Note 133 — BOOK II. AN ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD AND THE ELEMENTS.

We have many references in Pliny to the influence of the stars upon the earth and its inhabitants, constituting what was formerly regarded as so important a science, judicial astrology. Ptolemy has drawn up a regular code of it in his “Centum dicta,” or “Centiloquiums.” We have a highly interesting account of the supposed science, its origin, progress, and general principles, in Whewell’s History of the Inductive Sciences, p. 293 et seq. I may also refer to the same work for a sketch of the history of astronomy among the Greeks and the other nations of antiquity.