rim OCCULT SCIENCES. 



But, to draw any kind of horoscope, the first step was to observe with grout 

 care what planets or constellations were dominant in the sky at the precise 

 hour when the operation began. The next step was to examine, with the 

 guidance of very complicated calculations, the consequences to be deduced 

 from the positions and conjunctions of the stars (Fig. 155). The most 

 difficult part of the science consisted in determining the houses of the Suns and 

 their respective properties. The day was divided into four equal parts : the 

 ascendant of the sun, the middle of the sky, the descending of the sun, and 

 the lower part of the sky. " These four parts of the day were subdivided 

 into twelve distinct parts, which were called the ticelre homes. Great 

 importance was therefore attached, in drawing a horoscope, to ascertaining in 



Fig. 155. Specimen of a Genethliac, or Astrological Horoscope, composed in the Sixteenth 



Century. 



which house the stars appeared, especially as these houses of the sun varied 

 astronomically, according to the countries, the time of year, and the hour of 

 the day or night. This is why two horoscopes, drawn by two different 

 wtrologers at different places, but at the same moment, would be utterly 

 opposed to one another. But these facts were not taken into account, and the 

 errors and inconsistencies which were always occurring were imputed to the 

 astrologers, and not to astrology, which was never suspected until, disen- 

 cumbered of all these superstitious follies, it entered the domain of the exact 

 sciences through its fusion with astronomy. 



If men sought to interpret the future by means of the sky, just as they 

 had sought to forecast their individual destiny by means of their own dreams, 



