Tratado 28 (IV, 4, 39) – ASTROLOGICAL SIGNS ARE ONLY CONCATENATIONS FROM UNIVERSAL REASON (Guthrie)

ASTROLOGICAL SIGNS ARE ONLY CONCATENATIONS FROM UNIVERSAL REASON.

39. Since all things are always co-ordinated in the universe, and since all trend to one single and identical aim, it is not surprising that all (events) are indicated by (astrological) signs. “Virtue has no master,” as Plato said; she attaches herself to all who honor her, and abandons those who neglect her; God is innocent.” Nevertheless, her works are bound up with the universal order; for all that is here below depends on a divine and superior principle, and even the universe participates therein. Thus all that happens in the universe is caused not only by the (“seminal) reasons,” but by reasons of a higher order, far superior to those (that is, the ideas). Indeed, the seminal reasons contain the reasons of nothing produced outside of seminal reasons, neither of what is derived from matter, nor from the actions of begotten things exercised on each other. The Reason of the universe resembles a legislator who should establish order in a city. The latter, knowing the probable actions of the citizens, and what motives they would probably obey, regulates his institutions thereupon, intimately connects his laws with the conduct of the individuals subject to them, establishes rewards and punishments for their deeds, so that automatically all things conspire in mutual harmony by an inerrant current. Each therefore is indicated by (astrological) signs, without this indication being an essential purpose of nature; it is only the result of their concatenation. As all these things form but a single one, each of them is known by another, the cause by the effect, the consequent by the antecedent, the compound by its elements.

THE GODS CANNOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR ILLS.

The above consideration would clear up the problem set above. The gods (that is, the stars), cannot be held responsible for our ills because, 1. things produced by the gods do not result from a free choice, but from a natural necessity; because, as parts of the universe, the gods act on other parts of the universe, and contribute to the life of the universal organism. 2. Terrestrial beings themselves add very much to the things that are derived from the stars; 3. the things given us by the stars are not evil, but are altered by being mingled; 4. the life of the universe is not regulated (in advance) for the individual, but only for the totality; 5. matter does not experience modifications completely corresponding to the impressions it receives, and cannot entirely submit to the form given to it.