SIGNS INCONJUNCT
All signs, between which there does not exist any familiarity in any of
the modes above specified, are inconjunct and separated.
For instance, all signs are inconjunct which are neither commanding
nor obeying, and not beholding each other nor of equal power, as well
as all signs which contain between them the space of one sign only,
or the space of five signs, and which do not at all share in any of
the four prescribed configurations: viz. the opposition, the trine,
the quartile, and the sextile. All parts which are distant from each
other in the space of one sign only are considered inconjunct, because
they are averted, as it were, from each other; and because, although
the said space between them may extend into two signs, the whole only
contains an angle equal to that of one sign: all parts distant from
each other in the space of five signs are also considered inconjunct,
because they divide the whole circle into unequal parts; whereas the
spaces contained in the configurations above mentioned, viz. the
opposition, trine, quartile, and sextile, produce aliquot divisions.[47]
[47] It has never been very clearly shown how the followers of Ptolemy
have reconciled the new aspects (called the semiquadrate, quintile,
sesquiquadrate, biquintile, &c.) with the _veto_ pronounced in this
chapter. Kepler is said to have invented them, and they have been
universally adopted; even Placidus, who has applied Ptolemy’s doctrine
to practice better than any other writer, has availed himself of them,†
and, if the nativities published by him are to be credited, he has
fully established their importance.
Salmon, in his “Horæ Mathematicæ,” before-mentioned, gives a long
dissertation (from p. 403 to p. 414) on the old Ptolemaic aspects,
illustrative of their foundation in nature and in mathematics; and,
although his conclusions are not quite satisfactorily drawn, some of
his arguments would seem appropriate, if he had but handled them more
fully and expertly; particularly where he says that the aspects are
derived “from the aliquot parts of a circle, wherein observe that,
although the zodiac may have many more aliquot parts than these four
(the sextile, quartile, trine, and opposition), yet those other aliquot
parts of the circle, or 360 degrees, will not make an aliquot division
of the signs also, which in this design was sought to answer, as well
in the number 12, as in the number 360.” The passage in which he
endeavours to show that they are authorized by their projection, also
deserves attention.
All Salmon’s arguments, however, in support of the old Ptolemaic
aspects, militate against the new Keplerian ones; and so does the
following extract from the “Astrological Discourse” of Sir Christopher
Heydon: “For thus, amongst all ordinate planes that may be inscribed,
there are two whose sides, joined together, have pre-eminence to take
up a semicircle, but only the hexagon, quadrate, and equilateral
triangle, answering to the sextile, quartile, and trine irradiated.
The subtense, therefore, of a sextile aspect consisteth of two signs,
which, joined to the subtense of a trine, composed of four, being
regular and equilateral, take up six signs, which is a complete
semicircle. In like manner, the sides of a quadrate inscribed,
subtending three signs, twice reckoned, do occupy likewise the mediety
of a circle. And what those figures are before said to perform” (that
is, to take up a semicircle) “either doubled or joined together, may
also be truly ascribed unto the opposite aspect by itself; for that
the diametral line, which passeth from the place of conjunction to
the opposite point, divideth a circle into two equal parts: the like
whereof cannot be found in any other inscripts; for example, the _side
of a regular pentagon_” (the quintile) “_subtendeth 72 degrees, of
an octagon_” (the semiquadrate) “_but 45; the remainders of which
arcs, viz. 108 and 135 degrees, are not subtended by the sides of any
ordinate figure_.”
†Except the semiquadrate, which he has not at all noticed.