Astrology was one of the modes most anciently and universally resorted
to for discovering the fortunes of men and nations. Astronomy and
astrology went hand in hand, particularly among the people of the
East. The idea of fate was most especially bound up in this branch of
prophecy. If the fortune of a man was intimately connected with the
position of the heavenly bodies, it became evident that little was
left to the province of his free will. The stars overruled him in all
his determinations; and it was in vain for him to resist them. There
was something flattering to the human imagination in conceiving that
the planets and the orbs on high were concerned in the conduct we
should pursue, and the events that should befal us. Man resigned
himself to his fate with a solemn, yet a lofty feeling, that the
remotest portions of the universe were concerned in the catastrophe
that awaited him. Beside which, there was something peculiarly
seducing in the apparently profound investigation of the professors of
astrology. They busied themselves with the actual position of the
heavenly bodies, their conjunctions and oppositions; and of
consequence there was a great apparatus of diagrams and calculation to
which they were prompted to apply themselves, and which addressed
itself to the eyes and imaginations of those who consulted them.