ABSTRACT
The Sumerians and Babylonians believed that the will of the gods in respect to man and his affairs could be learned by watching the motions of the stars and planets, and that skilled star-gazers could obtain from the motions and varying aspects of the heavenly bodies indications of future prosperity and calamity. They therefore caused observations to be made and recorded on tablets, which they interpreted from a magical and not astronomical point of view, and these observations and their comments on them, and interpretations of them, have formed the foundation of the astrology in use in the world for the last 5,000 years. According to ancient traditions preserved by Greek writers, the Babylonians made these observations for some hundreds of thousands of years, and though we must reject such fabulous statements, we are bound to believe that the period during which observations of the heavens were made on the plains of Babylonia comprised many thousands of years. During that period the star-gazers collected unwittingly a large number of facts of pure astronomy — and but for the ban laid upon their work by the allpowerful magicians, they would have developed into good astronomers. The magician desired the maintenance and extension of his own craft, and the personal benefits which accrued to him therefrom to the unremunerative increase in the scientific knowledge of the heavens.
