Lastly, each planet (although it may possess no familiarity with the sign encompassing it) is said to rejoice, when any connection subsists between itself and other stars of the same condition; as, notwithstanding the distance between them, a certain sympathy and communication of influence is derived from their mutual resemblance. In the same manner, again, when a planet occupies a place adverse and dissimilar in condition to itself, much of its influence is dissipated and lost; in consequence of the interposition and admixture of the other different influence, arising out of the dissimilar temperament of the sign by which it is encompassed. CHAPTER XXVII APPLICATION, SEPARATION, AND OTHER FACULTIES In all cases when the distances between planets or luminaries are but trifling,[61] the planet which precedes is said to apply to that which follows; and that which follows to be separating from that which precedes.[62] The same rule obtains both in respect to bodily conjunction and to any other of the aspects before described; except that, in the application and separation of the bodily conjunction, it is also essential to observe the actual latitudes of the bodies, in order to receive and consider only such a transit as may be made in the same parts of the zodiac.[63] But in the application and separation of aspects merely, the same attention is not requisite, since all the rays are uniformly converged into one focus, that is to say, into the angle of the earth,[64] and meet there alike from every quarter. [61] This has been understood to mean, when the planets or luminaries are within each other’s orbs; Saturn’s orb being 10 degrees, Jupiter’s 12, Mars’s 7 degrees 30 minutes, the Sun’s 17 degrees, Venus’s 8, Mercury’s 7 degrees 30 minutes, and the Moon’s 12 degrees 30 minutes. [62] Astrologers generally agree, that the inferior planets always apply to the superior, but the superior never to the inferior, except when the inferior be retrograde. In the present instance it seems most probable that the author means the planet which is more occidental, by “the planet which precedes.” He often uses “precedent” as equivalent to “occidental” in regard to the daily revolution of the heavens: and thus a planet in the first degree of Aries would precede, and be more occidental than one in the sixth degree of Aries, to which latter it would, by the regular planetary motion, be applying. [63] On this, Whalley says that “the less the difference of latitude of the planets in conjunction, the more powerful will be the influence: for if two planets in conjunction have each considerable latitude of different denomination, the influence of such conjunction will be much lessened.”