Who built their Judgement on Dr Tradition and not upon the Sound Principles of Dr Reason.

 

Chapter II.

The way to find out the critical days, as also the decumbiture, both by ancient and modern writers.

Ancient physicians, because they were ignorant of the motion of the Moon, though not of her operation as many of our modern are, made their account by number of days, and in so doing erred egregiously. And although Duret my author quotes their opinions, I hold it not worth time to recite men's failings; but of the certain term or time when the critical days begin, I shall quote these few words.

When any notable disease comes, if you would discern whether it tends to health, death, mutation or continuance, it is necessary that you being at the first punct of time of the invasion of the disease. This Galen says is very hard if not impossible to find; 'tis taken pro confesso that it may be easily known when a man takes his bed in his sickness, but when the beginning of the sickness is, that's the question. For a lusty stout man bears the disease longer, and is longer before he takes his bed than a puny weakly sickly man is; a mere suspicion of a sickness will send a faint-hearted man to bed; you may persuade him he is sick, whether he be or no.

Notwithstanding, this is most certain: that in most acute diseases, as also in many other diseases as the falling sickness, plasies, apoplexies, pluresies, &c. 'tis an easy thing to find out the beginning or the precise time of the invasion of the disease.

The common opinion of such as are learned in astrology is, and according to their opinion I affirm, that that moment of time is to be taken for the beginning of the disease, in which a man finds a manifest pain or hurt in his body. For instance, when a man has got a fever, usually the head aches certain days before; this is not the fever, but a messenger or forerunner of the fever. The true beginning of the fever is when the disease appears sensibly, or when a horror or trembling invades the sick as does usually in the beginning of fever; that is the beginning of the disease, when the disease appears manifest to sense, And this was the judgement of Hippocrates, one of the honestest of physicians, and you shall find this always that the more acute the disease is, the more manifest the beginning of it is to sense, yea, so manifest that it is almost impossible that the beginning should lie hid from anyone that wants reason, if he have but sense. 

Chapter III.

Of the sympathy and antipathy of the signs and planets.

Before we come to prognostic, we must know that there is a sympathy between celestial and terrestrial bodies, which will easily appear if we consider that the whole creation is one entire and united body composed by the power of an all-wise God of a composition of discords.

Also, there is friendship and hatred between one sign of the Zodiac and another, for fiery signs are contrary to watery, and nocturnal to diurnal &c.

The planets are also friendly and inimical one to another, but in their friendship and enmity, whatever the matter is, I cannot agree neither with ancient nor modern writers; and when I cannot do so, I'll fly to Dr Reason for advice. They hold Mars and Venus to be friends, and what their opinion is of all the rest you may find by Mr Lilly's introduction. My own opinion, grounded upon reason, is this that there are two causes of friendship and enmity between planets, essential and accidental.

Planets are essentially inimical three ways:

First, when their houses or exaltations are opposite one to the other; and so Saturn is an enemy to both luminaries, Jupiter to Mercury, and e contra Mars to Venus.

Second, planets are inimical one to the other when their temperatures or qualities are opposite; and so Jupiter is an enemy to Saturn, he being hot and moist, Saturn cold and dry. So Mars is enemy to Venus, he being hot and dry, she cold and moist.

Third, planets are inimical when their conditions differ; so, there is enmity between Sol and Saturn, for one loves the court and the other the country; Jupiter is enemy to Mars, for he loves peace and justice, Mars violence and oppression; Mars is enemy to Venus, for he rejoices in the field, she in the bed; he loves to be public, she plays least in sight. And thus you see in every respect what a difficult thing it is to make Mars and Venus rationally friends.

Accidental inimicalness to planets is when they are in square or opposition &c. the one to the other; also, inimicalness must needs be in the signs, for if cold and heat, moisture and dryness be inconsistent together in one and the same place. As your eyes will tell you if you will but please to take a pail of water and throw it into the fire, then can they not be in one and the same place in the heavens. And if so, as is most true, then must signs be some cold, some hot and some moist, one sign must needs cherish one quality more than another; and seeing the first qualities are adverse the one to the other, there is a necessity that sometimes one must yield and sometimes overcome. And this is the reason of the corruption, generation and vicissitude of things.

