Mercury in Sagittarius

Detail is the enemy here, and the enemy usually wins the argument on points while losing the war. This mind runs to the general principle, the historical parallel, the pattern behind the particulars, and it gets there ahead of the evidence. Sometimes brilliantly. The instinct for the big shape of a problem is genuine, and a good deal of useful thinking begins with such a leap. But the leap skips steps, and someone else generally has to walk back and check them.

The speech is loud, funny, and less discreet than intended. Opinions are offered on everything, including subjects only half known, and delivered with a confidence the knowledge does not strictly support. Tact is not the strong suit; the honest remark comes out at the dinner table before any calculation of its effect, and the person with this placement is genuinely startled by the silence that follows. They rarely mean harm and they seldom apologise well, since they can still see that what they said was true.

Learning is voracious and disorderly, driven by curiosity rather than any syllabus. Travel teaches more than lectures, and a conversation with a stranger on a train is worth a term of study. Such minds gather philosophies, languages, and religions the way others gather books, keeping the parts they find useful. The cost is a persistent looseness with facts, dates, and quantities, held together by a conviction so warm that listeners believe the figures anyway. Their large view is often right; their particulars want checking before they are repeated.