Abstract
This section explains how earlier chapters covered factors influencing a person's character at birth, including physical and mental qualities, and introduces the historical practice of examining wealth and reputation as external circumstances linked to body and soul, respectively. The author sets up a shift from innate traits to life events influenced by astrology.
The foregoing may be taken as what can be learned by investigation of matters antecedent to the nativity and contemporary with it, together with such of those posterior to the nativity as properly apply to the constitution of the subject by disclosing the general quality of his temperament. Among external accidentals, which should be treated next in order, the discussion of the fortune of both riches and honour comes first; and as material fortune is associated with the properties of the body, so honour belongs to those of the soul.