university was regularly organized. Branch schools were also established in the several provinces. In the university there were departments for Chinese literature, for medicine, for astronomy and almanac-making, and for astrology. Under the first head were included the art of writing the Chinese characters, the practice of composition, the study of the Chinese classics, and the reading of books of Chinese history. In like manner the ...
— Japan • David Murray
... is to be remembered that phrenology had a good standing at one time, though it has since lapsed into quackdom. This is the history of many a "short cut" into knowledge. Thus the wisest men of past centuries believed in astrology. Paracelsus, who gave to the world the use of Hg in therapeutics, relied in large part for his diagnosis and cures upon alchemy ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... Richard Fitzgerald,' who joined Lord Altham and his household in drinking the healths of the 'lady in the straw,' and the long expected heir, in the customary groaning drink. It does not appear that Master Fitzgerald was learned in astrology, or practised any branch of the 'Black art,' or that he used any spell with reference to the infant more potent than these hearty libations and sincere good wishes for his future prosperity. Next day, before ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... Bairagis, and keep the genealogies of the temple-priests and their successors. Yet another class are the Dasaundhis or Jasondhis, who sing songs in honour of Devi, play on musical instruments and practise astrology. These rank below the cultivating castes and sometimes admit members of such castes ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... the title of the magician, to distinguish him from Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, was a native of Antioch. He received a liberal education in his youth, and particularly applied himself to astrology; after which he travelled for improvement through Greece, Egypt, India, &c. In the course of time he became acquainted with Justina, a young lady of Antioch, whose birth, beauty, and accomplishments, rendered her the admiration of all who ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... be propitiated and diseases can be kept away by hanging up palm leaves and cages in the neighborhood of kampongs, and many others. They also believe as firmly as the Chinese do in auspicious and inauspicious days, spells, magic, and a species of astrology. I hope that Mr. Maxwell will publish ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... wants, for it is, from beginning to end, an attack upon the books of chivalry, of which Aristotle never dreamt, nor St. Basil said a word, nor Cicero had any knowledge; nor do the niceties of truth nor the observations of astrology come within the range of its fanciful vagaries; nor have geometrical measurements or refutations of the arguments used in rhetoric anything to do with it; nor does it mean to preach to anybody, mixing up things human and divine, a sort of motley in which ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the periodic phases of the moon and of womankind that originally suggested the identification of the Great Mother with the moon, and originated the belief that the moon was the regulator of human beings.[400] This was the starting-point of the system of astrology and the belief in Fates. The goddess of birth and death controlled and measured the lives ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... of Louis XIV. with old Maintenon proves how impossible it is to escape one's fate. The King said one day to the Duc de Crequi and to M. de La Rochefoucauld, long before he knew Mistress Scarron, "I am convinced that astrology is false. I had my nativity cast in Italy, and I was told that, after living to an advanced age, I should be in love with an old ——- to the last moment of my existence. I do not think there is any great likelihood ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... or a cow. Rumanika then, at my suggestions, gave Nnanaji the revolving pistol I first gave him, but not without a sharp rebuke for his having had the audacity to beg a gun of me in consideration of his being a sportsman. We then went into a discourse on astrology, when the intelligent Rumanika asked me if the same sun we saw one day appeared again, or whether fresh suns came every day, and whether or not the moon made different faces, to laugh ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... which the learned Cotelerius makes this remark: "It was also at that time that all the illusions of magic ceased, as is attested by so many celebrated authors." Tertullian, in the book which he has written on Idolatry, says, "We know the strict union there is between magic and astrology. God permitted that science to reign on the earth till the time of the Gospel, in order that after the birth of Jesus Christ no one might be found who should undertake to read in the heavens the happiness or misfortunes of any person whomsoever." A little ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... done, to the court, retreated into the most obscure corners of the metropolis; and again changing his name and dress, gave himself out as a German doctor named Bendo, who professed to find out inscrutable secrets, and to apply infallible remedies; to know, by astrology, all the past, and ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... which scarcely rise to the level of presumptions, but, rather, of presumption. There is an accumulation of popular dogmatism that is very likely doomed within a century to be swept into the same oblivion with the 'Christian Astrology,' of William Lilly and the 'Ars Magna' of Raymond Lully—a mass of rubbish that is waiting for another Caliph Omar and ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... Eastern nations, it may be mentioned that their want of knowledge of the vast distances that separate them from the earth led them to the belief that these bodies were so near as to exert a direct influence upon man and his affairs. Hence the origin of Astrology, with all its accompanying mystifications; this was practised under the impression that the Sun, Moon, and planets were near to the earth. The summits of mountains and "High Places" thus became "sacred," and were for ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... of Susanna. The Tritameron of Love is a dialogue without action, but Arbasto, or the Anatomie of Fortune returns to the novel form, as does The Card of Fancy. Planetomachia is a collection of stories, illustrating the popular astrological notions, with an introduction on astrology generally. Penelope's Web is another collection of stories, but The Spanish Masquerado is one of the most interesting of the series. Written just at the time of the Armada, it is pure journalism—a livre de circonstance composed to catch the popular temper with aid of a certain actual knowledge, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... feet reading. Arithmetic holds the table of the Abacus, and under her sits Abraham, its inventor. Music has musical instruments, with Tubal Cain beneath, beating with two hammers upon an anvil, with his ears listening to the sound. Geometry has the quadrant and sextant, with Euclid beneath. Astrology has the sphere of the heavens in her hands, and Atlas under her feet. On the other side sit the seven theological sciences, each one having beneath it a person of an appropriate condition, pope, emperor, king, cardinal, ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... very plague year that Newton formulated his theory of gravitation. Incredible as it may seem, at this same date even such men as Dryden held to a belief in astrology. ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... learning had been crushed by the superstition and bigotry of the times. In the fourteenth century even, the most celebrated university in Europe, that of Bologna, bestowed its chief honors upon the professorship of astrology. But these grand developments in art and science gave a new impulse to social life. Thenceforward the interests of education began to thrive. The patronage given to popular instruction by many of the rulers of European States ...
