ALLERS, Microcosmus From Anaximandro To Paracelsus

MICROCOSMUS: From Anaximandros to Paracelsus
Author(s): RUDOLF ALLERS

Source: Traditio, Vol. 2 (1944), pp. 319-407
Published by: Fordham University
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MICROCOSMUS
From
Paracelsus
Anaximandros
By RUDOLF
ALLERS
have
and Macrocosmus
the names of Microcosmus
for speculative minds since the time they first made
There have been ages in which
Greek philosophy.
or less into the background, others in which they
r?le.
It seems worth while to inquire into the nature
of these ideas and to study the spirit of those ages which felt them congenial to
their total mentality.
One might also try to determine those notions and
which
idea of the microcosm came to be associated during
with
the
principles
its long history. Even a superficial survey of the ages to which the notion of
The ideas expressed by

never lost their attraction
in early
their appearance
these ideas receded more
played a rather dominating
particularly appealed, and of the ideas with which it entered into

combinations, seems to show that this idea might be considered as a kind of
"symptom", a characteristic to be found mainly with a certain type of historical
microcosm
mentality.1
I.
Introduction
and rather modern philosophies have, at times, made

Ancient, medieval,
The more amaz
extensive use of the ideas of the micro- and the macrocosmus.2
are
of
this particular
is
to
find
two
it
that
there
studies
monographic
only
ing
It
idea.3 The problem, obviously, has not been credited with any importance.
would
not
all
of
interest.
at
it
devoid
seem,
is,
1This article
world.
with the philosophy
of the Western
There
is concerned
exclusively
are parallels
to microcosmistic
in the philosophy
of India
and the Far East.
speculations
a deep rooted tendency
in the human
indicates
is an interesting
This
fact, which apparently
I could find is,
on these Eastern
information
mind
for such like ideas.
The
philosophies
to include
these things here
treatment.
not sufficient for any systematic
Also,
however,
would
lead too far afield.
2
itself to the general
Conforming
recent developments.
of the more
of Traditio,
this study does not deal with any
program
of what may be
influence
the persistent
To
realize
or
it suffices to recall H. Lotze's
for brevity's
Mikrokosmus,
called,
sake, "microcosmism",
Lotze's
translated
work has been
ideas in the philosophy
of G. Th. Fechner.
certain
by
and E. E. C. Jones
E. Hamilton
1894).
(Edinburgh,
3There
der Theorie
und Geschichte
A. Meyer,
Wesen
dissertation,
is, in fact, one doctoral
.Phil. XXV).
This
Stud.
vom Mikround Makrokosmus
study is
(Bern, 1901, also :Berner
not very satisfactory,

has become
material
and
known.
not
only
Meyer's
since
because
study
does
its publication
even take
not
a great
account
amount
of new
of the material
with his
is so little acquainted
was available
The author
fifty years ago.
indubitably
was coined by Nicolaus
Cusanus
that he claims
(p. 98) that the term microcosmus
problem
also by the fact that
is evidenced
for this problem
lack of interest
The
and Paracelsus.
B. Haur?au
character
is still unedited.
of St. Victor
the treatise Microcosmus
by Godefroy
which
izes
this work
he quotes
as a "receuil
is, however,
I (Paris,
scholastique,
1872),
The only passage

d' all?gories
simplifi?es.''
de la philosophie
Cf. Histoire
to give an idea of this work.
another and much more detailed
There
study
is, however,
tr?s consid?rable
insufficient
515.
319
320
TRADITIO
The list of philosophers studied in the following pages does by no means aspire
This would constitute a serious defect if the intention of this
at completeness.
article were to present an exhaustive historical survey. But questions of the
Instead of
nature peculiar to this one allow also for another kind of approach.
course of
in
the
writer
and
order
in
listing every
who,
chronological
proceeding
the centuries, made use of the notions under discussion, one may proceed by
developing what may be called the systematic possibilities of the idea. Starting
from its most general meaning one may try to discover all the interpretations
which can be given to it, and then to group the available historical material
It is to
according to the viewpoints suggested by such a systematic analysis.
a
more
results
than
will
conclusive
this
that
be hoped
merely
yield
procedure
historical survey. The alliance of the idea of microcosmus to other notions may
throw an instructive light on the nature of this idea and its r?le in human thought.
Such a procedure results necessarily in some kind of a circular movement.
various interpretations are, of course, suggested by the systems which
actually exist in history. And these systems are to be elucidated by the interpre
It is rather what has been
tation. This circle is, however, not a vicious one.
a
which starts from a pre
movement
It
is
termed the "hermeneutic circle".4
a
at
certain
there
arrives
from
interpretation of facts, and
liminary hypothesis,
on the basis of such an understanding, turns back towards its origin to correct
and enlarge the first assumptions.
By repeating itself, this movement unfolds
as
a
as
an
not
circle but
ascending spiral.
The first step towards a preliminary understanding has to consist in the
clarification of the terms. The names of micro- and macrocosmus
(or as some,
The
for instance Bernardus Silvestris, wrote: Megacosmus)

appear relatively late,
In the younger Academy
much
later than the corresponding idea.
and,
. Philo Judaeus
especially, among the Stoics, man was spoken of as ? a
Aristotle
is credited by some with the invention of the name, microcosmus.5
with which
G.
P. Conger
in theHistory
systematic
The book
in print.
I unfortunately
became
only after this article was already
acquainted
a monographic
and Microcosms
of Theories
ofMacrocosms
analysis
published
is not a
the intention
As the title indicates,
1922).
(New York
of Philosophy
recent
times.
is extended
into quite
but a historical
survey which, moreover,
contains
and Mohammedan
see his
''Cosmic
also
ideas.
Persons
on early and medieval

informations
Jewish
valuable
particularly
a special study of Eastern
The author has also made
philosophies
in Indian Philosophy",
Journ.
and Proceed.
and Human
Universes
29 (1933), 255.
Soc. of Bengal,
of microcosmistic
which,
conceptions
Asiatic
the upheaved
and faulting
throughout
4
of the hermeneutic
On the notion
the value
is rather sceptical
Conger
concerning
like fossils scattered
thinks, are best left to "lie
strata of the history of philosophy."
einer
Das
Verstehen;
Grundz?ge
circle, see J. Wach,
Dr.
he
I (T?bingen,
der hermeneutischen
Geschichte
1926).
Idee, Vol.
5Fr.
seems
der Philosophie,
2d ed., II, 324 ff., curiously
W?rterbuch
Mauthner,
enough,
term.
not to have grasped
of the Stoic
It is, however,
the signification
easy to discover.
or "on a small
in this context,
the signification
of "abbreviation"
? a
conveys,
exactly
a ,Basilius,
a
e a
a
?
Adi). EunOM.
? a ? ?
this idea inmind when he says that the monads
Leibniz
has apparently
29,669).
en racourci.
also objects
the great world
Mauthner
the name of macro
against
so he says, consider man as a small world, but to call the universe
which
One may,
scale ". E.g.:

III, 6 (P.G.
represent
cosmus.
321
microcosmus
. L. Stein has suggested that this passage

to the
opposes6 the a
This cannot be the case,
to
the
whole
microcosmistic
rise
gave
speculation.
since" the idea, if not the term, is found with the predecessors of the Stagirite.7
The Greek Fathers obviously consider term and idea as so well known and
generally intelligible that they deem it superfluous to add any explanation.8
while the Latin writers depend for
Their source is doubtless Neo-Platonism,9
Ule non mediocris philososophus et magni
information mostly on Macrobius,
Ciceronis expositor, as Abaelard calls him. Chalcidius'

commentary on Timaeus
is another important source. Of secondary sources, by writers who relied on
Macrobius
and others the Etymologiae of Isidore of Sevilla are probably the
most
prominent.10
of the Microcosmic
II. Varieties
Idea
One vague and broad conception is shared by all authors who ever speculated
on the microcosmus
The former, which
and its relation to the macrocosmus.
the Latin writers usually call minor mundus, has certain features or principles in
or the universe.
common with the macrocosmus
This idea allows for various
interpretations which are listed here.
1. The simplest form ofmicrocosmism is apparently expressed in the idea that
man contains within his being all the elements of which the world consists.
He belongs to the realm of dead matter, he shares mere life with the plants,
sensory activity with the brutes, reason and, generally speaking, rational faculties
with the suprahuman beings, spirits, angels, demons, intelligentiae, and the like.
He may be even credited with possessing something of divine nature. Man
sense.
a macrocosmus
that
He overlooks
does not make
does not
everything
a parti
the universe
the universe.
already
by this name denotes
Calling
signify primarily
The original meaning
of
is all kind of order
cular kind of cosmological
interpretation.
of the
fact that Neo-Platonism
The mere
whatsoever.
, or that even
speaks
a a
?is
said to be a
, should
tually the state in which
reign justice and order?e
contains
the name,
from interpreting
it has been given
signification
occurs
often
The
expression
prevent
limited
science.
De
I, 40; Quis
provid.
6
Phys. VIII,
rer, div.
2 (252 b 26).
heves,
in its ancient
in modern
in Philo,
and medieval
times,
e.g., De
especially
plant,
to the
use, according
the influence
of
under
28; De
vita M?sts,
II,
135;
155.
7L.
I (Berlin,
der Stoa,
1886), 205.
Stein, Die Psychologie
8
. . . a
.
Naz.
Orat. XXVII
(P.G. 36, 57 A) : ?
E.g. Gregor.
9
des
Macrobius
und
ihr
M.
Die
In
Tim.
348
by
Schedler,
Philosophie
A, quoted
Proclus,
z. Phil,
uss auf die Wissenschaft
des christlichen Mittelalters
Ein
1916, Beitr.
(M?nster,
. Plotinus
?
a
a
calls man
d. MA.
(sc. a
)
13, 1), p. 44, note:
a
4, 3:
III,
?tats du texte de Plotin
,Enn.
P. Henry,
10
The
Les
dubious
somewhat
see
On Macrobius,
influential
indirectly
1153).
a
e?vai
Florilegia
Neo-Platonic
Class.
Phil.
contained
and
27
praise
below.
, and
his works
were
read.
widely
1938).
(Paris,
Theol. Christ.
of Macrobius:
I,
Abaelard,
sources which
became
the Greek
Among
19 (P.L.
directly
178,
or
De usu part. Ill, 10:

also Galenus,
. Besides
a
e
ofMacrobius,
medieval
excerpts
to transmit
the
and Seneca,
from Martianus
enough
Capella
inMedieval
B. L. Ullman,
Authors
"Classical
Florilegia",
one may mention

e
a a
e
passages
Stoic spirit.
1.
(1932),
Cf.
322
TRADITIO
integrates within himself the constituents of reality. Although inferior to

the pure spirits, he occupies at the same time an absolutely unique position by
containing the whole world on a minor scale. Thus, he is placed in the "middle"
of the universe.
His nature is the dividing line and, accordingly, also the bond
between the material and the spiritual world. He is called, therefore, nodus et
vinculum mundi.
His uniqueness is, however, not one of ontological dignity but
one of position within the order of being. He is not at all the "crown of cre
ation"; there are beings of greater dignity, higher rank than is allotted to man.
alone
But he alone belongs to the two universe worlds, he ismatter and spirit. Only
This term does not imply,
in this sense he is called the "center" of the universe.
as is often thought, the notion that the universe exists for the sake of man or
as "elementaristic"
This may
revolves
around him.
be characterized
microcosmism.
so that man is conceived not

by his composition, but also
context
and
of
order
the
the
principles prevailing in the maior
by duplicating
If human nature is envisioned in such a manner, man is not simply
mundus.
subjected to the universal laws, because he is part of the universe, but he is
himself, as it were, these laws, and he may become aware of them by looking
seems
into himself.11 To this system the name of "structural" microcosmism
on
out
two
This
worked
different
lines.
be
interpretation may
appropriate.
2. This still rather simple idea may be developed
only as mirroring the universe or the macrocosmus
a) Man is compared to the universe of which he is the reproduction or redupli

cation. Within this view, the discovery of the world inman becomes possible.
The relation between themicro- and themacrocosmic laws may be one of identit}^
or one of analogy ; in any case it is inman that the key to the cosmological riddle
may be found. Man thus understands himself as imbedded in the whole of the
, an organic part of the latter, and determined by pancosmic principles.
One arrives at the conception of an all-pervading harmony and correspondence
(cosmocentric microcosmism).
This view may be differentiated still further. It becomes the starting point
for a more or less pantheistic conception, micro- and macrocosmus being merged
one into the other in such a manner that man participates by his being and doing
in the maintainance
of the universe and, eventually, the perfection of the whole.
Or, man is viewed as passively subjected to supraindividual cosmic laws which
by their inexorability deprive him ultimately of his freedom.
If the last named view is given a more dynamic turn one arrives at postulating
an exact correspondence between the parts of the universe and those of man;
events and individual
and also such a correspondence between the macrocosmic
fate. The second idea is obviously, if not the only one on back of, at
The "static" correspondence has played a
least closely allied to astrology.
r?le
in
of
several
types
prominent
philosophical anthropology of which the one
is best known.12
of Paracelsus
human
11
One
Herzen?"
12
V.
is reminded
infr. p.
of Goethe's
word:
"Ist
nicht
der Kern
der Natur,
Menschen
395 ff.
im
MICROCOSMUS
323
If man is conceived, on the other hand, as a complete

in himself, be it
,and is thus set over against, in opposition to, and eventually
only the
even in enmity against, the macrocosmus?asserting
himself and striving for.
although never attaining, complete autarchical mastery and independence?
we find ourselves on the threshold ofmagic.
The macrocosmus
then becomes
b) Or the universe may be compared toman.
an enormously enlarged microcosm
This was
(anthropocentric microcosmism).
the idea of Plato.