Moreover, the Moon constituted in a sign commonly strikes upon the nature of the sign she is in, as if she be in a fiery sign, she stirs up choler &c.

Also, as every element has two qualities, so has every celestial sign; aerial signs are hot and moist, and earthly signs cold and dry; the fiery signs hot and dry, the watery signs cold and moist. And thus you see how the concords are made of discords, for airy signs are joined to fiery by heat, and to watery by moisture, and to earthly by coldness; the earthly are joined to the watery by coldness, and to the fiery by dryness, This is an old true maxim of philosophers, which I shall not at this time be captious against. 

Besides, the congress and configurature of the planets and fixed stars is diligently to be heeded; of these, some are obnoxious and hateful, a quartile and opposition, as also the conjunction of bad planets; others are healthy, as sextile and trine, and conjunction of good planets. And indeed, the chiefest part of astrology consists in the due observation of configurations, for by these come alterations in things below, either to better or worse according to the nature of the planets or stars that signify them; for when two stars are joined with, or aspected to one another, they seminate something in sublunary bodies, according to their own nature.

If dissension be between the stars, the sperm proves malicious and destructive and tumultuous, even as the opposition of winds, especially the north and south winds, produces thunder, lightning and pestilential vapours; and this we find never fails if the south wind prevails, and the Moon and Mercury behold one another.

Thus you see a reason, if you know but what a reason is or ever heard of such a thing, why diseases in the body of a man are either exasperated or remitted according to the good or evil meeting of the planets.

Of the aspects, opposition is the worst of all, not by any contrariety ir diversity of nature of the signs in which the oppositions fall out, but in respect of the planets themselves opposing, which being at greatest distance are most inimical, they being in a posture to outface one another, and this is the most principal cause of enmity. 

A quartile is inimical, because the stars so aspected be in signs of contrary nature, as Sol in Ares, Luna in Cancer, the aspect is hateful because Ares is hot and dry, Cancer cold and moist; Ares masculine, Cancer feminine; Ares diurnal, Cancer nocturnal.

And now by the leave of my author, and also great Ptolomy himself, and of all the sons of art this day living who built their judgement on Dr Tradition and not upon the sound principles of Dr Reason, if this be the original of the enmity of a square aspect, as is agreed upon on all sides. 

Then, why do they hold that a quartile in signs of long ascensions is equivalent to a trine, and a trine in signs of short ascensions as pernicious as a square? Put the rest of the nonsense into a bundle, and when you have done, look upon it a little while, and when you have viewed it a little, tell me I pray, does the longness or shortness of the ascensions add or take away anything from the quality of the signs?

Is not this the way, the only way to bring the art into a labyrinth, if not into a confusion? In truth, in my opinion it is. This I will confess, and give you my reason for it when I have done; one square is not so bad as another, as from Ares to Cancer is worse than from Cancer to Libra, because the signs Cancer and Libra are in better harmony as agreeing in passive qualities, namely moisture, whereas Ares and Cancer disagree totally. By this rule you may find out the rest. 

Also, this I affirm, and will prove it when I have done, that some semi-sextiles are worse than some quartiles; for Pisces is more inimical to Ares than to Capricorn, first because it is the twelfth sign from him, secondly disagrees more in qualities.

A sextile aspect is good because the signs which are in sextile the one to the other are both of the same active quality both of a sex, both of a time; for example, Ares and Gemini are both masculine, both diurnal; Taurus and Cancer are both cold, both feminine, both nocturnal, but because they differ all in passive qualities, it is not altogether so friendly as a trine aspect is, for that consists altogether of signs of the same nature, sex, quality and time, and are correspondent the one to the other every way.

A conjunction or synod is the strongest of all, and cannot properly be called an aspect. A conjunction of good planets with good is exceeding god, it is good in the highest degree; a conjunction of bad planets with bad planets is as bad as the former was good. A conjunction of good planets with bad is no ways commendable. I have now done, if you will be pleased but to take notice, that the conjunction of all planets with the Sun is bad, because the Sun, who gave them their efficacy, takes it away at such times. I could be critical at this, but I shall forbear it at this time.