It may be urged, that in the present day a general idea of this bygone and disused science is quite sufficient for everybody not professedly antiquarian. Such an assertion would doubtless never be controverted, provided the proposed general idea might comprehend the truth. But the present actual general idea of astrology is by no means so comprehensive; indeed, nothing can well be more inaccurate, or even more false: it seems to have been adopted not from the elements of the science itself, but from trite observations made by writers against the science; and consequently the world now wonders at the lamentable defect of understanding that could ever have permitted belief in it—forgetting that astrology has been consigned to neglect, not in consequence of any _primâ facie_ palpability in its imputed fallacies, nor indeed of any special skill or acuteness on the part of its professed adversaries, but rather in consequence of the sudden and astonishing growth of other undoubted sciences, with which it has been presumed to be incompatible, and which during the thousands of years of the reign of astrology were either unborn, or still slumbering in continued infancy.[2] The words “professed adversaries,” which have just now been used, are of course not intended to be applied to those mighty explorers of Nature’s laws and man’s powers, who, in their lofty career, may have made an incidental swoop at the pretensions of astrology. Directly engaged in more exact pursuits, they stopped not to dissect this their casual prey, which, after having been thus struck by eagles, was left to regale crows and daws, and these, in their convivial loquacity, accused their unfortunate victims of crimes incapable of being committed, and of offences which had never been imagined. Of the real faults of their victim these garrulous bipeds seem not to have been aware, or, if aware, they seem to have considered them as not sufficiently prominent. Nor was this want of candour or information absolutely confined to the mere vulgar herd of vituperative scribblers, for even the sparkling essay against astrology, written by Voltaire (in his irrepressible desire to convince the world that he was _au fait_ in everything), proves only that the writer, though the most generally informed man of his time, had mistaken the really assailable points of the object of his attack. [2] To this view of the case, the following remarks seem not inapplicable: they are taken from a periodical work of deserved reputation:—