Within the frame of this interpretation, similar developments
may ensue as were listed before. But there is nonetheless this difference that here
the cosmic laws appear as projections, as it were, of those governing human
nature.
The primary standpoint being chosen within man, the whole perspective
is another. This view leads, with a certain necessity, to the assumption of a
as the intrinsic principle of existence and growth within the universe.
World-Soul
3. The idea which has just been characterized, may be extended fromman's
individual being to the totality of his life and his achievements.
Man
creates
order around himself. He does this in a twofold manner, either by establishing
a well ordered society or by expressing his idea of order in art (taking this word
in its widest sense so that it encompasses every kind of beauty inman's works).
Since the frame of reference is supplied here by wholes, one may speak of
"holistic" microcosmism.
This interpretation rests on the fundamental con
viction that
, i.e. the order of any somewhat orderly ("organized")
entity
is always and everywhere essentially of the same kind. Whether it be the
a
or the
, or the
, these
correspond to one another not
sense
in
the
and
formal
that
only
general
they are, all of them, ordered in some
way, but in the strict sense that they are, each in its particular manner, repre
sentatives or, better, manifestations,
concretizations of the one selfsame order.
There is but one order, and whatever there is ordered is so according to one
principle.
a) The first form of this interpretation is wdiat has been called "sociological"
microcosmism, or the "organic conception of the state." Within the framework
of this interpretation, a number of equations may be established which look
sometimes rather strange to anyone who does not realize the metaphysical
Here too one may look at the human organism as the exemplar,
background.
and then arrives at the organological theory in politics, or one may start from the
ordered political body, and envision man as a "cell state".
The way the res publica universi is viewed depends, obviously, on the political
forms known to, or believed by the writers to be the ideal of statehood.
On the
other hand, an existing political form, e.g. a more or less absolute monarchy,
The person of the monarch becomes invested

may be likened to the universe.
with a quasi-divine dignity, his immediate servants become "planets revolving
around the sacred person of the king", and so on. Similarly, the universe
appears as a monarchy with a great number of subordinate spiritual powers
serving the almighty ruler. The idea of the celestial bodies being either them
selves spiritual entities, or being moved by such finds here its place, although
it can equally be connected with the conception of the anima mundi.
324
TRADITIO
If the idea of an all-pervading and throughout identical order is consistently

followed up, every being appears as "mirroring" the structure of the whole, and
accordingly, also of every constituent part. Every substantial whole then
becomes a microcosmus, even though the universal order may be more perfectly
and more completely realized in one being than in another. These differences
This
may be conceived as being related to the different levels of existence.
allows for combining this particular type ofmicrocosmism with the notion of the
analogia entis, so that the dignity and the ontological characteristics of the various
classes of beings are safeguarded, the uniformity of the cosmic law notwith
standing. The same conception, however, may be worked out in the sense of
Leibniz' monadology.
By linking up this interpretation with the other one,
viz. ofman alone uniting in his nature all the elements of the macrocosmus,
the
is maintained
without introducing explicitly the
particular position of man
of
of
the
principle
analogy
being.
This view may develop so as to result in a set of ideas very much contradictory
to the original ones. As soon, namely, as the principle of a "hierarchy of being"
is abandoned
and replaced by the principle of continuity, the way is opened for

all
Both these ideas
declaring
qualitative differences as "mere appearances".
fundamental
differences
between
the
"monads"
of
and
(of
continuity) coexist
in
the
of
Leibniz.
This
intrinsic
contradiction
strangely
philosophy
is, perhaps,
one of the reasons why this system did not exercize any greater influence. Ac
cording to where the emphasis is placed, one obtains either a hylozoistic or a

materialistic monism.
It should be noted, incidentally, that the term of "mirroring" is quite ambigu
ous. One cannot well avoid it, but one should be aware of its equivocity.
This
term may be used either to designate a structural identity, referring to the
substance and the very nature of the beings, or only an accidental relationship
as it obtains between the (physical) mirror image and the mirrored thing.
To ensure the unity of the universal whole, consisting of "windowless" monads,
Leibniz
invented, as one knows, his principle of pre-established
harmony.
this
Applied to the relation between mind and body, within the microcosmus,
The history of
principle became the theory of "psycho-physical parallelism".
the problem shows that this notion contains intrinsically a disruptive factor.
The non-causal parallelism makes, in fact, the very existence of mental phe
nomena unnecessary ; they degenerate into mere
epiphenomena, to shrink farther
into mere aspects of cerebral activities.
The impulse coming from Descartes'
conception of the animal body as a machine
contributed, of course, to this
The
monistic
acosmism
of
development.
Spinoza too supplied arguments which
a
led
to
materialistic
monism.
up
finally
purely
Spinoza's philosophy is not less related to ancient and medieval microcosmism
than is the system of Leibniz.
Spinozism too may easily develop inmaterialistic
monism, simply by shifting the emphasis in the famous identity Deus sive natura,
from the first to the second term. The amor intellectualis Dei is then
replaced
by the spirit of scientific inquiry. The anima mundi and the animated
which still were present, somewhat disguised, in Spinoza's system, became the
325
MICROCOSMUS
The human monad

strictly determined universe as envisioned by Laplace.
which still held a prominent place in Leibniz' monadology was transformed into
The res cogitans of Descartes
lost its thing
the homme machine of La Mettrie.
ness and dwindled to a physico-chemical process.
study is not occupied with tracing the latest offsprings ofmicrocosmism.

it iswell to realize that the ideas of old are still alive, however distorted and
disguised.
Ideas, in fact, never die. They live on, although sometimes hidden,
as it were, in inaccessible vaults or discovered and cherished only by some few
people ''born out of time". History, however, has witnessed more than once a
revival of ideas which, a short time before, were known only to the historian and
even by him treated mostly as curiosities.
It would be interesting to ask,
although this line cannot be followed here, whether or not there are in con
This
But
temporary mentality any traces indicative of a revival ofmicrocosmistic specula

There is a close relation between micro
tion. This is not quite improbable.
cosmism and the Averroistic conception of the "unity of the intellect", the link
The fact cannot be overlooked
being supplied by the notion of the anima mundi.
that ideas very similar to those of the "Commentator" have met with approval
in recent times.13 Perhaps one might also refer to the, however erroneous, idea
The similarities between this
of 'freedom' existing in the infra-atomic world.
notion and microcosmism, or certain forms of it, of older times is recognizable.14
b) The other possible interpretation, which one may call "aesthetic" micro
It is doubtful
cosmism apparently has never been systematically developed.
whether the frequent phrase of "God as the great artist" can be traced back to
such a view.
It is, however, not improbable that ideas of such a kind were active
often referred to the similarities
e.g. between Averro
obtaining,
unconscious".
See also Sr. M. D. Hayes,
Jung of a "collective
in the Light
Theories
Various
Viewed
of Thomistic
Principles
Group Mind
(Washington,
on "spirit"
D. C,
since they seem
The
ideas of L. Klages
1942).
(Geist) deserve mention
to point
into the same direction.
14 It
con
of the microcosmistic
to comment
may be permitted
briefly on the importance
131 have,
in my classes,
ism and the idea of C. G.
discussed
ceptions
larly to the well
known
of God.
This
existence
above
I refer particu
as a proof for the
proposed
name was,
it seems,
ontological
given
argument?the
manner
from the logical
in a wholly
unwarranted
for "jumping"
of Gaunilo's
In
This was the gist already
objections.
sphere.
for certain
argument
so-called
types of metaphysical
St. Anselm
of Canterbury
speculation.
to it by Kant?is
criticized
into the real or ontological
St. Anselm,
especially
reading
one is
contra insipientem)
to Gaunilo
his answer
(Liber
Anselm was a powerful
thinker and hardly
by the trust he put into his reasonings.
to several
so easily deceived
His proof also appealed
of his suc
by a specious
argument.
that Anselm
to Duns
It seems probably
himself
cessors,
Scotus, Descartes,
Leibniz,
Hegel.
of his argument
have
who approved
and the other philosophers
(even though they might
to "shift"
which allowed
it on a background
to "color"
Scotus
says) envisioned
it, as Duns
amazed
such a shifting not only permissible

into the ontological
from the logical
field, in fact made
as no "shift"
If it is assumed
at all.
that the mundus
let it appear
intelligibilis?
to the same fundamental
built according
its ontological
standard?is
whatever
principle
but
as the mundus
facts
there.
so-called
v. realis, then the Anselmian

argument may well be
to argue
from the rationes necessariae
becomes
possible
as well in Leibniz'
similar spirit seems to prevail
monadology
sensibilis
It
conclusive.
then
considered
as
to
real
here
as
pan-logism.
in Hegel's
326
TRADITIO
in periods of Romanticism.
Also, sayings like "to live one's life as a work of
art" or of similar intent, might be indicative of some veiled connection with
microcosmism.
Anyhow, since this interpretation seems to be altogether absent
the
during
periods of history with which this study is concerned, nothing more
can be said on this point.
4. Structural microcosmism, whether anthropo- or cosmoscentric, develops
into a further type of interpretation, of which it is hard to say whether or not
it ought to be distinguished from its ancestor.
It is needless to point out that
here as everywhere the terms of "developing from", "deriving from", and such
In fact, all the various
likemore are to be taken in a strictly non-temporal sense.
forms of interpretation coexist, at least after speculation had advanced somewhat

This interpretation, however, possesses sufficiently clear
beyond primitivism.
characteristics to be distinguished from structural as well as from holistic micro
insofar as the
cosmism. One may
speak of "symbolistic" microcosmism
is not conceived, either as obeying exactly the same laws as the
microcosm
or as duplicating and reproducing on a minor scale the latter's
macrocosm,
construction, but as "corresponding to", being "symbolic of" the universe, in

its totality or some of its parts.
By symbolically representing the macrocosm, the microcosm again becomes a
substrate from which the inquisitive and adequately
instructed mind may
no longer comparable
of
is
But
the
universe.
the
procedure
gather knowledge
to studying a miniature, for the sake of knowing the much bigger original, nor
to considering the mirrored image to gather knowledge of the reflected object.
These procedures, too, necessitate some kind of interpretative completion, inso
far as the miniature cannot give a perfect idea of the original, and the mirror
To gain knowledge of the original
reflects only one side or aspect of the object.
object the data have to be transposed, by enlargement or reconstruction, into

the true scale and, as it were, three-dimensionality.
The process, on the other
of
for
demands
One
has to know, so to speak,
"translation".
symbolism
hand,
the "code" to decipher the microcosmic language.
Some more humble minds may be satisfied with the knowledge that there is
hidden behind the phenomenal microcosmus a meaning, embodied in the universe,
To these minds
but the details of which remain unattainable to the finitemind.
it is enough to feel that the confused and partly unintelligible happenings of this
world point at a per se intelligible sense which will be revealed perhaps in a
"better world", or be for ever beyond the capacities of man.

