¶9 It must be noticed, first of all, that the attribution of distinct significations to the terms ‘astrology’ and ‘astronomy’ is relatively recent; among the Greeks, these two words were used indifferently to designate the whole of what both apply to now.1 So it seems, at first glance, that in this case we are still dealing with one of those divisions by ‘specialisation’ that have been established between what were originally only parts of a single science; but what is particular here is that, while one of these parts, the one that represented the most material side of the science in question, took an independent development, the other part, on the contrary, disappeared entirely.2 This is so true that today one no longer knows what ancient astrology could have been, and that even those who have tried to reconstitute it have only arrived at veritable counterfeits, either by wanting to make it the equivalent of a modern experimental science, with the intervention of statistics and the calculus of probabilities, which proceeds from a point of view that could in no way be that of antiquity or the Middle Ages, or by applying themselves exclusively to restoring a ‘divinatory art’ that was hardly more than a deviation of astrology in the process of disappearing, and in which one could see at most a very inferior application, hardly worthy of consideration, as it is still possible to observe in Oriental civilisations.3
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Summary

Guénon first notes that the distinction between ‘astrology’ and ‘astronomy’ is relatively recent, as the Greeks used both words interchangeably for the same body of knowledge. He observes that specialisation divided what was originally a single science, but with the particularity that one part (the most material side) took an independent development while the other part disappeared entirely. Guénon adds that today one no longer knows what ancient astrology was, and attempts to reconstruct it have produced only counterfeits: either by treating it as a modern experimental science with statistics and probability, which could never have been the ancient or medieval point of view, or by restoring a ‘divinatory art’ that was merely a deviation of a disappearing astrology and at best a very inferior application, as can still be seen in Oriental civilisations.

General notes

  1. astrologie / astronomie chez les Grecs — Rendered as ‘astrology / astronomy among the Greeks’. Guénon recalls a fact of terminological history: in Greek Antiquity, there was no lexical distinction between the study of the stars as signs and as celestial bodies. The same word (astronomia or astrologia) covered the whole. The modern separation (astronomy = science of physical motions; astrology = ‘superstition’ of influences) is a recent invention (17th-18th century). Guénon uses this argument to show that the dissociation is not natural, but the product of a degenerescence. ↩︎
  2. côté matériel / partie disparue — Rendered as ‘material side / disappeared part’. Guénon distinguishes, in the traditional science of the stars, a ‘superior’ aspect (symbolic, qualitative, correspondences with spiritual principles) and an ‘inferior’ aspect (measurement of positions, calculation of motions). It is the inferior aspect that has survived and developed into modern astronomy. The superior aspect (astrology in the traditional sense) has ‘disappeared’ because moderns have lost the capacity to understand it. This is not an ordinary ‘specialisation’, where both parts subsist; it is an amputation: one of the two parts has been totally lost. ↩︎
  3. contrefaçons / art divinatoire — Rendered as ‘counterfeits / divinatory art’. Guénon severely criticises modern attempts at a ‘renaissance’ of astrology. Two main errors: (1) Wanting to make it an empirical science, validated by statistics (the ‘neo‑astrological’ approach of the 20th century); (2) Reducing it to a technique of divination (popular horoscopes). In both cases, the metaphysical and symbolic foundation of traditional astrology has been lost. In Oriental civilisations (India, China), traditional astrology still subsists, but it is in a process of degenerescence. Guénon suggests that it is often reduced to an inferior ‘divinatory art’, whereas in its original state it was a cosmological science integrated into metaphysics. ↩︎