Here is the author's definition of horoscopy -

Horoscopy is stated to be the science of Ahoratri or the science of day and night - these being the broadest visible divisions of time - multiples of which give weeks, months, years, etc, and divisions of which give hours, minutes, seconds, etc. The first letter A, and the last letter tri, having been dropped, the term has assumed the shape of hora, and the author says that hora Shastra treats of the effects of the good and bad deeds of an individual in his previous birth; so that the moment a person is born, it becomes his lot to enjoy and suffer certain pleasures and pains for his past good and bad deeds - seeds cast into the cosmic region in one birth begin to bear sweet and sour fruits in another birth according to their quality.

In this connection we may say a few words touching the long disputed question of Fatalism versus Free-will. Persons of the former school hold that even the minutest events of one's life are pre-ordained, and that man is completely a puppet in the hands of certain higher agencies. This error has evidently been the result of the observation of a number of well projected efforts in particular directions having been thoroughly discomfited. Again, men of the other school hold that man is a free agent, and that there is nothing impracticable for him if only proper means are employed for the purpose. This error again has been the result of the observation of even ill projected efforts in particular directions, proving highly successful - the failures, if any, being accounted for by the insufficiency of the means employed. In the one case man becomes an irresponsible agent; and in the other he not only bootlessly grieves over his failures, but repeats his attempts, thus putting himself to trouble, expense and vexation only to fail again. Now, as regards the former position, it is held that man's present deeds are all the effects of his previous deeds. As free agency of any sort is discarded from the question, it would follow that these previous deeds are the effects of deeds still more previous, and so on, ad infinitum, or till we are brought to a state of cosmic evolution when differences of states and conditions were infused into human souls by the Creator. Such a condition of irresponsibility is opposed to reason, opposed to progress, and equally opposed to divine and human law. It is a very pernicious doctrine in the extreme.

As regards the latter view, if man can wholly shape his own fortunes, how are we to account for the phenomena of suffering virtue and the enjoying vice in certain cases - for the former reaping no rewards and the latter escaping punishment. A satisfactory explanation would point to the former as being the effects of previous karma, and the latter as deeds for which man will both suffer and enjoy in his next life. Taking entire human life into consideration, our own opinion is that man is both a slave of the effects of his past deeds and is a free-agent as regards fresh independent deeds - deeds which are in no way directed to thwart, to arrest, to alter or in any way to modify or remould the effects of his past karma. But if he wishes to move along with the current, he may do so, and the course will become more easy and more smooth. This view will account for three things: (1), the many apparently unaccountable failures of attempts even when the means employed have been good ; (2), the easy success that has attended many an effort when the means employed were even weak; (3), the success which in certain cases appears proportionate to labour. In the first case, the attempt was one aimed at moving against the current of fate ; in the second case it was one of moving down with the current, and in the third case it was motion on still water, where and where alone free human agency can display itself.

Having premised so much, we may now proceed a step further and state that where the current is a weak one running with the course of a Leena, it might be opposed, and such opposition may be either direct or oblique according to the fitness and strength of the means employed, and that the task would become a difficult one if the course to be resisted should flow with the course of a Tigris. The question is purely a question of karmic dynamics - effects of past karma as opposed to present karma. To oppose even an opposible force, one must first possess a knowledge of its strength and direction of action, and secondly, a knowlege of the proper means to be employed for the purpose. The former knowledge is supplied to man by astrology, and the latter by such works as the Karmavipaka Graudha. The means prescribed in the latter consist of gifts, of Japa psychic training or development) and certain fire ceremonies having an occult significance. It follows where the current is irresistible, the attempt to oppose it becomes futile. How can a person ever hope to win success in a field when he is ignorant of the direction of attack as well as the strength of his enemy. Astrology not only points out to him his enemies but his friends as well, whose help he might seek and obtain. By pointing out fields where there are friends and fields, where there are foes, astrology indirectly points out to him neutral fields where man's free agency has its full scope of action and where success is proportionate to labour.

The next important question for consideration is the examination of the connection, if any, between the planets and human fortunes: where man suffers and enjoys the fruits of his past karma, the question asked is what part the planets play in such human suffering and enjoyment. Here again believers in astrology as a science are divided into two schools. The one admit active agency for the planets, and the other, denying it, state that the planets blindly and mechanically indicate the current of human destinies. In support of the latter view, it is stated that if human suffering and enjoyment are directly traceable to man's previous karma, then, to admit active agency on the part of the planets, becomes not only superfluous, but inconsistent: if a man loses his son, it is because, they say, he suffers for his karma, which might consist in his having caused a similar affliction to somebody in his previous birth. and not because Mars occupied the 5th house from the ascendant or Lagna at the moment of birth, and that therefore the planetary positions only indicate and do not bring about human suffering or enjoyment. These people from a human point of view cannot conceive the possibility of more causes than one for an event - each cause acting independently and with full force. Hindu literature is full of events, each of which is the immediate effect of a number of causes. This peculiar combination of causes, quite incomprehensible to us, is a feature which distinguishes divine deeds from human deeds. We will quote an instance or two. Ganga was cursed to pass through a human incarnation; the Ashta (eight) Vasus brought on themselves a similar curse - of the eight Vasus seven were allowed to return to Swarga immediately after birth; Raja Santanu goes out on a hunting excursion, marries Ganga, whom he finds on the banks of the Ganges, on condition of her being allowed to quit him the moment he opposes her own mode of disposing of the issue of their union. Eight children are born in all. The mother throws the first seven of them into the Ganges; the King puts up with this for the love of the lady. He can bear no more inhuman work of the sort and so he resists; Ganga quits her lord leaving the babe - the future Bheeshma of the Mahabharat. Again, King Dasaratha goes out to hunt and enters a dense forest; hearing some gurgling sound in his neighbourhood, and mistaking it to be that of a wild elephant in the act of drinking water, the king discharges his arrow in its direction and kills a lad who was dipping his bowl into the waters of the stream to carry it to his aged parents at some distance. The cries of the dying lad brought home to the king his error, and the next moment the king himself proceeds to the lad's father and entreats pardon. This venerable old man expires on the spot pronouncing a curse on the king - rather reading the king's fate that in his old age he shall die a similar death from grief on account of his son's separation. In the meanwhile Vishnu himself draws on his own head the curse of a human incarnation, attended with much suffering from separation from wife, from the sage Bhrigu, whose wife he killed when she refused to deliver up to his wrath an Asura who had sought her protection. The Devas suffering much from Ravana and his giant hosts proceed to Vishnu and entreat relief. As Brahma had granted to Ravana the boon of exemption from death from all except from men and monkeys, and as Dasaratha had prayed to Vishnu for the blessing of a son, Vishnu enters on his human incarnation as Rama, the son of Dasaratha. From family dissensions he quits his kingdom and enters the forest of Dandaka with his bride. Grieved at his son's separation, Dasaratha dies. Ravana carries away Seeta and Rama is grieved at her separation. He proceeds to Lanka, slays his enemy and recovers his wife.