This may have
been the idea of Heraclitus when he spoke of the "divine child, the logos". It is
also probably the idea of Irenaeus when he declares that nihil vacuum neque
sine signo apud Deurn.10 God knows the significance of everything, also of this
But man cannot place himself on God's viewpoint.
contingent world.
Irenaeus,
like many others, obviously believes that everything has a significance beyond
it appears to be or, rather, actually is on the level of factuality. Besides

being this or that, any thing or event also points at a deeper meaning which it
what
15
Irenaeus,
Adv. Haer.
IV,
21 (P.G.
7, 1046).
327
MICROCOSMUS
owes to its place in the order of being and of time, ultimately in its relation to
eternity and God's creative plans.
The more curious or inquisitive mind, however, is not satisfied with believing
in the significance of things. Such resignation is not for those who are anxious
to penetrate the riddles of being and who rely on the powers of reason, as such
or as aided by faith. They desire to find the "code" by which to translate the
The
language of tangible reality into the language of the deeper meaning.
numerous attempts of this sort differ widely in regard to the "text" they want
to interpret and in regard to the "region" where the final meaning is to be dis
covered. Modern
science is, in fact, not so distant, in its fundamental aspira
tions, from ancient and medieval mentality as the admirers of "progress" love
to believe.
The answer of the scientist16 telling us that ultimate reality consists
in atoms, electrons, "wavicles", or what not, becomes an interpretation of the
The table, to use Sir Arthur Eddington's
universe in terms of the transsensual.
famous example, on which I write is "in truth" but a whirl of particles and does
exist as a table but for us. Thus, this world exists, to the symbolistic way of
thought, only in a superficial manner, so to speak, and owes its existence as well
as its deeper significance to that of which it is the symbol. There is, of course,
an enormous difference between the symbolistic attitude and the one of the
modern scientist. The latter considers that the transsensual is, however inac
cessible to direct observation, nonetheless fundamentally of the same kind as the
visible world.
The symbolistic interpretation looks for a higher reality, very
to the modern
much different from the one of immediate experience. Reason
mind is the "handmaid of the senses",17 whereas to older ages it was but a tool
by which to pass beyond the sensible world into a reality of quite another nature.
Messages written in a code seldom make sense at first sight, or if they make,
It is just this discrepancy

this sense seems insignificant and out of place.
between the signs used and the total setting which arouses suspicion and lets us
But the message the sensible world
think of the possibility of a code-message.
There are
conveys to the symbolistic mind makes sense such as it appears.
signs which mean nothing outside of what they signify. Words are of this kind,
and so are other conventional or natural signs. But symbols and allegories are
characterized by being meaningful as such and by implying moreover a reference
to something "beyond".
The statues, for instance, which adorn the Gothic
cathedrals, have a meaning in themselves; they are men and women, clad in the
garments of their times, carrying objects one knows, like swords, or palms, or a
16
one should not
However,
as E. Husserl
scientist
talks",
modern
science
can be
illustrated
is common
ture", which
in letters others
written
cles, cones,
The "code"
code
to be
forget, that
remarked.
to both.
"it
The
is not always
science which
between medieval
relation
by the use of the metaphorical

true book of philosophy
"The
speaks,
when
the
and
symbolism
"book
of na
expression
. . .
is the book of nature
cir
the letters are triangles,
than those of our alphabet;
squares,
354.
and other mathematical
opp. ed. Alberti,
VII,
figures", Galileo,
pyramids,
one with Galileo
was another
and the medieval
;but to both it was a
symbolists
decoded.
in interpreting
activity
17Cf. P. A. Sorokin's
K.
uses
the
Jaspers
the given.
notion
of "sensate
term
"decipher"
to indicate
the philosopher's
culture".
328
TRADITIO
balance.
But to the knowing spectator they also convey a meaning different
from the one their mere appearance
indicates, of martyrdom and the duty to
or
of justice, and so forth.
God's
commandments
place
highest,
It cannot be the task of the present article to deal extensively with the princi
the
ples of symbolism, a topic still in need of clarification notwithstanding
enormous literature. What the authors employing symbolic interpretation think
of their method,
is of interest. H. F. Dunbar
distinguishes three kinds of
as
or
described
symbols,
arbitrary
extrinsic, descriptive or intrinsic, and insight
The
class
first
symbols.18
comprises symbols based on some external, more or
less superficial relation of contiguity or of convention; the symbols of the second
class rest on some similarity ; the insight symbols open somehow a view on d?eper
and more essential things, an underlying reality of greater dignity, the funda
mentals of being itself. One might add, in amplification of Dunbar's

ideas, that
the two first kinds of symbols simply refer to, or point at, some thing not neces
sarily of a higher nature, whereas the insight symbol becomes, as itwere, trans
parent and allows a glance on things hidden beneath the tangible reality. This
third type of symbolism is the one which acquired such high importance inmedie
val thought.
There are instances of descriptive symbols inmicrocosmism, too.
It is descrip
tive symbolism, e.g., when the parts of the human body are likened to various
objects of the non-human world or to parts of the universe.19 The main field
of symbolic interpretation is, however, not the world but the Scriptures.
Other
writings, too, are subjected to such a "translation" whenever they appeared to
reveal some concealed significance different from the obvious meaning.
Thus
Vergilius' Aeneis, the poems of Ovid and other works were subjected to such,
often?to
the modern mind?utterly
fantastic interpretations.
The idea of interpretation is summarized in some versus memoriales:
Littera
gesta
docet,
Mor?lis
quid
agas,
quid
quo
credas
tendas
allegoria,
anagogia.
Thus there are four ways of approach to a text. One is historical or factual;
this is not yet interpretation in the sense in which this term is used here. The
story is simply taken as it is told, as a report. But it can be envisioned, e.g., as
a "pr?figuration" of some other event; a story of the Old Testament thus becomes
an allegory of the Redemption.
Itmay serve as an example forpersonal conduct,
either directly or by some "translation".
Finally, itmay be a veiled presentation
of some of the mysteries of faith. It seems appropriate to quote here the expla
nation given by Dante in his letter to Can Grande

Jewish people from Egypt he writes:
; referring to the exodus of the
"If we consider merely

is the exodus of the children of Israel from
the letter, the meaning
...
it is the Redemption
taken
; ifwe look at the allegorical
signification,
by Christ;
Egypt
18H.
Comedy
19V.
F.
Dunbar,
(New
in Medieval
Symbolism
Haven,
1929),
infr. p. 348 f.
p.
Thought
and
its Consummation
in
5 ff.
the Divine
329
MICROCOSMUS
sense
in the moral
the state
of grace;
of corruptibility
it indicates
anagogically
to the liberty
of sin to
the turning of the soul from the sorrow and misery
of the saintly soul from the slavery
it is the exodus
viewed,
of glory
eternal."
Perhaps itwas Philo of Alexandria who first applied symbolistic interpretation

to the texts of the Old Testament.
He insists indeed that the literal meaning
never should be neglected, but also that every passage, even the purely ceremonial
rule, has a deeper meaning too.20 Among Christian authors, it was apparently
of Alexandria who first explicitly stated and applied the symbolic in

terpretation of the Scriptures. He distinguishes but three levels: literal, moral,
in which clear
There was, of course, the Epistle to the Hebrews
and mystical.
Clement
indications of symbolic interpretation could be found. But Clement and, after

him, Origen made consciously use of the procedure and were the first to develop
a methodological
What Clement calls mysti
justification and systematization.
or
to
the
cal interpretation corresponds
anagogie
tropic level of later times.
interpretation comprises both the allegorical
His moral
his
and moral
approach
of
successors.
The emphasis on a non-literal meaning of the Scriptures rests partly on the

well known words of St. Paul: Litera occidit, spiritus vivificai. To discover the
Johannes Cassianus, one
spiritus behind the littera therefore seemed important.
a
discussion of interpretative method, also
of the first Latin authors to attempt
distinguishes three levels: interpretatio hist?rica is set over against intelligentia
spiritalis, which is divided into tropologia, allegoria, anagoge.21 The real ancestor
of medieval
interpretative method or its principle became Gregory the Great.
He coined the formula which to later authors was more or less a locus communis,
so that they did not even refer to its origin. Gregory, in the introduction to his
explanation of the Canticles, writes: Allegoria enim animae longe a Deo positae
The choice of the
quasi quandam machinam facit, ut per illam leveturad Deum.
term machina indicates that the writer realized clearly his dealing with a question
of method.22
The two terms of symbolic relation are often called typi. The fact of higher
dignity is as well a typus of the symbol, as the lattermay be a typus of the former.
Thus, with Junilius Africanus, the resurrection of Christ is the typus of man's
resurrection, or the fault of Adam a typus of divine justice, or the sacrament of
This author already has a fourfold
baptism a typus of the death of Christ.
20
See,
for instance,
De
Berlin,
1895, p. 285).
21 Joh.
Coll?t.
Cassianus,
22
The
passage
proceeds:
(sc. anima)
cognoscit
quod
terrena verba
separatur
per
migr.
Abr.
16, 92
(Opera,
edd.
L.
Cohn
and
P. Wendland,
II,
(ed. M. Petschenig,
Corp. SS. Eccl. Lat. vol. 13).
dum quoddam
in verbis
aenigmatibus
''Interpositis
quippe
suum est, in sensu verborum
intelligit
quod non suum est; et
a terra.
Per hoc enim quod non abhorret
cognitum,
intelligit
XIV
last sentence
The
has been misunderstood
op. cit.
incognitum."
by Dunbar,
quoddam
thinks that the quod non abhorret cognitum refers to the second Person
of the
p. 270, who
can be immediately
is to what
the reference
known.
"Rebus
enim no tis
obviously
Trinity;
conficiuntur
per quas
alleg?ri??
ad
teriora
verba,
pervenimus
Canticorum
Canticum
expositio,
sententiae
interiorem
Prooemium,
divinae
vestiuntur,
intelligentiam."
P.L.
79, 467).
et dum
(Gregorius
re cogniscimus
Magnus,
ex
Super
330
TRADITIO
division.22*
:
But
Maurus
of greater influence was no doubt the declaration
In nostrae
domo historia
fundamentum
ergo animae
ponit,
vera tarn interius per affectum
gogia tectum opponit,
tropologia
boni operis, variis
ornatibus
d?pendit.23
allegoria
quam
by Rabanus
paries
erigit, ana
exterius per effectum
It is not needless to remark that this multiplicity of interpretations does not,

The words
according to the medieval
conception, introduce any ambiguity.
themselves retain absolutely the sense they have.
assume
do
not
different
They
The word is a sign of a thing, and this thing, in its turn, may be the
meanings.
is careful to emphasize this
sign or symbol of something different. Aquinas
to a passage
misunderstandings,24 he states:
point.
Referring
sensuum
non
Multiplicit?s
propter hoc quod una vox multa
. . . [There
esse signa.
possunt
sc. litteralem.25
in St. Gregory, which might
facit
give rise to some
. . . sensus
isti non multiplicantur
res signif?catae
rerum
per voces, aliarum
fundentur
since] omnes sensus
super unum,
aequivocationem
significet, sed quia
is no confusion
This idea makes it possible to apply the method of symbolistic interpretation

also to the relations ofmicro- and macrocosm.
Although the symbolic interpre
as
the
medieval
reaches
its final stage only when the
practized by
tation,
writers,
particular thing or event has been related to eternity and salvation, there are
intermediary stages inwhich the immediately given, be it thing or fact, nature or
history, becomes a symbol of bigger things and contexts. But because inter
mediary, a step towards the elucidation of the ultimate truths, symbolistic
microcosmism
is hardly ever elaborated for its own sake. Accordingly, little
is
emphasis
given to cosmological and anthropological theories.
Their eyes riveted on ultimate truth, the medieval
thinkers did not stop to
make fine distinctions between the micro- and macrocosmic
facts. Both ap
as
considered
received
peared,
such, equally insignificant; they
significance by
being related, as typi, to some truth of faith. Later ages, no longer animated
by the same intensity of religious passion, were more attentive to sj^mbolic
relation obtaining within the created world.
There is a good deal of symbolistic
microcosmism, besides other forms, for instance in Paracelsus or Agrippa.

