Astrology furnishes a splendid proof of the contemptible subjectivity of men. It refers the course of celestial bodies to the miserable ego: it establishes a connection between the comets in heaven and squabbles and rascalities on earth.

Schopenhauer makes this remark in the course of a polemical aside against superstition and anthropocentrism, using astrology as a particularly vivid example. In his later essays and aphoristic writings—where he often comments on popular delusions, religion, and pseudo‑sciences—he argues that people project their private concerns onto the cosmos and then treat those projections as knowledge. The sentence belongs to that broader critique: astrology, for him, is not merely an error about the stars but a psychological symptom of human vanity, the urge to see the universe as arranged around one’s personal fate and petty social conflicts.

Schopenhauer uses astrology as a vivid example of what he sees as human vanity and anthropocentrism: the impulse to treat the universe as if it were arranged around one’s personal concerns. By calling astrology “subjectivity,” he suggests it projects inner wishes and anxieties outward, reading meaning into indifferent natural motions. The contrast between “comets in heaven” and “squabbles and rascalities on earth” sharpens his point: astrology collapses the immense scale and impersonal regularity of the cosmos into petty human drama. The remark fits his broader suspicion of consoling metaphysical systems and his emphasis on how the ego distorts perception and interpretation.