The general want of information on these points, and the indifference with which such want has been hitherto regarded, cannot surely be attributed solely to the modern disrepute of the science; for mankind have usually, in every successive age, exercised great industry in tracing all previous customs, however trifling or obsolete, and in examining all sorts of creeds, however unimportant or erroneous, whenever there has appeared any striking connection between such matters and historical facts; and, since astrology is most unquestionably blended intimately with history, it therefore becomes necessary to seek for some further hypothesis, by which this ignorance and indifference may be accounted for. Perhaps astrology has been conceived to have borne the same relation to astronomy as alchymy did to chymistry. If such has been the notion, it has certainly been adopted in error, for a modern chymist is still almost an alchymist: it is true that he no longer delays his work in deference to the planets, nor does he now try to make gold, nor to distil elixir of earthly immortality; but nevertheless he still avails himself, to a certain degree, of the same rules and the same means as those of the old alchymist: he is still intent upon the subtle processes of Nature, and still imitates her as far as he can. He reduces the diamond to charcoal by an operation analogous to that by which the alchymist sought to transmute lead into gold; and he mainly differs from the alchymist only in having assured himself that there is a point beyond which Nature forbids facsimiles. Not so slightly, however, does the astronomer differ from the astrologer, but _toto cœlo_: the astrologer considered the heavenly bodies and their motions merely as the mechanism wherewith he was to weave the tissue of his predictions; and astronomy is no more an integral part of astrology, than the loom is of the web which has been woven by it. To have an idea of what alchymy was, it is sufficient to have an idea of chymistry; but astronomy, in itself, will never give a notion of astrology, which requires additional and distinct consideration.