Mercury: Concrete mental faculties: perception of size, weight, form, color, order, position, motion; memory, speech, intonation, phonetic inflection; thought, understanding, reason, intelligence; vacillation, hesitancy to face issues; mental waywardness; brilliant and facile but not profound; intellect in the abstract but not the concrete; industrious in acquiring knowledge for its own sake, apart from any practical application or any question of right or wrong; amasses evidence and eloquently cites statistics in support of his thesis; loves argument and debate; cunning, crafty, subtle; a skilled technician enjoying a superficial proficiency; literary, though not a ready writer. Mercury's highest application appears to be in the realm of "pure reason," which, however, knows so much on both sides of a subject it experiences difficulty in drawing a conclusion, or in holding to a conclusion once arrived at. From the planet Mercury we have the word for the element Mercury, and its derivative effect, mercurial. Its mental direction is largely determined by aspecting planets. v. Aspects, planetary.
