130 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [BOOK 111 



are but like small bows, tliat do no execution. 2. The celes- 

 tial operations affect not all kinds of bodies, but only the 

 more sensible, as humours, air, and spirits."^ Here we except 

 the operations of the sun's heat, which may doubtless pene- 

 trate metals and other subterraneous bodies, and confine the 

 other operations chiefly to the air, the humours, and the 

 spirits of things. 3. All the celestial operations rather ex- 

 tend to masses of things than to individuals. Though they 

 may obliquely reach some individuals also, which are more 

 sensible than the rest, as a pestilent constitution of the air 

 affects those bodies which are least able to resist it. 4. All 

 the celestial operations produce not their effects instanta- 

 neously and in a narrow compass, but exert them in large 

 portions of time and space. Thus predictions as to the tem- 

 perature 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 prudent astrologers have constantly allowed. 

 6. We will add one thing more, which, if amended and im- 

 proved, 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 re- 

 quire a fuller explanation. So that, upon the whole, we 

 must register as defective an astrology wrote in conformity 

 to these principles, under the name of Astrologia Sana. 



This just astrology should contain, — 1. The doctrine of 

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

 and other situations, or aspect of the planets with regard to 

 one another, 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 remarked, which lias not hitherto 

 been fully done. The commixtures 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 subjac(3nt regions, but in 



"» But if celestial bodies act upon humours, air, and spirits, and 

 these in turn affect solid bodies, it follows that they also act on soli4 

 \xMXisi, Ed, 



