Better now than never!

Here are the links to both works of John Worsdale:

Genethliacal Astrology. (1798)
http://books.google.de/books?id=PbtCAAA ... &q&f=false

Celestial Philosophy, or Genethliacal Astronomy.
http://books.google.de/books?id=9mIUAAA ... &q&f=false

Johannes

Good morning,

Having meanwhile read a ways into an English translation by Mr John Cooper first published in 1814 of Professore Dottore Placido di Titi's book Primum Mobile, it looks as if Mr John Worsdale usually meticulously followed Placido, for example by the use of parallels, although the 19th century Christian protestant Englishmen scarcely mentioned the Christian Roman Catholic counter-reformist Placido in his books, preferring copious praises of the Heathen Klaudios Ptolomaios.

Mr Worsdale's approach was rather 'scientific' but probably not in the taste of some 20th century schools of astrology that preferred to restrict astrology to human psychology. An individual human is born and dies, these events being external, verifiable, necessary and evident. By applying Ptolemy's length of life calculation techniques in Tetrabiblos, Book III, as expanded by Placido and by demonstrating their efficacy in a large number of genitures, Mr Worsdale hoped to prove the truth of genethliacal astrology.

Unfortunately, his chosen samples of nativities were neither random nor sufficiently large to permit valid general statistical conclusions. Nevertheless, Mr Worsdale's avenue of investigation indeed merits diligent application and extension including statistically sounder methods by contemporary astrologers.

Best regards,

lihin