— Reflections on the Operation of the Present System of Education, 1853 • Christopher C. Andrews
... the educated world has at length painfully learned to be worthless, but which, it is not too much to declare, would to this day carry considerable weight to the minds of four fifths of the human race." Upon such symbolism are based most of the practices of divination and the great pseudo-science of astrology. "It is an old story, that when two brothers were once taken ill together, Hippokrates, the physician, concluded from the coincidence that they were twins, but Poseidonios, the astrologer, considered rather that they were born under the same constellation; ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... cheered also and made jests, saying that I should soon practice astrology in the palace. But, as soon as we might, I and my uncle escaped, and made our way back to the house. All the while he rated me for my rashness; but when we came to the chamber of the house he embraced ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... assumption of superior learning, to fence themselves round from the approaches of the vulgar. The little true science possessed by the Aztec priest supplied him with a key to unlock the mysteries of the heavens, and the false system of astrology which he built upon it gave him credit as a being who had something of divinity in his own nature. But the Inca noble was divine by birth. The illusory study of astrology, so captivating to the unenlightened ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... 1603 there was living there Sir Arthur Atie, Knt., in early life secretary to the great Earl of Leicester, and afterwards attendant on his step-son, the luckless Earl of Essex. Elias Ashmole, the great antiquary and student in alchemy and astrology, also honoured this lane, but he gathered in the Temple those great collections of books and coins, some of which perished by fire, and some of which he afterwards gave to the University of Oxford, where they were placed in a building called, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... of mystery and longing for knowledge which produced the Bacchanalian clubs accorded a warm reception to astrology and made men listen with eagerness to those who could tell their fortunes or guide their lives by means of the stars. We do not know when the bearers of this knowledge first arrived in Rome, but Cato, in his Farm ...
— The Religion of Numa - And Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome • Jesse Benedict Carter
... himself escaped from the burning flames of the lusts of the flesh, his only thought has been for the salvation of mankind. Once upon a time there was a certain heretic, called Rokutsuponji, a reader of auguries, cunning in astrology and in the healing art. It happened, one day, that this heretic, being in company with Buddha, entered a forest, which was full of dead men's skulls. Buddha, taking up one of the skulls and tapping it thus" (here the preacher tapped the reading-desk with his fan), "said, 'What manner ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... all. Sin, the moon-god, a Sumerian divinity, at the outset had the highest rank. Bel, or Baal, however, a Semitic divinity, was the god of the earth, and particularly of mankind. Ea was the god of the deep, and of the underworld. The early development of astrology and its great influence in old Babylon were closely connected with the supposed association of the luminaries above with the gods. The stars were thought to indicate at the birth of a child what his fortunes would be, and to afford the means of foretelling other remarkable ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... a shoemaker, but loving reading, had acquir'd a considerable share of mathematics, which he first studied with a view to astrology, that he afterwards laught at it. He ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... given up attempting to explain the heart of woman. They are masters of astronomy, astrology, and arithmetic; they know the origin of the world, and can tell where were the planets at the very moment of creation; they are sure that the moon was then in the constellation of Cancer, the sun in that of ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... equally ineffectual. Marriages and an increased birth-rate were encouraged, and parents were honoured and given special privileges. The wisdom and prudence of Augustus were strangely accompanied by credulity and superstition. He was a profound believer in omens, and attached great importance to astrology. His horoscope showed that he was born under the sign ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... blazing midnight stars of rainless Egypt. Several handsome rosewood cases were filled with rare books—two in Pali—centuries old; and moth- eaten volumes and valuable MSS.—some in parchment, some bound in boards—recalled the days of astrology and alchemy, and the sombre mysteries of Rosicrucianism. Side by side, on an ebony stand, lay an Elzevir Terence, printed in red letters, and a curious Birman book, whose pages consisted of thin leaves of ivory, gilded at the edges; and here too ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... of the stars among the Babylonians and ancient Arabians. This astrolatry, originally a kind of fetichism, became nature-worship, and gradually rose to the worship of the intelligence manifested to our contemplation in the movement of the heavenly luminaries. Astrology arose, and religion no longer expressed itself in passive acquiescence, but was united with the effort to guide the life by the knowledge to be drawn, as men imagined, from the ...
