The position of Astrology among the Sciences is quite unique. Its
origin is so remote as to antecede all written records: it has formed
an important part of the life of every nation that has advanced beyond
barbarism: it has been studied with enthusiasm not only by every
European nation, but also by the Egyptians, the natives of India,
the Chinese, the Arabs, the Jews, and by the Babylonians and the
Chaldeans. It was studied in one long unbroken effort for thousands
of years, and engaged the most strenuous endeavours of some of the
greatest intellects in every age. Albertus Magnus was a convinced
astrologer, and even Roger Bacon, that very great man, projected a
universal medicine founded upon Astrology. A knowledge of Astrology was
a necessary part of the equipment of all educated men; and Astrological
terms form to this day an integral part of every European language. We
still _consider_; we still find persons and things _in opposition_;
we still suffer _disaster_; we still find some things _exorbitant_;
and others in the _ascendent_; some persons are still fortunate enough
to be born _under a lucky star_; we still deal in _merchandise_; with
_merchants_; we are all familiar with the _martial_ cloak of Sir J.
Moore; we still describe dispositions and persons as _Saturnine_,
_Jovial_, _Martial_ or _Mercurial_; we still retain the names of
_Saturday_, _Sunday_ and _Monday_; in Medicine we retain the terms
_Lunatic_ and _Venereal disease_, and in the latter we still prescribe
_Mercury_; and we still begin our prescriptions with the sign of
_Jupiter_.
Yet these are the only remaining remnants of a science and an art that
were once of paramount importance; and even medical men are ignorant of
the very terminology of a science and an art that have been declared,
by authority after authority, to be so necessary to the proper practice
of medicine, that without them medicine could not be efficiently
practised, and no medical practitioner was fully equipped for his task.
Astrology is now utterly extinct. It began to decay at the renaissance;
it languished in the seventeenth century; the last man of high
distinction who practised it in this country was John Dryden[1]; but
though Peter Woulfe, a F.R.S., maintained the truth of Astrology at
the beginning of the nineteenth century, it had really expired when it
received its deathblow from the biting humour of Jonathan Swift. Yet
when Walter Scott, less than a century afterwards, introduced into one
of his novels the terms of the art, there was no one then living, nor
has there been since any commentator of sufficient knowledge, to expose
the blunders that he made.
[Footnote 1: In a letter to his sons John and Charles, dated Sept. 3,
1697, Dryden says ‘Towards the latter end of this month, September,
Charles will begin to recover his perfect health according to his
nativity, which, casting it myself, I am sure is true, and all things
hitherto have happened according to the very time that I predicted
them.’ See also the Preface to his Fables, and the lines
The utmost malice of the stars is past—
Now frequent trines the happier lights among,
And high raised Jove, from his dark prison freed,
Those weights took off that on his planet hung,
Will gloriously the new-laid works succeed.
]
To such a record there is no parallel in the history of human
endeavour. There are indeed two subjects of study that afford an
approximation, but an approximation only, to the history of Astrology.
The first of these is Alchemy, which really included what we now call
Chemistry, and is therefore very far from extinct. Alchemy is usually,
however, understood to mean solely, what it did in fact include as its
principal objects, the search for the philosopher’s stone, and the
search for the elixir of life. The philosopher’s stone was desired, not
as an end in itself, but as a means to the transmutation of metals,
which were not then known to be elements. I need not remind this
audience that this endeavour, which has been the object for the finger
of scorn for so many years, is now almost within sight of success.
Certain elements are now transmuted, or transmute themselves; and one
at least of the metals known to the ancient Alchemists is now made
in the laboratory. Nor need I remind you that one eminent physician
discovered, a few years ago, the elixir of life in orchidian extract;
while another has still more recently made the surprising discovery
that the elixir of life is neither more nor less than sour milk. He
was more fortunate than a predecessor, who first isolated alcohol, and
having drunk freely of the newly discovered elixir of life, died, by
the irony of fate, of acute alcoholic poisoning.