5. A further form ofmicrocosmism starts from the idea that man may include
within himself the whole universe by knowing it, even though a complete know
ledge can exist, obviously, only potentially.
By thinking or knowing the
universe, the human mind, or man, in a certain sense "becomes" this universe.
This was the idea ofAristotle when he claimed that the human soul is wcosa a a.26
22aDe
partibus
legis, P. L. 68.
23Rabanus
in Scripturam
Sanctam
(P.L.
Maurus,
Alleg?ri??
112, 850).
24
XX
Cf. Joannes
De
(P.L.
Gregorius
Moralia,
Magnus,
76, 135).
Saresberiensis,
(P.L.
Septem septenis, VI
199, 956 B).
25Thomas
Summa
Theol.
Aquinas,
I, q. 1, a. 10, ad Im.
26De an.
Cf. Aquinas:
"anima
In III.
de an. 1.
III, 8 (431 b 21).
quodammodo
omnia",
13; S.
Th.
I, q. 84, a. 2, ad 2m.
MICROCOSMUS
331
are conceivable within the scope of this theory.

different developments
factor
is, naturally, the idea one forms on the nature and
differentiating
of
knowledge.
object
First at all, it is clear that for the soul to be or to become in some way every
thing known, knowledge must be interpreted as a process by which some real
statement has to be
change occurs in the soul, unless the Aristotelian-Thomistic
at
this
statement
is
its full value, man
taken as a metaphor.
taken
If, however,
indeed becomes the more a microcosm the more extensive his knowledge of the
Two
The
in
The cognitive process appears as a gradual "assimilation",
world becomes.
Since microcos
the literal sense of the term, of the micro- to the macrocosm.
mism of this kind rests on a definite conception of the soul's operations, one may
speak of "psychological" microcosmism.

This is especially the case if the known universale are taken to be in the sense
. Then, the human mind intuits being in its
of Platonic Realism as the
moreover
If
nature.
it is assumed that the structure of the
and
full
pure
a
are of the same kind, the "assimilation" becomes
and of the
It stays so even if the view of "moderate" Realism is adopted and the
perfect.
mind apprehends the universale in re, because it is still the very nature of being of
which reason gets hold. Metaphysical
Idealism, however, may also develop a
In absolute Idealism, which ultimately
characteristic form of microcosmism.
It is question
ends in solipsism, there is an identity ofmicro- and macrocosm.
able whether a philosophy of purely Kantian
type can arrive at the notion of the
It would seem that within this system it is not individual man, but
microcosm.
at the best the Bewusstsein ?berhaupt which may acquire microcosmic properties.
if consistently worked out, is hardly compatible with any idea
Nominalism,
of microcosm, with the exception perhaps of the one mentioned before in the
If only particulars exist, it is
first line. But even here great difficulties arise.
hard to imagine how any particular, that is any individual man, can be called
Microcosmism
appears, in fact, historically con
meaningfully a microcosm.
sidered, mostly as a part of a more or less Platonic or, especially, Neo-Platonic
philosophy.
6. There is, finally, a still less genuine microcosmism which uses this name in
a rather loose and, as it were, poetical manner.
The parallels drawn between
man and the universe are taken not really as serious statements inmetaphysics.
becomes a general name for every being which presents itself as intrinsi
ordered.
of any organism one may say that it is "a world in
cally
Especially
itself" or a "universe on a small scale".
To call man a microcosm becomes a
mere
figure of speech (metaphorical microcosmism).

rare that any of these interpretations, with the exception of the last named
is
It
(which is, in truth, no such interpretation), is found in pure form. The usual
The single interpreta
thing is to encounter a number of various combinations.
tions mingle and overlap.
Hardly any of the philosophers of the past who
indulged in, sometimes rather daring, speculations on the microcosm, attempted
a real analysis of the idea. Accordingly, hybrid formations are frequent. One
or the other interpretation, indeed, is particularly emphasized, but there are at
332
TRADITIO
the same time features incorporated which belong to another interpretative type
and sometimes even appear as incompatible with the fundamental idea.
The co-existence of incompatible ideas within one system is a fact not at all
new to the history of philosophy.
But there are particular reasons why the
notion of the microcosm did pass into many philosophies without being probed
and analyzed.
Most
rest on some primary "intuition" of so
philosophies
fundamental a nature that the philosopher frequently lets it pass practically
The more
unnoticed, simply because he has come to look at it as "obvious".
fundamental any idea becomes, the less are we inclined to subject it to a searching
The critical evaluation of last principles belongs to an advanced
examination.
No wonder
stage of inquiry, as one may gather from the history ofmathematics.
that early speculation indulged in sometimes fantastic ideas and combined them
Later times, following the lead
regardless of their eventual contradictoriness.
of one or the other of the great predecessors, took over with their system also
elements which were incorporated there, although in the manner of a "strange
body".
The deepest intuition underlying some philosophical system is often dependent

on the general mentality prevailing at the same time. The dependence may be
one of conformity or one of opposition; this amounts to the same, since both
attitudes are determined by the general mentality and differ only by the sign of
It will become evident that the microcosmistic
speculation
plus or minus.
achieved particular success in ages characterized by definite traits. The existing
general mentality colors noticeably any philosophy and may induce the thinker
to incorporate also ideas which neither follow necessarily from his admitted
suppositions nor even are consistent with them.
The notion of the universe as a living organism implies necessarily the other
of aWorld-Soul.
But there is nothing in this conception to force the philosopher
to consider the stars as animated.
They may be as well envisioned as mere parts
of the animated whole, organs if one likes, but animated only insofar as they are
Nor is there any necessary connection
parts, not in any independent manner.
between microcosmism and the ideas of the "harmony of the spheres" or the
musica mundi.
But these ideas are encountered together. The Pythagorean
speculation on numbers has no intrinsic
and, even more so, Neo-Pythagorean
relation tomicrocosmism, but it is frequently associated with the latter.

Microcosmism
is one of the primary?or,
in
perhaps, even primitive?forms
which the human mind conceived of man's nature and his position in reality.
It satisfies the deeply rooted desire for an all-comprehending conception inwhich
It is endowed un
everything finds its proper place within the order of being.
a
if
mundus
certain
the
sensibilis is com
with
Especially
deniably
grandiosity.
one
of
in
fundamental
with
mundus
order
the
principle
together
intelligiblis
prised
One can under
and politicus, microcosmism becomes an imposing construction.
stand that it escaped critical analysis because of its impressivity.

As has been shown above, there were various forms of microcosmism which
differ widely one from the other, although they rest ultimately on a common
notion. This notion, however, is so broad and indefinite that it develops in very
333
MICROCOSMUS
It is, therefore, a mistake to speak ofmicrocosmism as

divergent philosophies.
were
if it
always of the same kind. This amounts to a neglect of essential
diversities, just as it is false to speak of "the medieval mind", as if all differences
were of no significance. The medieval minds were, of course, agreed on certain
fundamental tenets. They were all, within the Western
world, Christian.
Even those who expressed heretical ideas never intended to doubt the truth of
revelation ; they only interpreted it in a manner different from the one adopted by
They also had in common some fundamental convictions regarding
orthodoxy.
philosophy, its scope and method.
They shared with the whole Christian world
But it is not so easy to discern what ideas really were funda
certain attitudes.
mental at a given historical age. The viewpoints and propositions which appear
so today may have been rather peripherical in past times, and what to these
appeared basically important may have lost this character for the modern mind.
The modern student of past philosophies, say of Plato or Plotinus, Philo
is inclined to overrate the
Judaeus or Aristotle, St. Anselm or St. Thomas,
importance of scientific evidence for philosophy and, especially, metaphysics.
He therefore easily believes that the philosophies of these writers depended to a
great extent on their, of course very imperfect, notions regarding the facts of
science. Because they make little use even of what was known at their times of
In fact,
science, they are believed to have been hostile to scientific endeavors.
they were not; they fully recognized the function of science in human knowledge
and its practical usefulness.
But they attributed to scientific evidence a dignity
much below the one of speculation, and the evidence of the senses appeared to
them less important than inner experience and the conclusiveness of reasoning.
Their systems are, accordingly, highly independent of the stage science had
attained at their times. The falsity or even scurrility of some of their ideas on
nature does not constitute a valid argument against their philosophies.
or social viewpoint, so characteristic
Similarly, the particular "humanistic"
ofmodern thought, is absent in the philosophies ofAntiquity or theMiddle Ages.
Not as if the individual had to be "discovered" as J. Burckhardt claimed, by the
thinkers of the Renaissance.

Quite to the contrary, it has been Christianity,
and with it, Patristic and Scholastic philosophy, which made the world fully
conscious of human personality, individuality, and dignity.27 But it is true that
the Middle Ages looked at man only as a part of the universe and that his fate
appeared as of an only secondary importance in comparison with the greater
It has been remarked before, and will become clearer afterwards,
glory of God.
"man the center of the universe" had with the Scholastics a
of
that the idea
meaning very different from the one which developed in the centuries after the
The same formula covers, here and there, very differentmeanings.
Renaissance.
The
same
medieval
is true of microcosmism.
It is hardly correct to assert that the
of the world "starts with the idea that the universe is an
conception
27 W.
As
Jaeger
the Mediterranean
take
account
the notion
in Greek
there was no word
remarks,
in pre-Christian
world was
ignorant
in the middle
of ideas, current especially
of conscience
in the Christian
and modern
for "conscience",
times.
One
and
late Stoa,
a notion
of which
ought, however,
come close
which
sense.
to
to
334
TRADITIO
(macrocosmus), animated by one Spirit and molded by one Law, in

of the all-pervading divinely ordained harmony, every partial
virtue
which, by
unity (microcosmus) presents an image of the universal whole".28
Correspond
ingly it is erroneous to attribute the "organological"
conception of the state
indiscriminately to all medieval writers.
AnQther of these sweeping and misleading generalizations describes the six
teenth, century as thoroughly "humanistic" and exalting man's position.
If this
Organism
is true, although within limits, of many of the philosophers, it is not true of the
After the disintegration of the medieval
Reformers, especially not of Calvin.
world one finds, side by side, a tendency for unrestrained individualism and the
theology of Calvin which destroys the human individual by exalting God's
pre
infinity. There are, one opposed to the other, the views of Macchiavelli
conizing an unrestricted choice ofmeans, and the austerity of Calvin, annihilat
ing man by abolishing his freedom.29
When attempting to follow the evolution of any idea, in this case of micro
If
cosmism, through the ages one must free oneself of such general formulae.
each historical age has its "spirit", this spirit expresses itself in a multiformity of
manifestations.
Certain ideas apparently have a particular affinity to each other
and to the total set of fundamental convictions which make up the so-called spirit
of the age. The repeated association of ideas, without their being necessarily
linked one to another, points at certain patterns in the history of ideas, although
theymay become visible only in a dim and easily deceiving light. These patterns
are discernibly more in times inwhich some ideas or a complex of such are revived
than in those when they firstmake their appearance.
The recrudescence ofmicrocosmism, in its trulymetaphysical
in ages
which
usually
are
labelled
as
"Renaissance".
This
meaning,
seem
may
occurs
a
very
trite observation.
Renaissance means the revival of the thoughts, views, and
ideals of Antiquity; microcosmism
is one of these views; no wonder that it
becomes alive again together with the other constituents of Antiquity.
Not all
revival of Greek thought, however, is qualified as Renaissance.
Medieval
after the rediscovery of the corpus Aristotelicum, is surely a
Aristotelianism,
revival of a world of ideas pertaining to Old Greece.
But the thirteenth century
which witnessed this rebirth of the Peripatos is not generally considered one of
The preceding twelfth century, ignorant still?until
Renaissance.
its last years
?of Aristotelean metaphysics
and physics, is an age of Renaissance.
Neither
28
O.
.
The Development
tran.
of Political
(New York,
Theory,
Freyd,
1939).
in
edition
under
the
Althusius
1880,
appeared
Breslau,
title, Johannes
und die Entwicklung
der naturrechtlichen
Staatstheorien.
29
Calvin
criticizes Melanchthon
for having
reserved
to man.
"No theologian
something
The
v. Gierke,
first German
has
humiliated
glorify
and reason more