— A Comparative View of Religions • Johannes Henricus Scholten
... did. It looked as if we were headed back to the Middle Ages when astrology and medicine went hand in hand. But since it was our only lead we had no other choice but to follow it regardless of the consequences. Here luck played somewhat of a part, for Hillyard happened to have a contact ...
— Disturbing Sun • Robert Shirley Richardson
... clear and unclouded the lustre of that shining orb—these words seemed irrelevant, but I knew their meaning. His knowledge of German literature had led him into the mazes of its mingled philosophy and wild romance. Astronomy and astrology were to him the same; the star to which he pointed was what he called the planet of his fate, and its brightness or obscurity were shadowed in his mind—its aspect caused him either joy or woe. The incident of Ella's fright agitated him much, ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... a term used in astrology, in the general sense of remarkable events or occurrences. From a curious collection of Aubrey's memoranda I have selected a few of the most interesting and most apposite to Wiltshire. Several of the anecdotes in this chapter will be found in Aubrey's ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... Charles Wilson esquire, which that gentleman received from the lady whom Mr. Dryden celebrates by the name of Corinna, of whom it appears he was very fond; and who had the relation from lady Chudleigh. Dryden with all his undemanding was weak enough to be fond of Judicial Astrology, and used to calculate the nativity of his children. When his lady was in labour with his son Charles, he being told it was decent to withdraw, laid his watch on the table, begging one of the ladies then present, in ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... wretched liar; nor is it at all credible that in so blind an age a Prince, who, with all his love of learning, I fear, had very little of either learning or parts, should write on Astronomy;—had it been on Astrology, it might have ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... reference doubtless to the power of the stars to influence the destiny of man, with which subject astrology concerns itself. Compare— ...
— Legends, Tales and Poems • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer
... things, my beloved friend and brother, I remember yet the former friendship we had together when we were schoolfellows and students in the university at Wittenburg; whereas you first studied physic, astronomy, astrology, geometry, and cosmography, I, to the contrary, you know, studied divinity, notwithstanding now in any of your own studies I am sure I have proceeded farther than yourself; for since I began I have never erred, for, might I speak it without affecting mine own praise, my calendars and ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... happiness in his hour. There was a prince in Denmark in those days; And, when he heard how other kings desired The secrets of this new astrology, He said, "This man, in after years, will bring Glory to Denmark, honour to her prince. He is a Dane. Give him this isle of Wheen, And let him make his great discoveries there. Let him have gold to buy his instruments, And build his ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... king made great progress both in magic and astrology. He studied the conjunction of the stars with extreme care, and he drew horoscopes with an accuracy equal to ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... Arnaud de Villeneuve was one of the luminaries of the 13th century, being distinguished for his profound knowledge of medicine, chemistry, astrology, and theology. He discovered the sulphuric, muriatic and nitric acids, and was the first to compose alcohol and the ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... relentless obstinacy of character, and might have curled in sullen glee at the monarch's scaffold, or preached an interminable sermon to the stout Protector. On a table, under the deep-sunk window, were neatly arrayed a few sober-looking old books; you would find amongst them Colley's "Astrology," Owen Feltham's "Resolves," Glanville "On Witches," the "Pilgrim's Progress," an early edition of "Paradise Lost," and an old Bible; also two flower-pots of clay brightly reddened, and containing stocks; ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... bicyclist gets his tire pumped up, or the motorist is recharged with electricity at so much per unit. Examinations will then become matters of capacity in the real meaning of that word, and we shall be tempted to invest our pocket-money by advertisements of "A cheap line in Astrology," "Try our double-strength, two-minute course of Classics," "This is remnant day for Trigonometry ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... from Squire Johnston, Esq., who paternizes many of the pupils; Book-keeping, by single and double entry—Geometry, Trigonometry, Stereometry, Mensuration, Navigation, Guaging, Surveying, Dialling, Astronomy, Astrology, Austerity, Fluxions, Geography, ancient and modern—Maps, the Projection of the Sphere—Algebra, the Use of the Globes, Natural and Moral Philosophy, Pneumatics, Optics, Dioptics, Catroptics, Hydraulics, Erostatics, Geology, Glorification, Divinity, Mythology, ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... ericon (in modern French herisson), a derivative from the