SCIENCE OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 



"Through these Twelve Signs the Sun, Moon, and 

 the other Five Planets run their Course. The Sun in a 

 Years time, and the Moon in the space of a Month. 

 To every one of the Planets they assign their own prop- 

 er Courses, which are perform'd variously in lesser or 

 shorter time according as their several motions are 

 quicker or slower. These Stars, they say, have a 

 great influence both as to good and bad in Mens Na- 

 tivities; and from the consideration of their several 

 Natures, may be foreknown what will befal Men after- 

 wards. As they foretold things to come to other 

 Kings formerly, so they did to Alexander who con- 

 quer 'd Darius, and to his Successors Antigonus and 

 Seleucus Nicator; and accordingly things fell out as 

 they declar'd; which we shall relate particularly here- 

 after in a more convenient time. They tell likewise 

 private Men their Fortunes so certainly, that those who 

 have found the thing true by Experience, have esteem'd 

 it a Miracle, and above the reach of man to perform. 

 Out of the Circle of the Zodiack they describe Four and 

 Twenty Stars, Twelve towards the North Pole, and as 

 many to the South. 



"Those which we see, they assign to the living; and 

 the other that do not appear, they conceive are Con- 

 stellations for the Dead; and they term them Judges 

 of all things. The Moon, they say, is in the lowest 

 Orb; and being therefore next to the Earth (because 

 she is so small), she finishes her Course in a little 

 time, not through the swiftness of her Motion, but 

 the shortness of her Sphear. In that which they 

 affirm (that she has but a borrow'd light, and that 

 when she is eclips'd, it's caus'd by the interposition 

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