than he
humanity
this is the only goal of his theology".
God,
e del Rinascimento
Uanima
delV Umanesimo
(Calvin).
Rognin,
To
humiliate
Rev.
Chr'et.
man
and
to
F.
1936, quot.
402.
One must,
1924), p.
(Milan,
not forget that there is the opposite
of Calvin's
too.
however,
interpretation
anthropology,
Das
W. Dilthey,
nat?rliche
der Geisteswissenschaften
im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert
System
of human
(Ges. Werke,
II, Leipzig,
1921, p. 231), claims that never before had the "loftiness
Olgiati,
destiny
been
felt and
stated"
as
in Calvin's
idea
that
grace
cannot
be
lost.
335
MICROCOSMUS
The writings of the

know much of Aristotle.
did the Carolin gian Renaissance
"Philosopher" were, of course, in the hands of the authors of the fifteenth and
but
sixteenth centuries, those which were first given the name of Renaissance;
was
incom
ism
of
these
little interest forAristotelian
there
among many
authors,
parably less than among the scholars of the thirteenth century. The Great
If one considers, as some do, the age of
Renaissance was thoroughly Platonic.
one must acknowledge
as
a
that
German Classicism
belated Renaissance,
to
or
of
back
currents
and Neo-Platonism,
Platonism
these,
thought going
dominate throughout and that Aristotelianism, or the systems of the Stoa, of
or Epicurus, play a very subordinate r?le.

Democritus
in its philosophical
is always Platonic
One might conclude that Renaissance
was
case
It suffices
Great
Renaissance.
the
with
This
aspect.
indubitably the
of
the
"Platonic
and
head
to recall that Marsilio Ficino, the founder
Academy"
The Great
at Florence, gave to his chief work the title: Theologia Platonica.
was
also
the first to be called by that name, the first
Renaissance
perhaps, to
an
which
other
have felt itself
age of rebirth. Its features supply the pattern by
of
character
are
It might be that the general
ages
equally called Renaissance.
so
much
has become, in the minds of the historians,
the Great Renaissance
linked up with Platonism that a non-Platonic age, however much itmay go back
to Antiquity, is not recognized as a Renaissance.
Furthermore the revival of classical studies in the ninth and the twelfth cen
turies could not help being Platonic in its philosophy because hardly anything
was then known ofAncient philosophy besides certain Platonic and Neo-Platonic
ideas. Also, what one knew of the systems of Democritus, Epicurus, or the
"Back
Stoics, was not such as to appeal strongly to Christian philosophers.30
to the sources", therefore, meant for these thinkers back to Platonism.
Thus,
the Platonic nature of these periods, preceding the Great Renaissance, might
But it is, at the same time, one reason why these ages
be purely accidental.
are considered as of Renaissance.
It might, therefore, be argued that the
Platonism of Ficino, Poliziano, Bembo, and so on, presents the student of the
history of ideas with a real problem, but that the Platonism of John Scottus
is not a
Eriugena, or Bernardus Carnotensis does not. Also, that Platonism
a
characteristic
the
trait
of
Great
but
necessary character of Renaissance,
only
Renaissance.31
On close examination,
however,
this objection
loses its impressiveness
so as
30
With
a renewal
of William
of Conches
who attempted
of
the one notable
exception
or Lucretius.
better Epicurus
There
in the sense of Democritus
or, perhaps,
atomism, much
a noticeable
for instance,
is quoted
of Stoic ethics ; Seneca,
fre
appreciation
is, of course,
so far as they were known, did not meet with approval.
But Stoic metaphysics,
quently.
31German
in favor of the necessity
of Platonism
does not furnish an argument
Classicism
in first line was art.
Renais
The
feature which
in Renaissance.
e.g., Goethe,
attracted,
sance
and there was a general

influenced
by the art of Old Greece,
It was art which first transmitted
from these times.
stemming
Renaissance.
of the Italian
ideal of Antiquity
and, subsequently,
art was
sculptures
mind
the
interest
in the
to the German
The
latter
being Platonic in its philosophy, it is easy to see how Platonism came to be identifiedwith
the spirit
of Classicism.
336
TRADITIO
to appear as a rather specious argument.

The Platonism of the various ages of
is of a peculiar kind. Plato's philosophy, in its original form or in
Renaissance
One combina
itsmany derivatives, allows for several viewpoints and emphases.
of the
tion of ideas, ultimately going back to Plato, is found in the Renaissance
no
reason
in
is
and
There
intrinsic
the
the
fifteenth
centuries.
twelfth,
ninth,
the system of Plato himself, why just this particular form should have been
there is no reason why in all these ages the idea of the
adopted.
Especially,
microcosmus
should be given such a prominent place. With Plato himself this
idea plays a secondary r?le. It is indeed a constituent element inNeo-Platonism.
which had Plato's works at its disposal
But why did the Great Renaissance,
(although many of them had been available earlier too), choose to be Neo
Platonic rather than Platonic?
Why did it feel so attraced by microcosmism?
or of that of the twelfth century
of
The writers
the Carolingian Renaissance
on
main
information of "Platonism"
because
their
Neo-Platonic
thought
lines,
was derived from works deeply stained by Plotinian influences. The commen
the passages
tary on Timaeus by Chalcidius, the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius,
fromMaximus Confessor contained in the works of Eriugena, and other auctori
But this reason did not exist for the
tates were thoroughly Neo-Platonic.
Ficino might have gone back to Plato,
"Platonists" of the Great Renaissance.
as
Aquinas had gone back to Aristotle; the former might have felt Neo
just
Platonism as a degeneration of the original system, as the latter considered that
the Arabian commentators had misrepresented the Philosopher.

there is no absolute necessity
Even within the boundaries of Neo-Platonism
an
so
The ideas of the anima
to accord
great
importance to microcosmism.
form indeed an
mundi, the mundus intelligibilis, and of man as a microcosm,
important part in the Plotinian system. But its main features can be main
tained without giving so much prominence just to microcosmistic
speculations.
It is obviously not a sufficient
For this there has to be a special reason.
to describe it simply as a
characterization of the phenomenon "Renaissance"
a
in
renewed
interest
of
Classic
revival
art, thought, and way of life.
Antiquity,
The humanistic
ismore than all this,more also than "humanism".
Renaissance
to
"Great Age"
for
the
and
the
admiration
everything pertaining
emphasis
are but partial aspects of a particular mentality, such as favors also the develop
Another feature of this "metaphysical

philosophies.
is
the
for
microcosmism.
situation"
predilection
Thus, the study of the ideas centered around the notion of the microcosmus
may be, eventually, helpful in shedding some more light on the historico-cultural
It cannot be the intention of this article to
phenomenon, called Renaissance.
attempt a clarification of the enormously complicated problems which refer to
If it is true, as I believe, that an analysis of micro
the idea of Renaissance.
ment
of Neo-Platonic
cosmism furnishes a hopeful approach to these problems, it is also true that no

The emphasis
single approach ever can do justice to the whole set of questions.
on microcosmism, on the other hand, is somarked in those periods called "Renais
I
sance" that some few words, however inadequate they be, have to be said.
337
microcosmus
shall return, therefore, to the problem of Renaissance

of this article.
III. The
in the concluding pages
Beginnings
Although it is planned to present the various ideas on the microcosm more

in a systematic than a historical way, it seems best to report on the first refer
ences to microcosmism and the ideas proposed in this regard by way of enumera
tion. Like many other ideas, those of microcosmism make their appearance
in
an undifferentiated shape.
One cannot well distinguish, in these early times,
between the interpretations described above.
This is partly due to the but
fragmentary knowledge we possess of these oldest philosophies, partly however
to the very nature of the initial period.
Only gradually we see the ideas unfold
and bring forthwhat they implicitly contained.

It is possible that
Only Greek philosophy will be considered in this section.
It is difficult to find any
the Ionian thinkers were influenced by the near East.
definite proof for such an influence. But even if there are more or less reliable
reasons for assuming such relations, they are of no importance in the context
of this study, since the Oriental beliefs or philosophies were not recognized
as
such.
is of a highly speculative nature.

It involves
The idea of the microcosmus
reflections on the essence of the universe, of man, of his relation to the whole.
It is, perhaps, not little amazing to discover such speculations at the very begin
It has been assumed that these early
ning of Western philosophical thought.
sources. The East had a long
of
from
their
Eastern
ideas
philosophers got part
came
when
world
in
contact
with the Oriental realms.
the
closer
Greek
history
have
there
farther, and have been of a kind
Thus, speculation might
progressed
to impress very much the Greek traveller and student. But it remains still a
mystery why it was just microcosmism which, indeed among some other views,
a definite enthusiasm,
was taken over?if it did really originate in the East?with
as it seems, by the Greeks.
One need not go so far as R. Berthelot and credit the Neolithic age with an
awareness of "mathematical
regularity" as a fundamental trait of the universe;32
32
? la fois une action vitale

la tendance
de voir partout
(comme celle
"L'astrobiologie,
et une r?gularit? math?matique
la croissance
des plantes)
(comme celle que
t?moigne
a ?t? la mani?re
?
de penser
la plus r?pandue
manifestent
des astres)
les lois du mouvement
la surface de notre plan?te
r?cent de la science
et le triomphe
entre l'?poque
n?olithique
dont
et la pens?e
Rev. de Met.
R. Berthelot,
moderne."
d'Asie",
"L'Astrobiologie
on this topic, published
in the same
This
is the last of nine essays
(1937), 549.
common with many
the tendency,
39-44
vols.
scholars,
(1932-1937).?Concerning
whenever
simi
for a foreign origin of all sorts of ideas, and to establish
dependencies
europ?enne
etMor.A4:
review,
to seek
lar ideas
H.
are
found
seem
Fl. Dunbar
the Divine
makes
racial
clear
or mythologies
of different peoples,
the remarks of
in the philosophies
in
in Medieval
and its Consummation
to the point
Thought
(Symbolism
of symbolism
New Haven,
1929, p. 249 f.): "As study of materials
Comedy,
that similarities
contact,
so a study
races
divers
of myth
among
of thought as it developed
through
is no
indication
these materials
of influence
shows
or
definitely
that influencesneed not be sought for the development of the philosophy and method of
insight
symbolism.
Given
the
same
problem
and
the
same
symbolic
materials,
it was
338
TRADITIO
true that microcosmism, together with some other daring specu

the minds of the earliest philosophers on whose ideas we possess
occupied
lations,
somewhat reliable information. Anaximandros must have had, from what we
know of his philosophy, a quite comprehensive metaphysics
and cosmology of
it is nonetheless
were constituent
and World-Soul
the ideas of microcosm, macrocosm,
In the philosophy of Anaxi
parts, although he did not use these expressions.
seem to be integrated into a unity, or
mandros three aspects of microcosmism
not
from
the
yet
perhaps,
disengaged
original comprehensive and unanalyzed
Anaximandros envisions the cosmic order as molded on the pattern
conception.
of civil or political order. Generation
and destruction are conceived as a
"process" in the strict sense, namely a lawsuit or a fight about right. Destruc
which
tion, apparently, is equal to paying indemnity or penalty for injustice done

a in regard to contingent being), and time functions as the
(hence the use of a
? ykveals ka
in
at least, lays down the law:33 ?
this
,
or,
fight
judge
a
(pi?op?veis
a
a yivea?ai
a?
"
>.34
it is perhaps going too far ifTime is personified so as to make it

However,
a
The raftsmay simply mean the order of time, without imply
truly
"judge".
as indicated by the term "judge".
such
function
But it seems clear
any
ing
that to Anaximandros
the harmonious and beautiful order of the universe?
this is, as one knows, the original meaning of
^?is
the same as the one pre
.
at
in
least
the
the
Milesian
great
vailing,
ideally,
Thus,
apparently was
the first to consider something like a "sociological" or "political" microcosmism.

