Note 101 — Chapter XII · THE PARTICULAR NATURES OF THE SIGNS BY WHICH THE DIFFERENT CONSTITUTIONS OF THE ATMOSPHERE ARE PRODUCED[101]

According to Wing, in his “Instructions to the Ephemerides,” printed in 1652, the signs, as mentioned in this chapter by Ptolemy, are to be considered in their quality as constellations, and not as spaces of the heavens. This opinion, however, seems to me to be erroneous; for Ptolemy has already devoted a chapter in the 1st Book to the detail of the influences of the several stars in the respective constellations of the zodiac; and he moreover speaks, in the present chapter, of the operation of Aries, as owing to the presence of the Equinox. This he could not have done, had he spoken of the signs as constellations instead of spaces.