ASTROLOGY PTOLEMY MODERN SCIENCE.

SEEING FROM THE END OF THE PLANET EARTH IN ANCIENT PERIOD

ASTROLOGY PTOLEMY MODERN SCIENCE.
¬Astrology seems to have made no progress since the
days of Claudius Ptolemaeus, who wrote nearly two
thousand years ago, and his "Tetrabiblos" is undoubt-
edly the best text-book on the subject existing today.
Modern astrologers, notably Kepler, have introduced
some changes, and made large claims, which Ptolemy
did not venture to do. He said specifically that the
science of astrology does not enable any man to predict
particular events, and there are certain things which no
rational man would think of foretelling. His method of
prediction was precisely that of the modern doctor, who
says that a disease will run a certain length of time, that
a certain constitution must have care or it will break
down, that from external appearances one man should
make a good blacksmith, another a good orator, and
so forth. The positions of the stars help us to analyze
more subtle physical conditions, not subject to external
observation. But the whole ground of prediction is
simply a knowledge of the physical, mental and moral
condition of a human being from birth. If we know
that the germs of hereditary consumption exist in a
child from birth, we can predict that he will die of the
disease, and may judge the time with tolerable accuracy.
And if we know the mode of crystallization, we have as
it were a chart of latent germs.