W. Jaeger goes so far as to make the notions of law and justice the very sources
fromwhich the notion of the
took its origin. Law and justice, he argues,
had their foundation in the divine law. This divine law came to be more and
more identified with, and seen as embodied in "nature" where the same law was
to reign as constituted the highest norm of the
supposed to rule and the same
rest on the same prin
The
and the
human world.
ciples.36
inevitable
be
stressed
that
in Rome
in the
and Alexandreia
of
application
the same
symbols.''
The
centers
elementary
same
consideration
of emphasis
applies
should
to other
too.
ideas,
33Similar
in non-philosophical
ideas seem to have been alive
also
circles.
Hesiodus,
. These
servants
,E
a, E
Theog. 901, gives the names of the three Ho res :A
deities,
of time, thus bear names which
of the sun and representatives
refer to social order and jus
tice.
the idea is that what
order in the state, does so also in the
Obviously,
guarantees
universe.
34
der Vorsokratiker
Rhein. Mus.
Fragm.
9, Diels,
(4th ed.), I, 15. Dirlmeier,
Fragmente
are mainly
87 (1938), 376, believes
that the expressions
in this fragment
Aristotelean
.
His views are criticized
bei
75 (1940), 12.
Theophrastic.
Deichgraeber,
Hermes,
35The
term
is said to have been used first for the universe
by the Pythagoreans.
on Plato's
to A. E. Taylor,
A Commentary
Timaeus
According
(Oxford, 1928), p. 66, the origi
nal meaning
of
The use of
spiritual.
"law
of nature".
36W.
Jaeger, Paideia
a similar
view,
posed
is "battle
and
array";
a
metaphorically
as synonyms
(2d ed., Berlin-Leipzig,

couched
in
although
less
it means
expresses
order, decency,
the Pythagorean
E. Rohde
1936), I, 408.
Already
definite
terms.
Notwithstanding
visible
or
concept
of
had
pro
their
339
MICROCOSMUS
There can be no doubt that ideas of this kind were alive in Greece already in
early times. But it is, nevertheless, a perhaps somewhat arbitrary assumption
to consider the ttoXlsor the ideal of social order as the origin of the notion of
cosmic order. Some aspects of the latter are so obvious that they must have
been noticed in times when reflection on social or political order had not yet
The regular succession of day and night, the alternation of the seasons,
begun.
at least, must have been observed at the earliest age. These regularities gov
and darkness
life and work. Daylight
erned from the very beginning man's
seasons.
scarce
to
Man
or
the
divide his activity.37 Food is plenty
according
a
some
of
his
idea of cosmic order, independently
must have arrived at
succeeding
It may be that the political
in establishing a peaceful and workable community.
order was envisioned as extending to the universe and that the latter came to be
considered as a res publica?an
expression not uncommon with later authors?;
a
rather advanced state of general and political
but this could happen only at
order could hardly fail to impress
The existence of a mundane
civilization.
itself on the primitive mind. Most primitives, indeed, seem to have some idea
of this kind. To conceive of an analogy, or even identity, of the cosmic and the
political order is an idea of too speculative a character to stand at the beginning
of reflection on the universe.
However
little we may know on the influence of Eastern civilization on Greek
thought, it cannot be doubted that such an influence existed. When the Greeks
started on their way towards philosophy, the nearby Eastern peoples were already
in possession of many data concerning astronomy.

They, therefore, must also
have developed some conceptions of cosmic order. The Greek thinkers in Asia
Minor may have received the idea of cosmic order, ready made as it were, and
did not need the detour by an analogy between this and the political order.
One ought not to forget, however, that Anaximandros'
system, by what we
in the unpredictability
the Homeric
doings,
people
is a
that the world
arises
belief
of some of the gods'

and the wantonness
dispositions,
. . . the belief
order
to the idea of a general world
in their
like the one men
, a perfect order,
try to achieve
of divine
are
"awake
A History
H.
E. Rohde,
Sabine,
of
1907), I, 43.?G.
(4th ed., T?bingen
Psyche
idea of
"At the start the fundamental
(New York,
1937), p. 26 ff., remarks:
Theory
. . .The first
as a physical
was applied
and as an ethical
principle.
indifferently
harmony
and this develop
in natural
took place
of this principle,
however,
philosophy,
development
in the eyes
in turn upon its later use in ethical and political
ment
reacted
Thus,
thought."
one may
it to be.?If
of what W. Jaeger believes
the opposite
the relation.is
of this author
states."
Political
the prototype
that the social world became
reports, one has to admit
fully rely on certain
in this direction may be found
Indications
not only to the Greeks.
for the universe
pointing
Ann?e
de classification",
formes primitives
"De
and M. Mauss,
in E. Durkheim
quelques
of
the words
Burnet
listed there.?J.
6 (1901), 24 ff. and the works
interprets
Socio?og.
is regularly used of the observance

As
in a somewhat
different manner.
a here referred
hot and cold, dry and wet, the a
the opposites,
between
of an equal balance
on
Greek
one
J.
another.
of
must
encroachment
the
undue
to
be
Burnet,
Early
opposite
are not irreconcilable.
The
two views
The
1930), p. 52.
(4th ed., London,
Philosophy
Anaximandros
opposites
may
well
be
conceived
winter
spring "overcoming"
37The
title of Hesiodus'
W.
p.
Ch.
33.
Greene,
Moira,
Unfortunately
and
great
one another.
In fact, we still
as "fighting"
use many
other such like phrases.
a a
? a . is perhaps
indicative.
"E
poem,
Fate, Good,
this excellent
and Evil
book
in Greek
appeared
Mass.
(Cambridge,
Thought
too late to be considered.
speak
Cf.
of
also
1944),
340
TRADITIO
know of it, is a highly developed and highly speculative complex of ideas. He

Only
is, indeed, one of the oldest philosophers of whom we have knowledge.
It is probable that there was quite an
Tha?es ismentioned as his predecessor.
amount of speculation before these two thinkers. One can hardly imagine a
philosophy
as that of Anaximandros
springing, all at once, Minerva-like
into
existence.38
seems also to have embodied in his system the idea that man,
Anaximandros
or perhaps any being whatsoever, is a combination of all the elements of which
the universe consists, although it is questionable what were the conceptions of
Anaximandros
It is surely a mistake to read into
concerning the "elements".
his philosophy conceptions which belong to later times.39 This mistake, how
ever, is fatefulmostly for the historian who wants to give a correct account of a
philosopher's system. But the historian ought not to reproach others forhaving
interpreted according to the pattern of their own philosophy the ideas of their
Ideas become effective not so much in the sense in which they
predecessors.
were originally conceived, as in the shape which they take on in the minds of the
readers. The history of ideas, accordingly, has a twofold task: on one hand, to
determine the original form of an idea and to point out themodifications it under
went subsequently; on the other hand, to study the influence which these modifi
cations had on later times. Not what Plato really said, but what he was believed
to have said, shaped medieval thought. Nor is the true Aristotelian conception
of, say, the vovs important for understanding medieval Aristotelianism, but the
or by
words either by Aquinas
interpretations given to the Philosopher's
Averroes.
One is not on a more solid ground in regard to the notion of an animated

It is not clear whether Anaximandros
universe.
thought or, for that matter,
could consistently think of one World-Soul
animating the whole universe. He
rather seems to have considered a plurality of worlds each of them animated by,
or even identical with, a "god".40
The system of Heraclitus of Ephesus apparently was not less comprehensive

than the systems of his Ionian predecessors.
He, too, seems to have conceived
of the universe as ruled by
, since he says: "The sun will not overstep his
ifhe does the Erinyes, the handmaids of Justice, will find him out."41
measures;
Another fragment refers to man not only as composed of the same "elements"
as the universe, but also as obeying, as it were, the same laws or possessing the
same structure.
"Man ismade of three things, fire,water, and earth. But just
38 If
famous word of Minerva's

bird starting on its flight only in the dusk were
Hegel's
have to place Anaximandros
at*the end of a period
of the history
true, one would
generally
this bird unfolds
its wings
of thought.
also in the hours of dawn.
Sometimes,
however,
39J.
Greek Philosophy,
p. 53.
Early
Burnet,
40Cf.
that there were gods coming
I, 25: Anaximandros'
Cicero, De nat. Deor.
opinion was
into being, rising and passing
away, and these were the
a
are gods.
I, 7, 12: the airepoi
41
Greek Philosophy,
J. Burnet,
p. 135. Fragm.
Early
.
e
e e
ei e
, 'Epw?es A
innumerable
94:
worlds.
y?p
Also
& ?
Aetius,
e a
a*
341
MICROCOSMUS
as in the macrocosmos
fire is identified with the one wisdom, so in the microcos
mos, the fire alone is conscious".42
The idea that it is by justice that the equilibrium and harmony between oppos
ing forces and entities ismaintained may have been also behind the Pythagorean
. This
a ,
of justice and the a
identification (or symbolization?)
seems to be a better reason than the view that justice retributes by equals?
\vhich, incidentally, it does not, since justice demands, e.g., not only restitution
The supposed equality of crime and punish
but more than that, atonement.
ment is not so general as to become a plausible foundation of so sweeping a view.
In some instances no such equality can be established, as for instance, in the case
of expulsion because of political opposition which was, as one knows, a quite
seems a
The idea of "social equilibrium"
frequent occurrence in old Greece.
more appropriate basis for the Pythagorean
One may think, in
conception.
a as characteristic of health,
a
a
this connection, of Alkmaion's use of
The
of disease.
in the body, one
rest.43 Alkmaion
said to have died
latter is conceived as a disturbance of the political equilibrium

of the constituent powers achieving a despotic rule over the
was a younger contemporary of Pythagoras.
The latter is
It is a curious coincidence, although itwould be
around 500.
extremely difficult to establish any direct connection, that it was in 494 that
Menenius Agrippa told his famous fable to the Plebeians when they had seceded
to the mons sacer. The basic idea, however, is obviously the same.
of
This "arithmetization"
, however, is but one of many such relations
between numbers and entities which, at first sight, have no relation to quantity
Aristotle, to whom we are indebted for a large part of
and, thus, to number.
our knowledge concerning Pythagoreanism,
is not quite clear on this point. He
the idea that the essence of being and
attributes to the school of Pythagoras
principles become the formal
beings consists in numbers so that mathematical
as well as the material constituents of reality.44 But he also asserts that the
numbers are, as it were, images or, perhaps, symbols of the things and events;
them.45
they "copy" or "imitate"
The passages speaking of
admit, however, also of the interpretation
"imitate" the
that it is the things, events?generally
speaking, reality?which
If this be the true meaning, the arithmetical "world" becomes the
numbers.
a
true reality, the Platonic
, in its static and dynamic
?v, and the
aspects,
becomes
something
secondary,
approaching
"mere
appearance".46
42
ibid.
J. Burnet,
.?151.
43
der Vorsokratiker
4. Aetius,
(4th ed.), I, 138; it seems
V, 30, 1. Diels,
Fragmente
Frag.
a
a as originally
a and
of Alkmaion,
the
considers
that Diels
only the two words
e
text reads:
The
rest being a paraphrase
rijs e vyie?as elvai
by some other author.
'
.
. . .
a
e a
a
a
a e
44
b
23
Met. A, 5 (985
ss.).
45
. Cf. Aristoxenos
a
a
a
e a
a &
in Diels,
Met. A, 6 (987 b 11):
-a a a
.
a a a e^ a
a
to?s a a
der Vorsokratiker,
I, 45:
Fragmente
46
as fashioned
on
to the Pythagoreans
in fact, says that everything
appeared
Aristotle,
as H. Trendennik
or "modelled
Class.
of numbers,
the pattern
(Loeb's
upon
numbers,"
a
a a , inMet. A, 5 (986 a 1), so that the
a
to?s a
translates
Libr.),
seems well
of numbers
supported.
primacy
342
TRADITIO
In any case, there is within the Pythagorean

