Legend
< Requem (continued from page 8-219) >
which they may raise and unite themselves, controlling by its sovereignty the inferior regions of their microcosm. The true human will, when found, proves always to be one with the Divine order, standing far above the necessities of Nature, which it may control or with which it has no concern. It is better, surely, to recognise and define the limits of necessity than to go on confounding the real with the apparent or phenomenal life, ignoring all in the latter which we feel to be inconsistent with the former. The operations of Providence, the efficacy of prayer, and the potency of the magical will are all saved by this distinction, since these belong to the higher region of spirit, which has sovereign authority over the lower order. The highest religious interests of man have nothing to fear from astrology, which, through its greatest adepts, has always reverently and rationally acknowledged them.
Even for those who desire only to obtain a general knowledge of the subject, or at most to be able to erect and read an astrological figure, Mr. Pearce’s book may be recommended as easily intelligible, and containing much interesting matter besides the processes that will be chiefly useful to the student whose aims are more ambitious. To the latter it is invaluable. The author is well known as the friend and pupil for many years of the late Capt. Morrison, the renowned “Zadkiel.” But this work, the fruit of prolonged study and experience, is undoubtedly a great advance upon the “Grammar” of the master, which has so long been the text-book of students. Indeed, if Mr. Pearce’s second volume, which will be devoted to horary and state astrology, is equal in merit to that now published, which is confined to genethlialogy, there are but few other works on the subject of at all equal magnitude and pretension which can be pronounced still indispensable to the astrologer’s library. Mr. Pearce gives a list of these.* One pf them, Wilson’s “Dictionary of Astrology,” must always remain in high estimation as a book of reference: it is difficult to obtain and ought to be republished. Wilson did much to purify the science from adventitious absurdities and corruptions, and in this he is followed by Mr. Pearce with critical discrimination; for the work of the latter is eclectic, adopting the best conclusions, according to the light of his independent judgment and experience, from many authors It is enriched with many interesting notices of nativities, illustrating the different rules and doctrines of the science. There is-something like a real attempt at inductive verification in the many cases he gives us, with the view of justifying some of Ptolemy’s teachings from the doubts that have been thrown upon them. Such are those showing the astrological “affliction” of the sun or moon at birth, followed by the death, within a few years, of the father or mother. If astrological indications were invariably associated with the events alleged to be denoted, or so frequent as to be out of all proportion to the expectation resulting from the calculation of chances, the pretensions of the science would be established beyond possibility of doubt or cavil. But Mr. Pearce has apparently given us only selected cases, and it would be necessary to know what proportion these bear to others in his experience which are not accordant, before deciding on the significance due to them. Mr. Pearce respects authority, but never defers to it without evidence; and to much of modern practice he is so decidedly adverse that it is possible his work may encounter opposition from many who believe that methods he rejects are sanctioned by their own experience. It is to the confusion of the doctrine of nativities with horary astrology that he ascribes much of the discredit into which the science has fallen. Horary astrology is said to be merely symbolical, whereas the more dignified branch of the science deals with real causes. As to both of these propositions we should like to know a little more upon principle and from experience before deciding. Wilson, Zadkiel, and Mr. Pearce, agree in scepticism as to the significance of the “Houses” (except the “Angles”) in nativities: and this is a very important question, because to these mundane divisions are respectively appropriated the different affairs and relations of life. According to Mr. Pearce, such considerations are only proper in Horary Astrology, as a system of Divination, in which nothing is professed to be known of the true causes of events. Experience must decide; but it seems antecedently probable that the principles of horary astrology are not arbitrary, but have some natural relation to those which should govern the judgment of nativities.
To the practical student there is perhaps no more conclusive proof of astral and zodiacal influence than that afforded by the conformity in type, of personal appearance, and manners to the descriptions given by astrologers from the earliest times, as appropriate to the several signs and planets’ rising or ruling. We can certainly classify people physiognomic ally, and were the attention of a Lavater turned to astrology he would probably be able to tell at a glance in most cases under what sign and planetary positions a man was born. To ordinary judgment and experience this is only possible when the physical characteristics are extremely marked and decided, the prevailing influences being often as complicated as there are diversities of face and figure even within the same typo. But sometimes the appearance is such as to authorise a confident judgment of the ascending sign† It rarely happens, however, that the aspect of the heavens in a nativity or a “question” presents such clear and consistent testimonies as to make the application of the rules of the astrologer other than a very difficult exercise of his fallible judgment. To one who has learned, not to master, but to appreciate the complexity of the subject, the wonder is that professional astrologers succeed so often as they do, not that they so often fail.
Mr. Pearce’s book is a sufficient refutation of the notion that astrology, in these days, is addressed to the uneducated classes. The mathematical processes required for astrological computations are not, it is true, very abstruse, but to suppose a wholly ignorant person being at all attracted to the subject by the practical part of the volume before us provokes a smile. Mr. Pearce assumes all his pupils to be able to work by logarithms, and does not condescend to repeat the formulas given by Wilson and Zadkiel, involving more labour, but likely to be more commonly intelligible. But, in other respects, the student will find facilities for working now for the first time afforded him. Those who have frequently undergone the exasperating drudgery of computing proportions of Ascensional Difference will welcome the table on the last page of this book as a real relief. The appendix contains other rules and information important to the beginner, and not to be found in earlier treatises. The arrangement of the tables of houses for London and Liverpool is also an improvement. It is, however, a pity that no tables for Scotland or Ireland are inserted; and it is to be hoped that these will be added in a future edition.
Criticism of Mr. Pearce’s methods of directing would be out of place, addressed to non-astrological readers, even if the present writer were at all competent to venture on it. More theoretical amplitude in this part of the book might, perhaps, have been expected, and would certainly have been acceptable from one who must have meditated on the foundations of the science so long and so deeply as the author. At least we might have looked for some explanation beyond the two lines which introduce to us directions so apparently paradoxical as the “converse zodiacal.” Mr. Pearce is not the inventor of these, but they do not appear in the more ancient authorities, and Wilson and Zadkiel are silent with regard to them. If defensible on the ground of experience, there is nothing to be objected to them but the name. All converse directions are mundane, and refer to the rotation of the earth, whereas zodiacal directions imply motions in the zodiac, which cannot be “converse,” except when retrograde.
There is some danger of astrologers directing according to imaginary motions in their search for appropriate “arcs.” The multiplicity of “directions” tends rather to impair the evidence of their effects than to strengthen it. So many minor aspects (to which, yet, the most important effects are often ascribed) have been added to those recognised by Ptolemy as to suggest that modern professors have provided themselves with rather too many chances of being right—<... continues on page 8-221 >
* The reviewer would add a recommendation of the little hand-book published by “Raphael” last year, to which he has been indebted in his early studies, though doubtless it contains seme heresies, if we are to take Mr. Pearce’s principles as the standard of astrological orthodoxy.
† Even the present writer has occasionally succeeded in this. In one instance the test was especially opportune, as afforded in the person of a friend whose raillery on the subject he was at the moment undergoing. The chances against success as mere “coincidence” were about nine to one.