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Page:Colson - The Week (1926, IA weekessayonorigi0000fhco).djvu/61

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'regent' and 'controller' to other measures of time. As the planet of the first hour determines the planet of the day, so that of the first hour (and therefore the first day) of the month determines that of the month and so again with the year. In 1926 we open with a Friday. Venus is therefore regent of the year and also of the months of January and October. In the 1st, 8th, 15th and 22nd hours of the same and the 29th days of these months she is regent of hour, day, month and year, but only then. All through the rest of the year her sway is disputed by one, two or three planets. So Valens assures us, though he gives us no hints as to how we are to comport ourselves in the face of this plurality and indeed multitude of sovereigns. For there seems to be no reason why we should stop at the year and not provide a regent for the lustre, the decade, the century and the millennium. Even in the limited form in which Valens puts it, the thought is appalling; and it is no wonder that the popular imagination stopped short at the day and seems to have known little or nothing of regents of the month and year.

We now see the week in a somewhat different light. In the first place its unit is the hour not the day. In the second place, it is a link in a larger system of what are called 'chronocratories' or 'time sovereignties' of the planets. This extension of popular rather than scientific astrology deserves some consideration.