system more than a parallelism
between the various "worlds".
Since "justice, soul, reason, opportune time"
were, according to Aristotle, "not less numbers than any tangible being," there
is but one fundamental law of proportion and harmony ruling throughout the
whole universe.
insofar as
every thing becomes a microcosmus
Consequently,
the same numerical principle underlies the particular and its relations on one
hand, and the universe or the "heavens" on the other.47
The r?le attributed to numbers soon became linked up with microcosmistic
Whether this was the case already with the early Pythagoreans
speculations.
cannot be ascertained.
It became assuredly the fashion with the Neo-Pythag
orean school. Another idea, however, which later too was combined with
is unquestionably
part of the original doctrine. The notion of
microcosmism,
the "harmony of the spheres," the musica mundi, appealed tomany minds, down
to very recent times.48 Fast moving bodies, so Aristotle summarizes the idea,
produce sounds. The stars, especially the planets, therefore also produce
sounds which combine into a perfect harmony. We do not hear it because it
reaches our ears continuously, and we perceive sounds only when interrupted by
periods of silence.49
We have no clear report on the way Pythagoras conceived of human nature.
Plato and Aristotle state that he considered the soul as the "harmony of the
calls the soul a harmony and refers in this to Pythagoras
body". Macrobius
and Philolaos.50
The precise meaning of this formula cannot be determined.
It has been argued that the interpretation of both Plato and Aristotle cannot
render the original idea because it contradicts the other Pythagorean principle
If the soul is the "harmony of the body", itwould cease to
of metempsychosis.
exist when the body decays and thus be unable to be reborn in another being.
This objection, however, is not as conclusive as it seems.
It is valid only so
a
as
name
mere
to
is
relation
understood
"harmony"
long
obtaining between the
on
of
the
the
other
parts (or "elements")
body.
If,
hand, "harmony" is credited
with some kind of existence or even substantiality, it need not become involved
in the destruction or dissolution of the body. Now, to look at harmony in such
a manner is not impossible. Harmony
is a proportion between magnitudes or
47
W.
hands
a sentence
a
as "built
of Simonides
in
Jaeger quotes
(frag. 4, 2) who describes
and feet and mind
without
Paideia
(2d ed.,Berlin-Leipzig,
rectangularly
fault,"
The
eminent
scholar
in these words
discovers
the first indication
of an
I, 356.
1936),
awareness
the idea
of "mental
of the well
formation"
ordered
which
(seelische Geformtheit)
. But
the "rectangularity"
notions.
Pythagorean
48J.
Early Greek Philosophy,
Burnet,
points
not the smallest
orb which
Lorenzo:
"There's
at Shakespeare's
thou behold'st
he believes
may
have
to be
also
related
to
reference
to
Merchant
/ But
of Venice, V, 1:
in its motion
like an
One may
add the famous words
in Goethe's
to Faust:
"Die
Sonne
sing".
angel
Prologue
t?nt nach
alter Weise
see
treatment
/ In Brudersph?ren
[For a detailed
Wettgesang."
L. Spitzer's
ed.]
article,
infra,
49
. 9 (290 b 12
De c?elo,
Aristotle,
ss.).
50
De an. A. 4 (407 b 30) ;Polit. O. 5 (1340, b 18). Macro
85 ss. Aristotle,
Plato, Phaidon,
I, 14, 19.
bius, De Somn.
Scip.
343
microcosmus
numbers, and therefore itself a number or at least expressible by such. Numbers

are, ifwe believe the reports, considered by the Pythagoreans as the true reality,
are indestructible.
the principle which underlies anything that is. Numbers
They do not cease to be, whatever happens to that of which they are the num
bers.
(Eurytos, a pupil of Philolaos, is known to have assigned definite numbers
to particular beings, likeman, or horse, and so forth.51)
According to tradition, it was Pythagoras who first applied the name of
to the universe
because of the beauty and order he discovered there.

system, however, seems incompatible with any kind of microcosmism,
The
although in later times these two ideas entered a quite close association.
If
to
from
r?le
the
results
attributed
numbers.
fundamental
incompatibility
every being "has" (or "is") a number, there must be such a number also for the
It is to be surmised that the
universe and it cannot be the same as forman.
number of the universe is the ten, the ? ae which is said to be the most perfect
His
number because it comprises the nature of all other numbers.52 The Pythagore
ans also spoke of ten heavenly bodies, which points in the same direction. Ten
being the number of the universe, human nature must be given another, and
necessarily "less perfect", number. This number cannot be in any sense an
equivalent of the ? a$.
and Pythagoras53 have, as it were, set the stage
Anaximandros, Heraclitus
for the future development ofmicrocosmism.
In their philosophies are implied
combinations and
all the elements which subsequently appear in manifold
The unfolding
modifications as characteristics of microcosmistic
speculations.
of these proceeded during classical Antiquity much along the lines indicated by
New elements were added only in the first
the three ancestors ofmicrocosmism.
centuries of the Christian era, with the influence of Oriental philosophies on one
hand, and the new conception
the other.
IV.
founded on the Christian
of man,
The
doctrine, on
Unfolding
When Greek thought reached the age of maturity it found prepared all the
It then depended on the individual bias
constituent elements ofmicrocosmism.
of a philosopher whether he adopted at all, and in what form he did eventually
ideas. On the following pages the attempt is made to
adopt, microcosmistic
group the available material on ancient and medieval philosophy according to
51
Die
Praechter,
Philosophie
des Altertums
(Ueberweg-Heinze,
I,
12th ed.,
Berlin,
1926), p. 71.
52
. . . a
e
a
&a
a a
Aristotle, Met. A. 5 (986 a 8) : r?Xeiov ?eic?s e?vcu
.
'
53There
a &
is one fragment of Democritus,
II, 72, fr. 34: kv
Diels,
influence
did Democritus
this idea nor, apparently,
We do not know more about
subsequent
to ancient wri
"the
One should remember
microcosmistic
fact, well known
philosophies.
was
himself
in modern
ters of history,
but too much
overlooked
times, that Democritus
strongly
influenced
(Oxford,
1928),
p.
by Pythagoreism".
84.
A.
E.
Taylor,
Commentary
on Plato's
Timaeus
344
TRADITIO
the types of microcosmism which were distinguished in part II. As has been
pointed out before, no complete survey is intended. The references to various
authors have only the value of illustrations.
From now onwards, the chronological viewpoint is abandoned.
Also, the
limitation to strictly Occidental systems has to be given up. During the last
centuries of the Old Age, and again inmedieval times, when the translations of
Arabian and Hebrew
texts became more numerous and generally known, the
Western world came under the influence of the East.
Alexandria and later Rome
were centers where the East and theWest not only met but intermingled. Neo
Platonic and Neo-Pythagorean
doctrines incorporated many elements of Oriental
in
the
twelfth
and
thirteenth centuries the scholars at Paris and
origin. Again,
other places of learning scanned with lively interest the new material which the
activities of many translators supplied from Spain and the East; the crusades,
And the
too, had brought about an immediate contact with the Eastern world.
not
of
Italian
thinkers
the
Renaissance
used in building their systems
only the
Greek texts which had come fromByzantium but also ideas stemming from older
and newer Oriental sources. Thus, for instance, Pico della Mirandola
studied
and similar works.
All this makes necessary a certain
carefully the Cabbalah
consideration
of Eastern
thought.
1. Elementaristic Microcosmism
Most, perhaps all, authors who gave any thought whatsoever to the constitu
tion of man felt sure that he is composed of the same elements which are dis
tributed throughout the universe.
Those who held that the psychic is one ele
ment among others could easily arrive at such a conception.
Those who denied
to the psychic such an equality with the other "four elements" must have en
countered some difficulties. The same is true of any system assuming some
element particular only to one part of the universe.
Thus, it would seem that
there is a certain inconsistency inAristotle's remark on man as the microcosmus,
since he expressly limits the composition ofman to the "four elements" and ex
cludes the fifthwhich does not enter into the composition of terrestrial bodies.
His statement on the vovscoming "from without", too, may appear incompatible
with the idea of the microcosmus, although it is possible to conceive of the vovs
as one of the constituent "elements" of the
.u
Elementaristic microcosmism, however, generally assumes that not only is
man composed of the same elements as existing elsewhere in the universe, but
that they are also arranged in the same manner.
Therefore, man shares with
or
In
other beings, higher
lower than he himself, their characteristic natures.
innumerable passages we read that man has physical existence in common with
inanimate beings, mere lifewith plants, sensorial capacities with brutes, rational
54
De gen. et corr. B. 8 (334 b 30-335 a 5).
the fifth element,
ai?rjp, see Aristotle,
Concerning
a complete
to human nature,
the notion of vom and its relation
survey may be found in
van Aristoteles
F. J. C. J. Nuyens,
in de Zielkunde
Ontwikkelingsmomenten
(Nijmegen
Tuse. Disp.
Utrecht
1939).
See, however,
Cicero,
I, 26, 65: "sin autem est quinta
quaedam
On
natura,
ab Aristotele
inducta,
haec
et deorum
est et animorum".
Also
Acad.
post.
I, 7, 28.
MICROCOSMUS
345
Claudianus Mamertus,
for instance, says that the Crea
powers with the angels.
tor gave toman essentiam cum lapidibus, vitam seminalem cum herbis et arboribus,
vitam sensualem eandemque cum pecudibus, vitam rationalem cum angelis.55 The
locus communis, however, to which all later writers refer, explicitly or implicitly,
is found in St. Gregory: Omnis enim creaturae aliquid habet homo. H omini
namque commune esse cum lapidibus, vivere cum arboribus, sentire cum animalibus,
intelligere cum angelis.56 Johannes Scottus Eriugena uses much the same words :
Nulla creatura est, a summo usque deorsum, quae in homine non reperiatur. And
elsewhere: Intelligit quidem ut angelus, ratiocinatur ut homo, sentit ut animal,

vivit ut germen . . .nullius creaturae expersP Referring to the notion of harmony
?on
which below?Eriugena
also calls man the officina omnium.
Some few further instances may be mentioned.

Thus, Alanus de Insulis:
homo qui habet similitudinem cum omni creatura, esse cum lapidibus, vivere cum
herbis, sentire cum brutis, ratiocinari cum angelis}* Alanus expresses the same
idea in a quite impressive passage of his work, De planctu naturae, there, however,
elementaristic microcosmism ismixed up with views pertaining to other interpre

tations. This passage, therefore, will be referred to also later. But it may
stand as well here.
It is, incidentally, a good example of medieval
rhetorical
ornateness as cultivated especially in the twelfth century.
[Nature
speaks:]
hominis
exemplavi
Sicut enim quatuor
consensus
sum ilia quae

ad exemplarem
mundanae
machinae
similitudinem
Ego
ut in eo velut in speculo,
naturam,
ipsius mundi
scripta natura
appareat.
Concors discordia,
elementorum
unica pluralit?s,
consonantia
dissonane,
mundialis
structuras
sic quatuor
dissentiens,
regiae
concili?t,
complexionum
deformis
diversa
identit?s
aedificium
disparitas,
jnaequalis
conformitas,
aequalitas,
... Et sicut contra ratam firmamenti
motu
volutionem
contra
compaginat
corporis humani
sensu ali tus rationisque
dictorio
exercitus milit?t
sic in homine
re peri
continua
planetarum,
... Haec mentem
tur hostilitas
occasum
humanam
in vitiorum
ut occidat,
illa in
deducit,
. . ..Haec super scientiae
ut oriatur
virtutum
orientem
invit?t
nocte mentis
lumen ?limin?t,
illa contemplationis
lumine mentis
illumin?t.59
compar
55Claudianus
De statu animae,
SS.
Ecetes.
Mamertus,
I, 21 (ed. A. Engelbrecht,
Corp.
Vol.
11, 1885), p. 71.
56
Horn,
in Evan. XXIX
So also Isidore
of Sevilla,
Gregorius
(P.L. 76, 1214 A).
Magnus,
esse cum omnibus
Sent.
"communia
omnia naturalia
homini
I, 11 (P.L.
83, 559 A):
quae
Lat.
rerum naturam
ri atque
in eo omnium
consistere
(patet)."
in the writings
of the Greek Fathers,
e.g., Joannes Damas
a ?X?yois
e a a
12 (P.G.
a
cenus, De fide orthodoxa,
II,
94, 925) : ? a
De natura
horn. c. 1 (P.G.
XoyiKo'is. Nemesius,
40, 512 C).
57Joh.
De div. nat. II, 4 (P.L.
and III, 37 (ibid. 733
Scottus
122, 530 D)
Eriugena,
).
58Alanus
diet, theol. (P.L.
de Insulis, Distinct,
210, 755 a), sub voce creatura.
Similarly
de Spir.
Sancto
also Sermo
Ars Fidei,
furthermore
Ber
(ibid. 222 D),
II, 13 (ibid. 607).
constant
Similar
et
in homine
statements
are
contine
found
s. Microcosmus
De mundi
et Megacosmus,
universitate,
(edd. S.
II, X
de coelo corpus
trahit ex elementis
Wrobel,
Innsbruck,
1867, p. 55): "Mentem
/
Ut terras habi te t corpore, mente
coelum."
59
Alanus
The parallel
de Insulis, Lib. de planctu nat. (P.L. 210, 443 b).
between
the four
s. humores
and the four complexiones
elements
is common;
of St. Thierry,
e.g. William
nardus
Silvestris,
Barach-J.
nat. corp. et an. (P.L.

