November, 1904.
THE
INFLUENCE OF THE STARS
ASTROLOGY
"To doubt the influence of the stars is to doubt the wisdom and providence of God."—Tycho Brahe.
CHAPTER I.
That a certain power, derived from æthereal nature, pervades the whole earth, is clearly evident to all. Fire and air are altered by the motions of the æther, and these elements, in their turn, encompassing all inferior matter, vary it, as they themselves are varied, acting equally on earth and water, on plants and animals. The Sun, not only by the change of the seasons, brings to perfection the embryo of animals, the buds of plants and the springs of water, but also, by his daily movement, brings light, heat, moisture, dryness and cold.
The Moon, being of all the heavenly bodies the nearest to earth, has also much influence, and things animate and inanimate sympathise and vary with her. By her changes rivers swell or are reduced, the tides of the sea are ruled by her risings and settings, and animals and plants are influenced as she waxes or wanes. The stars also produce in the ambient[ [1] many impressions, causing heats, winds and storms, to the influence of which earthly things are subjected. The force of the Sun, however, predominates, because it is more generally distributed; the others either co-operate with his power or diminish its effects. The Moon more frequently does this at her first and last quarter; the stars act also in the same way, but at longer intervals and more obscurely than the Moon. From this it follows that not only all bodies which may be already in existence are subjected to the motion of the stars, but also that the impregnation and growth of the seeds from which all bodies proceed are moulded by the quality in the ambient at the time of such impregnation and growth. When, therefore, a person has acquired a thorough knowledge of the stars (not of what they are composed, but of the influences they possess), he will be able to predict the mental and physical qualities and the future events in the existence of any one whose actual moment of birth is accurately given to him. But the science of astrology demands great study, a good memory, constant attention to a multitude of different points and much power of deductive judgment; and those persons who undertake to cast horoscopes without possessing these qualities, must necessarily make frequent mistakes in their judgments, which, perhaps, accounts for much of the disbelief which exists as regards the power of astrology; but it is unfair to blame the science for inaccuracies which are only the result of the ignorance of its exponents. No one should attempt to pronounce judgments on the influence of the stars without having first given years of study to the subject; and even then, unless he should have been born under certain influences,[ [2] he will never become a proficient astrologer.
The practice of observing the stars began in Egypt in the reign of Ammon (about a thousand years before the Christian era), and was spread by conquest in the reign of his successor into the other parts of Africa, Asia, and Europe; but it appears to have been taught in the earliest ages by oral tradition only, for there is no good evidence of its having been reduced to written rules before some years after the first century of the Christian era, when Claudius Ptolemy (who was born and educated in Alexandria) produced a work called Tetra-biblos, or Quadripartite, being four books of the influences of the stars. In this treatise (translated into English by John Whalley—Professor of Astrology—in the year of 1786) Ptolemy seems to have collected all that which appeared to him of importance in the science. Another translation of the Tetra-biblos, rendered into English from the Greek paraphrase of that work by Proclus, was made in 1822 by J. M. Ashmand and this is, by most people, preferred to the translation made by Whalley. Somewhere between 1647 and 1657, Placidus di Titus, a Spanish monk, published a system of astrology, founded, to a great extent, upon Ptolemy's calculations. This work was printed in Latin and is called the Primum Mobile, or First Mover, and was translated by John Cooper in 1816; other translations have appeared, but his is the best among them.