NATURAL ASTROLOGY
Is confined to the study of exploring natural effects, as CHANGE OF WEATHER, WINDS, STORMS, HURRICANES, THUNDER, FLOODS, EARTHQUAKES, and the like. In this sense it is admitted to be a part of natural philosophy. It was under this view that Mr. Goad, Mr. Boyle, and Dr. Mead, pleaded for its use. The first endeavours to account for the diversity of seasons from the situations, habitudes, and motions of the planets; and to explain an infinity of phenomena by the contemplation of the stars. The Honourable Mr. Boyle admitted, that all physical bodies are influenced by the heavenly bodies; and the Doctor’s opinion, in his treatise concerning the Power of the Sun and Moon, &c. is in favour of the doctrine. But these predictions and influences are ridiculed and entirely exploded by the most esteemed modern philosophers, of which the reader may have a learned specimen in Rohault’s Tract. Physic. pt. ii. c. 27.