Latin ericius, 'a hedgehog'; gramary is simply Old French gramaire, 'grammar' Lat. grammatica (ars), just as Old French mire, 'a medical man' Lat. medicum.]] Few now have any faith in astrology, or count that the planet under which a man is born will affect his temperament, make him for life of a disposition grave or gay, lively or severe. Yet our language affirms as much; for we speak of men as ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... a somewhat broader sense. In agreement with Katsch, Hoehler (Herm. Phil., p. 6) recalls how generally people were occupied in the 16th and 17th centuries in the whole of western Europe with cabala, theosophy, magic (physics), astrology and alchemy, and indeed this held true of higher and lower social strata, scholars and laymen, ecclesiastic and secular. "The entire learned theology turned on cabala. Medicine was based on theosophy and alchemy and the latter was supposed to be derived from theosophy and astrology." Hoehler, in ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... put to her, as to the business, name, place of abode, country, and other circumstances of the party applying, the answering of which always convinced the credulous creatures who went to her, of her great skill in the art of astrology; and when she was right in her guessing, she always took care to have it ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... find the horse, though they searched in every direction. Then, while Sthuladatta was distressed at the evil omen, and searching for the thieves who had carried off the horse, the wife of Harisarman came and said to him: "My husband is a wise man, skilled in astrology and magical sciences; he can get the horse back for you—why do you not ask him?" When Sthuladatta heard that, he called Harisarman, who said, "Yesterday I was forgotten, but to-day, now the horse is stolen, I am called to mind;" and ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... for the Devil has taken the position of the heavens, or scheme of the world, at the point of the sun's entrance into Aries. I dispute not here the truth or lawfulness of that art; but it is usual with poets, especially the Italians, to mix astrology in their poems. Chaucer, amongst us, is frequent in it: but this revolution particularly I have taken out of Luigi Pulci; and there is one almost the same in Boiardo's "Orlando Inamorato." Now, if these poets knew, that a star were to appear at our king's ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... the capital there lived an old man, who had spent his life in studying black arts—alchemy, astrology, magic, and enchantment. This man found out that the gardener's son had only succeeded in marrying the Princess by the help of the genii who obeyed ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... I know not;* but by ancient and modern example it is evident, that no great accident befalls a city or province, but it is presaged by divination, or prodigy, or astrology, or some way or other. I shall here set down ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... belief is that in "elementals"—the spirits which personify the primordial forces of Nature, and are symbolised by the four elements, immanent in which they were supposed to exist, and through which they were held to manifest their powers. And astrology, it must be remembered, is essentially a systematised animism. The stars, to the ancients, were not material bodies like the earth, but spiritual beings. PLATO (427-347 B.C.) speaks of them as "gods". Mediaeval thought did not regard them in quite ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... the brothers, for instance, was very fond of astronomy. He had his observatory on a lofty tower, which stood pretty clear of the others, towards the north and east. But hitherto, his astronomy, as he had called it, had been more of the character of astrology. Often, too, he might have been seen directing a heaven-searching telescope to catch the rapid transit of a fiery shooting-star, belonging altogether to the earthly atmosphere, and not to the serene ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... parvenu taste engendered the fantastic gilding of the renaissance, which they naturalized in the Tuileries and at Fontainbleau, in common with the stiletto and acqua tofana of their poisoners, and the fatalism of their judicial astrology. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... cook book of Sir Kenelm Digby. Yet it lies before me. It may have escaped your memory in the din of other things, that in the time when Oliver Cromwell still walked the earth, there lived in England a man by the name of Kenelm Digby, who was renowned in astrology and alchemy, piracy, wit, philosophy and fashion. It appears that wherever learning wagged its bulbous head, Sir Kenelm was of the company. It appears, also, that wherever the mahogany did most groan, wherever the possets were spiced most delicately to the nose, there too did Sir Kenelm bib and ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... Catalogue of Scientific and Mathematical Books, comprising Architecture, Astrology, Magic, Chess, and other Games; Fine Arts, Heraldry, Naval and Military, Numismatics, Penmanship and Short Hand, Typography, and Miscellaneous Books now selling at the reduced prices affixed by William Brown, 130. and 131. Old ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850 • Various |
