J14

HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE

In the thickest darkness of the middle ages, the studyof astronomy had never, perhaps, been entirely aban-doned ; but it is almost certain that the encouragementsto the pursuit of it were mainly derived from the popu-larity of astrology, and the assistance which that artderived from astronomical determinations. In thoseages, the state of knowledge was generally characterisedby the mixture of a few fragments of real philosophyand sound science in a vast mass of ignorant conceitsand superstitious delusions. Astrology then sharedalike the reverence of the multitude and the patronageof the great and powerful. During the thirteenth andfourteenth centuries, it was even publicly taught in theuniversities of Italy: and in particular at Padua andBologna professors were specifically appointed to initiatethe most apt and hopeful disciples into the mysteries ofthis sacred science. The effects of this infatuation un-happily survived for ages after the actual profession ofit had been discarded ; and it long continued to cast asort of mysticism over the pursuits of legitimate science,by no means favourable to its due developement or ex-tended progress : and even when the astrological art hadbeen completely exploded, and had become in its turnthe subject of reproach and ridicule, so close had theconnection been, that astronomy sometimes shared inthe contumelies cast upon the occult arts, and, in theapprehensions of many, above the lowest class, theclaims of the one were by no means accurately distin-guished from the pretensions of the other.

The thirteenth century may he regarded as theperiod at which we perceive the most decided symptomsof a reviving attention to literature and science. Theknowledge which had hitherto been confined to monas-teries, now began to spread into cities and courts. Thebarbarous monarchs of the dark ages were succeeded byprinces who cultivated and protected letters. It ishardly to be doubted that the zeal displayed by some ofthem for the encouragement of astronomy originatedin their reverence for the astrological art: yet we must