Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos : $b or Quadripartite, being four books of the influence of the stars ... with a preface, explanatory notes, and an appendix containing extracts from the Almagest of Ptolemy and the whole of his Centiloquy, together with a short notice of Mr. Ranger's zodiacal planisphere and an explanatory platePtolemy
Religion
Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos : $b or Quadripartite, being four books of the influence of the stars ... with a preface, explanatory notes, and an appendix containing extracts from the Almagest of Ptolemy and the whole of his Centiloquy, together with a short notice of Mr. Ranger's zodiacal planisphere and an explanatory plate
Ptolemy
Astrology -- Early works to 1800
From these premises it follows not only that all bodies, which may
be already compounded, are subjected to the motion of the stars, but
also that the impregnation and growth of the seeds from which all
bodies proceed, are framed and moulded by the quality existing in the
Ambient at the time of such impregnation and growth. And it is upon
this principle that the more observant husbandmen and shepherds are
accustomed, by drawing their inferences from the particular breezes
which may happen at seed-time and at the impregnation of their cattle,
to form predictions as to the quality of the expected produce. In
short, however unlearned in the philosophy of nature, these men
can foretell, solely by their previous observation, all the more
general and usual effects which result from the plainer and more
visible configurations of the Sun, Moon, and stars. It is daily seen
that even most illiterate persons, with no other aid than their own
experienced observation, are capable of predicting events which may
be consequent on the more extended influence of the Sun and the more
simple order of the Ambient, and which may not be open to variation by
any complex configurations of the Moon and stars towards the Sun. There
are, moreover, among the brute creation, animals who evidently form
prognostication, and use this wonderful instinct at the changes of the
several seasons of the year, spring, summer, autumn, and winter; and,
also, at the changes of the wind.
In producing the changes of the seasons, the Sun itself is chiefly the
operating and visible cause. There are, however, other events which,
although they are not indicated in so simple a manner, but dependent on
a slight complication of causes in the Ambient, are also foreknown by
persons who have applied their observation to that end. Of this kind,
are tempests and gales of wind, produced by certain aspects of the
Moon, or the fixed stars, towards the Sun, according to their several
courses, and the approach of which is usually foreseen by mariners. At
the same time, prognostication made by persons of this class must be
frequently fallacious, owing to their deficiency in science and their
consequent inability to give necessary consideration to the time and
place, or to the revolutions of the planets; all which circumstances,
when exactly defined and understood, certainly tend towards accurate
foreknowledge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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