Prognostication for the Year 1491

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Dem Then/Therefore in truth it passes by. And it is certain for all nations of men that original: "nationibus .ra[ti]gnationes" corruptions, health-giving rains, and all harmful storms are moved by alterations of the heavens. Albumasar note: Abu Ma'shar, a renowned Persian astrologer asserts that the cause of these alterations are the sun, the moon, and the movements of the wandering stars original: "stellaūq[ue] erraticarū". From this, surely, the sins and lives of men fly. And whatever monsters [nature] sets under the marble sea. For since all that will happen stands ready from the properties of matter and the effect of the stars, and since it is drawn into each individual man: the substance is animal; the common [substance] is of the heart and brain. The singular substance of man is drawn from Mercury, with a participation of the senses and the tongue. To Saturn, the spleen; to Jupiter, the liver; and to Mars, the blood process is directed by the effect of the stars. What, then, could terrify a wise man, since these things are so? Or to follow the stars' custom, to observe the movements as they happen? For when the predecessor, through frequent experiments and most acute assertions of the philosophers, follows the accidents of the stars according to their natures, he has it as certain. Therefore, just as a physician, instructed first by sensible experiments and then having progressed to the properties of nature—this one hot, this one moist, etc.—assigns to this or that disease what is certain, so also the astrologer, likewise, through the institution of sensible experiments, having progressed to the natural causes of the celestial bodies, has as certain by reason the Sun as hot by virtue, the Moon as moist, and the force and natural effect of each of the stars. And from those stars, he is able to predict true judgments even before they happen, not through the clouds, especially he who also has a knowledge of future things from a better part of the soul. For such things are closer to the truth because of the force of the soul dominating in them, just as we see in the contemplation of hermits who at that time do not use the sensible things of the body; through the sole force of the soul they announce whatever is future, even if they do not have much knowledge of this art. For a wise soul can aid the work of the stars just as a sower [aids] natural strengths. What then