A nearer parallel to the fate of Astrology is to be found in that of
Aristotelian Logic; but the parallel is still not quite complete. It
is true that Logic was once cultivated with the same universality and
the same fervour as Astrology; that it was aforetime, like Astrology,
a necessary part of the equipment of every man who pretended to be
educated; and that it is now fallen into neglect and contempt that
are well-nigh as universal as its former cultivation; but, unlike
Astrology, Logic is not yet quite extinct. It is dying, indeed: it
is in the very agony of death; but it still breathes. The lamp of
Astrology is utterly gone out, but the expiring flame of Logic still
flickers precariously in some of the dark places of the earth. We might
still find, by diligent search, professors who know the meaning of
Barbara and Celarent, of Bocardo and Baralipton, and can even subject
them to the orthodox manipulations of logical art; but who now knows
the meaning of a triplicity or a horoscope? or could cast a geniture,
or rectify a nativity? Logic is moribund, it is true, but Astrology
is already dead. It has been dead so long that it no longer stinks;
perhaps because it is embalmed in the writings of so many men that
were eminent in their day. We have even forgotten how conspicuous
and important a position it occupied among the sciences, the arts,
and the crafts of our forefathers; and it is because the long sleep
of medicine, its stagnation and want of progress through so many
centuries, was due in no small degree to the shackles of Astrology,
and of the humoral pathology, which Astrology countenanced and
corroborated, that I think it seemly and proper to bring before this
College the elementary principles of Astrology, and the ways in which
they were applied to medicine.
Astrology had a known history of nearly six thousand years. Its
beginning seems to have been in Chaldea about 4000 B.C.: it was
diffused throughout all nations and peoples that had any pretence to
civilisation; and it engaged, throughout that immense time and that
enormous area, the attention of innumerable votaries, among whom were
some of the greatest intellects that have adorned the human race. It
had consequently attained to a degree of elaboration and complexity
which renders it difficult to give, within any reasonable compass,
a clear account of its voluminous details, expressed as they are in
highly technical terminology, and conveyed in Latin so canine and so
extraordinarily abbreviated as to be obscure, often to the point of
unintelligibility. In preparing the account that I shall give, I have
had the advantage of appealing on different points, to a Latin scholar
of rare attainments, to a Professor of Astronomy, and to a Professor of
Ancient History, and I rejoice to say that one and all have been unable
to solve some of the problems that had puzzled myself. Where such solar
luminaries have failed to illuminate, it is no disgrace to my farthing
candle if it gives no light.
The main factors in Astrology are three:—the Signs of the Zodiac, the
Seven Planets, and the Houses of Heaven[2].
[Footnote 2: A House has two meanings in Astrology. It may mean a
twelfth part of the heavens, as will be shown presently, or it may mean
a Sign of the Zodiac specifically appropriated to a particular Planet,
which is its Lord.]
In Medical Astrology there is yet another factor, which is equally
important, and without which Medical Astrology cannot be understood.
This factor consists of the four Elementary Qualities, Heat, Cold,
Dryness and Moisture; which correspond with the four elements, Fire,
Earth, Air and Water; with the four humours, Yellow Bile, Black Bile,
Blood and Phlegm; and with many other things.
Since there are twelve Signs of the Zodiac, Seven Planets, and twelve
Houses of Heaven, it will be easily seen that the merely numerical
combinations of any one of these with the others are indefinitely
multitudinous; and when it is known that each may be combined with
the others in many different ways, the complications become too great
for the human intellect to follow; and since many of the combinations
depend on considerations that are both vague and arbitrary, it is not
surprising that scarcely any two Astrologers should combine them in the
same way, or draw the same conclusions from the same disposition of the
heavens.
Every Sign of the Zodiac, every Planet, and every House has certain
special powers and influence, not only over mankind generally, but
specially over individual men and women, according to the moment
of their birth, according to their complexion, disposition and
temperament, according to the place in which they live, and so forth;
and in addition, every Sign, Planet, and House has special powers at
certain times of life, and every Sign and Planet has its own elementary
qualities, as hot and dry, cold and moist, and so forth, and has
special power over some part of the body and some faculty of mind.
Moreover, these powers, both general and special, are reinforced or
diminished in so many ways that the memory can scarcely retain them;
and since neither the reinforcement nor the diminution is susceptible
of any exact computation, the result, even if all were to be allowed
their proper weight, must always be dubious.