Proem

[p. 104] In the preceding pages, such events as affect the world generally have been discussed in priority; because they are operated by certain principal and paramount causes, which are, at the same time, predominant over particular and minor events applicable only to the separate properties and natural peculiarities of individuals. The foreknowledge of these particular events is called Genethlialogy, or the science of Nativities.

It must be remembered that the causation, by which all effects, whether general or particular, are produced and foreknown, is essentially one and the same; for the motions of the planets, and of the Sun and Moon, present the operative causation of events which happen to any individual, as well as of those which happen generally; and the foreknowledge of both may be obtained by the same accurate observation of the distinct natures of the several creatures and substances, subjected to the influence of the heavenly bodies, and by due attention to the changes produced in those natures, by the configurations displayed in the Ambient by the planetary motion.

Still, however, the causes of general events are greater and more complete than those of particular events; and, although it has been now stated, that one single identical power supplies both the causation and the foreknowledge of general as well as particular events, yet there does not belong to the two sorts of events a similar origin or beginning, at which observation of the cœlestial configurations must be made, for prognostication. In regard to general events, the dates of origin and commencement are many and various; for all general events cannot be traced to one origin, neither is their origin always considered by means of the matter subjected to their operation, for it may be also established by circumstances occurring in the Ambient and presenting the causation. It may, in fact, almost be said that they all originate in eminent eclipses of the Luminaries, and in remarkable transits made by the stars, at various times.

[p. 105] Particular events, however, which concern men individually, may be traced to one origin, single as well as manifold. Their origin is single, in respect to the primary composition of the nascent man; but it is also manifold, in respect to other circumstances subsequently indicated by dispositions in the Ambient, correlative to the primary origin. In all particular events, the origin, or birth, of the subjected matter itself, must of course be the primary origin; and, in succession thereto, the various beginnings of other subsequent circumstances are to be assumed. Hence, therefore, at the origin of the subjected matter, all the properties and peculiarities of its contemperament must be observed; and then the subsequent events, which will happen at certain periods, sooner or later, are to be considered by means of the division of time, or the scale of the ensuing years^*.