Planetary qualities

Meaning

The planetary list explains why central celestial influence need not be destructively hot. Saturn is cold and dry; Jupiter hot and moist; Mars and the sun hot and dry; Venus cold and moist; the moon moist and cold. Mercury, discussed separately, adapts to all. Not every star simply heats, and heat is not the sole character of astral influence.

Their convergence yields a temper of hot, cold, dry and moist, which the issuing vapour shares. The same account derives differing qualities of simples, and germs of taste, colour and smell, from celestial contribution. These are the source’s qualitative assignments, not numerical temperatures or modern planetary measurements. The English “tempered” rightly keeps temperature in its older sense of balanced constitution.