As to the difference found in the figures formed by the stars, it
could not be other than it is, because the stars do not advance in
their course with equal swiftness. As they move according to the laws
of reason, and as their relative positions constitute the different
attitudes of this great organism (which is the world), and as all the
things that occur here below are, by the laws of sympathy related
to those that occur on high, it would be proper to inquire whether
terrestrial things are the consequences of the celestial things to
which they are similar, or whether the figures possess an efficacious
power; and in the latter case, whether all figures possess this power,
or if figures are formed by stars only; for the same figure does not
bear the same significance, and does not exert the same action in
different things, because each being seems to have its own proper
nature. It may be said that the configuration of certain things
amounts to no more than the mere disposition of things; and that the
configuration of other things is the same disposition with another
figure. If so, influence should be attributed not to the figures, but
to the prefigured realities; or rather, to things identical by their
essence, and different by their figures; a different influence will
also have to be attributed to the object which differs from the others
only by the place it occupies.