88 BACON 



ture of a year may hold good, but not with regard to single days. 

 5. There is no fatal necessity in the stars ; and this the more pru- 

 dent astrologers have constantly allowed. 6. We will add one 

 thing more, which, if amended and improved, might make for 

 astrology, viz., that we are certain the celestial bodies have other 

 influences besides heat and light, but these influences act not 

 otherwise than by the foregoing rules, though they lie so deep 

 in physics as to require a fuller explanation. So that, upon the 

 whole, we must register as defective an astrology wrote in con- 

 formity to these principles, under the name of Astrologia Sana. 

 This just astrology should contain i. The doctrine of the 

 commixture of rays, viz., the conjunctions, oppositions, and 

 other situations, or aspect of the planets with regard to one an- 

 other, their transits through the signs of the zodiac, and their 

 situation in the same signs, as the situation of planets in a sign 

 is a certain conjunction thereof with the stars of that sign ; and 

 as the conjunctions, so likewise should the oppositions and other 

 aspects of the planets, with regard to the celestial signs, be re- 

 marked, which has not hitherto been fully done. The commix- 

 tures of the rays of the fixed stars with one another are of use in 

 contemplating the fabric of the world, and the nature of the sub- 

 jacent regions, but in no respect for predictions, because at all 

 times alike. 2. This astrology should take in the nearest ap- 

 proaches and the farthest removes of each planet to and from 

 the zenith, according to the climate ; for all the planets have 

 their summer and winter, wherein they dart their rays stronger 

 or weaker, according to their perpendicular or oblique direction. 

 So we question not but the moon in Leo has, in the same man- 

 ner as the sun, a greater effect upon natural bodies with us than 

 when in Pisces, not because the moon in Leo moves the head, 

 and under Pisces affects the feet, but by reason of her greater 

 perpendicular elevation and nearer approach to the larger stars. 

 3. It should receive the apogees and perigees of the planets, 

 with a proper inquiry into what the vigor of the planets may 

 perform of itself, and what through their nearness to us ; for 

 a planet is more brisk in its apogee, but more communicative 

 in its perigee. 4. It should include all the other accidents of 

 the planets' motions, their accelerations, retardations, courses, 

 stations, retrogradations, distances from the sun, increase and 

 diminutions of light, eclipses, etc. For all these things affect 

 the rays of the planets, and cause them to act either weaker, 



