t this fiction produced the division of the
week,[5] a thing so ancient and so universally received. Thus likewise
we reject as an idle figment the doctrine of horoscopes, and the
distribution of the houses, though these are the darling inventions of
astrology, which have kept revel, as it were, in the heavens. And
lastly, for the calculation of nativities, fortunes, good or bad hours
of business, and the like fatalities, they are mere levities, that have
little in them of certainty and solidity, and may be plainly confuted by
physical reasons. But here we judge it proper to lay down some rules for
the examination of astrological matters, in order to retain what is
useful therein, and reject what is insignificant. Thus, 1. Let the
greater revolutions be retained, but the lesser, of horoscopes and
houses, be rejected--the former being like ordnance which shoot to a
great distance, whilst the other are but like small bows, that do no
execution. 2. The celestial operations affect not all kinds of bodies,
but only the more sensible, as humours, air, and spirits. 3. All the
celestial operations rather extend 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 instantaneously, and in a
narrow compass, but exert them in large portions of time and space. Thus
predictions as to the temperature 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 improved, 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 require a fuller explanation. So that, upon the whole, we
must register as needed,[6] an astrology written in conformity with
these principles, under the name of _Astrologia Sana_.'

He then proceeds to show what this just astrology should comprehend--as,
1, the doctrine of the commixture of rays; 2, the effect of nearest
approaches and farthest removes of planets to and from the point
overhead (the planets, like the sun, having their summer and winter); 3,
t