the-astrology-book

Newton, Sir Isaac
than usual. Relations with relatives also tend to
improve. Capricorn is the solar second house for
all Sagittarians. The second house has to do
with money and possessions, and the presence
of transiting Jupiter here usually corresponds
with a period of comparative financial abundance.
Capricorn is the solar first house for all
Capricorns. The first house is the basic self and
the physical body, and transiting Jupiter here
tends to make one happier and also corresponds
with a period during which Capricorns put on
weight. These basic principles can be extended
to every sign of the zodiac, which is precisely
what newspaper astrologers do.
The exact origin of newspaper astrology
is difficult to determine, though it probably
originated in popular almanacs. Astrology
columns have been abundant in the Englishspeaking
world since at least the early twentieth
century. Because newspaper astrology ignores all
other astrological influences and is thus a hit-ormiss
system that works only occasionally, professional
astrologers tend to dislike it inasmuch as
its inaccuracy can lead nonastrologers to reject
astrology as untrue.
A nineteenth-century engraving of Sir Isaac Newton,
the great scientist and astronomer. Reproduced by
permission of Fortean Picture Library.
Sources:
Bach, Eleanor. Astrology from A to Z: An Illustrated
Source Book. New York: Philosophical Library, 1990.
Gettings, Fred. Dictionary of Astrology. London: Routledge
& Kegan Paul, 1985.
NEWTON, SIR ISAAC
Sir Isaac Newton, the scientist famous for formulating the law of universal gravitation,
was born January 5, 1642, in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England, and died on March
31, 1727, in Kensington, England. He was highly regarded in his time, much as Albert
Einstein later was. Newton’s study of Johannes Kepler’s third law of motion led him to
theorize that the gravitational attraction between Earth and the Moon—and, by
extension, the gravitational attraction between all bodies—is inversely proportional
to the square of the distance between them. This law of universal gravitation was put
forth in his Principia Mathematica (1687). Newton is credited with many other
achievements, such as the invention of calculus.
As a young man studying mathematics, Newton also studied astrology. An
often-repeated, though probably apocryphal tale, is that the astronomer Edmond Halley
kidded Newton about his interest in astrology. Newton, it is said, defended himself
[496] THE ASTROLOGY BOOK