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From the earliest ages of the world’s history the subject of Astrology has excited the interest of, and exercised a great influence over, the minds of a certain order of thinking men. The science has never been universal in its acceptance, though it is safe to say that, with its countless adherents in the East and the ever-increasing number of its advocates in the West, there is no faith which has a more universal application than the belief in the influence of the heavenly bodies over the destinies of human beings. It is not possible within the limits of a small handbook such as this to adequately consider the philosophic paradox which makes of Freewill in man a “necessity in play”; but it is obvious that the concept is not altogether unscientific, seeing that it is customary to speak of the “free path of vibration” in chemical atoms while at the same time it is known that these atoms have their restricted characteristics, modes of motion, &c., and are all subject to the general laws controlling the bodies of which they form integral parts. Let it suffice that if we can trace an actual connectedness between the disposition of the heavenly bodies at the moment of a birth and the known life and character of the individual then born, and an exact correspondence between the course of events in that life with the changes occurring in the heavens subsequent to the moment of birth, we shall do well to accept the fact for what it is worth, and arrange our philosophic notions accordingly.

As far back as the year B.C. 2154, we find mention of the great importance attaching to the celestial phenomena in the minds of Chinese rulers. It is recorded in the Historical Classic of China that at that time the astrologers Hi and Ho neglected their duties so that when, on the 10th of October, there was a great eclipse of the Sun at Peking between seven and nine o’clock in the morning, the people were wholly unprepared for it, and “ran about here and there in the utmost consternation.” For this offence Hi and Ho were deprived of their offices, their estates were confiscated and they were driven from the kingdom. Among the Hindus we have the classical writers Garga, Parashara, and Mihira, together with their legions of commentators. The Assyrian records are full of astrological allusions regarding the influence of planetary conjunctions and stellar positions. The Greek mythology is nothing but a vast system of cosmographical astrology, and there is no other history in it than what you may read in the constellations of the heavens and the corresponding evolution of the human race. Aristotle made it a part of his philosophy. Hipparchus, Hippocrates, Thales, Galenius, and others subscribed an intelligent belief in its principles. To Claudius Ptolemy, however, we are indebted for the first concise and scientific statement of its principles and practice, so far as Europe is concerned. He wrote the Tetrabiblos, or Four Books, and laid the foundations of a true astrological science. Julius Firmicus confirmed Ptolemy and enlarged upon his observations. The subsequent discovery of the planets Uranus and Neptune by Herschel and Adams, widened the field of research and gave to later astrologers the clue to much that hitherto had been imperfectly understood. Not that these discoveries overturned the whole system of astrology, as some have imagined and foolishly stated, or that they negatived the conclusions drawn from the observed effects of the seven anciently known bodies of the solar system, but it became possible after a lapse of time to fill in the blank spaces and to account for certain events which had not been traced to the action of any of the already known planets. The discovery of argon did not destroy our conclusions regarding the nature and characteristics of oxygen or hydrogen or nitrogen, nor give an entirely new meaning to the word “atmosphere.” If even so many as seven new planets should be discovered, there would yet not be a single paragraph of this book which would need revising. What is known regarding planetary action in human life is known with great certainty, and the effects of one planet can never be confounded with those of another. Incomplete as it must needs be, it is yet a veritable science both as to its principles and practice. It claims for itself a place among the sciences for the sole reason that it is capable of mathematical demonstration, and deals only with the observed positions and motions of the heavenly bodies; and the man who holds to the principia of Newton, the solidarity of the solar system, the interaction of the planetary bodies and their consequent electrostatic effects upon the Earth, cannot, while subject to the air he breathes, deny the foundation principles of astrology. The application of these principles to the facts of everyday life is solely a matter of prolonged research and tabulation upon an elaborate scale which has been going on for thousands of years in all parts of the world, so that all the reader has to do is to make his own horoscope and put the science to the test of true or false. The present writer is in a position to know that the study of astrology at the present day is no less sincere than widely spread, but few care to let their studies be known, for, as Prof. F. Max Müller recently said, “So great is the ignorance which confounds a science requiring the highest education, with that of the ordinary gipsy fortune-teller.” That to which the great Kepler was compelled “by his unfailing experience of the course of events in harmony with the changes taking place in the heavens,” to subscribe “an unwilling belief,” the science which was practised and advocated by Tycho Brahe under all assaults of fortune and adverse opinion, the art that arrested the attention of the young Newton and set him pondering upon the problems of force and matter, which fascinated the minds of such men as Francis Bacon, Archbishop Usher, Haley, Sir George Witchell, Flamstead, and a host of others, is to-day the favourite theme of thousands of intelligent minds and bids fair to become a subject of popular inquiry.

It is believed that the present work will be of considerable assistance to those who seriously contemplate an initial study of the science of horoscopy, and although it by no means exhausts what is known on the subject, yet it will be found accurate and reliable as far as it goes, and will enable any one of ordinary intelligence to test the claims of Astrology for himself. This is as much as can be expected in the limits of a small handbook. The literature of the subject is considerable, and the present writer only takes credit to himself so far as his own wide experience and practice have enabled him to present the subject in a simple and brief manner.