1.11 (P.L.
180, 698); also Honorius
Augustodunensis,
Elucidarium,
Henricus
cf. Ch. H. Haskins,
in
Studies
(ca. 1120), Aurea Gemma,
172, 1117 A).
Francigena
Medieval
Culture
iste ex quatuor
constat.
elementis
Cre
(Oxford,
1929), p. 178 ff. "mundus
De
346
TRADITIO
Of other writers, there is for instance, Bede,60 then William, Abbot of Hirsau
The Glossa
(ca. 1073) in his Praefatio in astronomiam,61 Petrus Lombardus.62
ordinaria, too, refers to this locus. It is hardly worth while to list further quota
tions63 since this conception soon lost the appeal it obviously had for the authors
of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. True, St. Albert still mentions that man
is a microcosm,
i.e. minor mundus eo quod de omnibus creaturis aliquid habet,
esse cum lapidibus, and so on, according to the formula.64 But Aquinas already
: homo dicitur minor
feels the need to introduce a restrictive "quodammodo"
mundus quia omnes creaturae mundi quodammodo inveniuntur in eo.65
The idea, however, is not limited to the Latin authors. Rabbi Joseph ben
Jacob (ibn) Zaddik
(fll49) wrote a treatise in Arabian of which we have a
Hebrew translation. He says:
is nothing
in the world which has not
world
;he consists of the four elements
"There
corporeal
its correspondence
in man.
He
is like the
... he has the nature of the
plants and ani
mals ; he is similar to things : upright like the terebinth, his hairs like the grass and the
weeds,
the arteries
patient
like the rivers
like the lamb,
clever
. . He
.
is courageous
like the lion, timorous
like the hare,
like the fox."66
similarity of some of the expressions used by Rabbi Joseph and the formula
of St. Gregory cannot be overlooked.
There are, indeed, also noticeable differ
ences. The comparison of the parta of the body with natural objects is absent
in the Gregorian text. The Jewish scholar "indubitably followed the procedure
of the Brethren of Purity".67 Whatever
ideas he took over from this Arabian
The
ator
. . . pro vide t ut mundus

sibi similia
t enim hominem
contineret.
Contine
. . .
. . . sed etiam
dicitur
ex quatuor
constat
elementis
qui ex quatuor
sortiti sunt".?This
idea was transmitted
to the Western
qui similes propterea
crocosmus
bus
Africanus:
by Constantinus
supposedly
elementis
sibi a mundi
appropriatis."
der Wissenschaft
des Mittelalters",
12 (P.G.
94, 921)
"Corpus
scholars
ex quatuor
constat
humoribus
von Morley
in
des Daniel
Stellung
hum?num
M. M?ller,
"Die
Jahrb. 41 (1928), 309.
Phil.
e
a e
: a
e a
.
De fide Orth. II,

a a e
e a
*
60
De
temp. rat. c. 35 (P.L.
Beda,
90, 458
).
61P.L.
,C.
150, 1641
62F.
Die Philosophie
des Petrus
Espenberger,
MA.
1901, vol. 3, 5), p. 35, n. 4.
63
is a relation between
There
the four elements
qui mi
humori
Lombardus
But
e
(Beitr.
see Joh. Damascenus,

'
a e
a a
z. Gesch.
d. Phil.
d.
and the qualities

of the quatuor
tempora.
De imag. mundi,
a treatise,
So also, earlier,
Augustodunes,
II, 59 (P.L.
172, 154).
83 Bodl.,
init.: "Quicumque
mundane
rationem
et
by Gerbert, MS.
possibly
Digby
sphere
astrorum
A History
and Experimental
legem," L. Thorndyke,
of Magic
Science,
I, (New
of the elements,
and humors
of the body.
York,
1923), 382: a harmony
seasons,
climates,
64
Albertus
theol. ver. II, 61 (ed. Borgnet,
vol. 34, p. 83). Elsewhere,
Magnus,
Compend.
he refers to minor mundus
however,
only rhetorice et per similitudinem
(In VIII.
loquendo.
Phys. Tr. 1, c. 9, text. 17, ibid. vol. 3, p. 540).
65Summa
theol. I, q. 91, a. 1, c.
66
M. Doctor,
z. Gesch.
Die Philosophie
des Joseph
ibn Zaddik
d. Phil.
d*.MA.
(Beitr.
Honorius
1895,vol. 2, p. 20).
p.
125 ff.
67
Letter
I. Husik, A History ofMedieval Jewish Philosophy (New York, 1916),
by Maimonides
to Samuel
ibn Tibbon,
M.
Doctor,
op.
Introduction to theHistory of Science (Baltimore, 1917), III, 118.
cit. p. 4.
Cf. G.
Sarton,
347
MICROCOSMUS
sect, there is an older passage of which one is forcibly reminded by the words of
Rabbi
is found in Philo Judaeus' De plantatione.
It
Joseph. This passage
will be discussed later, since this philosopher's microcosmism goes far beyond a
mere elementaristic interpretation.68 It seems probable that both St. Gregory
and the Rabbi got their formula from one selfsame source. This original state
ment must have contained the expression that man "possesses",
or "shares",
the
"participates
in", the natures of infra- and suprahuman beings?although
latter remark might be an addition by some Christian author. This source
probably is Poseidonios.
The idea ofman's including in his own the lower nature may be traced back,
tentatively, to Aristotle's theory of the three souls. The highest, rational soul
contains virtually the vegetative and the sensitive souls, that is, it is capable of
all the operations pertaining to these vital principles.69 But Aristotle's psy
chology was unknown to St: Gregory, while itmight have been known to Rabbi
used the work of the
Joseph. Nor is it probable that Claudianus Mamertus
The source is therefore rather to be located somewhere in the Neo
Stagirite.
Platonic
tradition which had, needless
to say, absorbed many
peripatetic
ele
ments.
is Poseidonios whose writings exer

Earlier, however, than the Neo-Platonists
cized a great influence. He taught that man participates
in the inanimate
realm, the lower life, and the knowing power of rational beings. His body and
itsmixture of elements man shares with dead matter; with the plants, the powers
of reproduction and nutrition; with the animals, instinctive movement, courage,

appetition, and the powers of perception and respiration. He is related to the
intelligible world by his reason, the power to think and to judge, by his will for
virtue, and by the highest of all virtues, namely piety.70,71
Elementaristic
microcosmism
cannot be said to have had any particular
implications.
philosophical
Frequently
though this conception is mentioned
it does not play any prominent r?le, even with the writers who go to some length
68
De plant.
Philo
Judaeus,
69
De an. B. 2-4
Aristotle,
70K.
Poseidonios
Reinhardt,
(Opp. edd. L. Cohn

(413 a-415 b).
u. P. Wendland,
II,
139, 15 ff).
be noted
in this
1921), p. 343.?Two
(Munich,
points may
that the similarity
with the lower organisms
ca
is not limited to mental
First,
or faculties
or appetition,
like perception
but also to a moral
such as cour
pacities
quality
that the wording
of Poseidonios
recalls the way in which Scottus
age.
Secondly,
Eriugena
states the same idea insofar as he distinguishes
and ratiocinari.
It is, however,
intelligere
can be considered
as indicative
doubtful
this detail
whether
of a more
direct
to
relation
passage.
Poseidonios.
with,
For
partly
another
critically
(2 vols.,
Schriften
71L.
Weissberg,
of Poseidonios'
in agreement
interpretation
philosophy,
partly
to Reinhardt,
see I. Heinemann,
Poseidonios1
metaphysische
opposed
1921-28).
Breslau,
Der Mikrokosmos,
ein angeblich
verfasstes philosophisches
Josef ibn Zaddik
Diss.
p. 55, the
Breslau,
1888), quotes,
e
e a
e
e a?
- a a <e e a
a e . e y?p
a, e
a
e
Photius,
Bibl.
a a
a.
,
cod. 249
e a
e
a
a a
(Vita Pythag.),
System
following
y?p e a
e
e
e e
a a
im 12. Jahrhundert
nach
untersucht
? a
passage:
a
,e
' '
von dem Cordubaner
seiner Echtheit
a a
e e
e a, e
a
e
e y?p &e a
. The passage
e
p. 440 a. 33 ed. Bekker.
a
(Inaug.
e a ,
'
?a
?rt
a
a ?Xoya
XoyiK- , e e
is taken
from
348
TRADITIO
in illustrating it, as e.g. Alanus does. This conception, in fact, asserts more
something about man's place in the order of being, emphasizing its uniqueness
(and thus is related to the idea of "man the center of creation") than itmakes
any claim to define the relationship obtaining between the micro- and the
macrocosmus.
2. Structural Microcosmism
Two forms of structural microcosmism were distinguished.
They seem to
be sufficiently characterized by the names of "cosmocentric"
and "anthropo
centric" microcosmism.
The two viewpoints, although fundamentally different,
are not always neatly kept apart. The underlying attitudes are, in spite of this
overlapping, distinct from one another.
a. Cosmocentric
Microcosmism
This theory is not sharply distinct from element?ris tic microcosmism.

How
ever great the difference in principle, there are all kinds of intermediary forms.
Elementaristic
changes into cosmocentric microcosmism when man is conceived
as not only including the divers elements and natures of which the universe
consists, but also their specific powers and mutual relations. The main differ
ence is the greater emphasis put on the "dynamic" aspect in the interpretation
This shift of emphasis becomes clearly visible, for instance,
under discussion.
in the philosophy of Philo Judaeus.
He states that man is justly called a mi
crocosm because he includes in his being all the forces of the universe, high and
low.72 But Philo goes farther than this. He also believes in a strict correspond
ence between the parts of the human body and certain things in the visible
universe, chiefly indeed things terrestrial. Stone and wood are solid bodies and
are to be compared to the bones ofman, hairs and nails correspond to plants, and
so on. The idea of cosmocentric microcosmism is, of course, far older than Philo.
It somehow pervades ancient anthropology.73
Sometimes the parts of the body are analogized not to compound objects but
to the elements themselves and to parts of the universe.
As an example a pas
sage may
serve, taken fromRobert Grosseteste
. . .dividitur
... in
hominis
enim in se aliquid
elementa.
Habet
quatuor
Corpus
ignis,
terrae.
Ratio
terrae in carne est; aquae
in sanguine;
aquae,
aliquid
aeris, aliquid
aliquid
Im
aeris in spiri tu [breath];
vitali.
et quadripartita
ignis in caliditate
corporis
Siquidem
mani
ratio quatuor
elemento rum d?sign?t
ad caelum
namque
species.
Caput
refertur, in
. . .Venter
lumina
solis et lunae.
Pectus
aeri coniungitur
quo sunt duo oculi
tamquam
autem
mari
72
Philo
73 "Das
assimilatur,
Judaeus,
Leg.
was wir heute
etc.74
alleg. II, 22 (ed. cit. I, 107).
eine kosmische
des Menschen
Auffassung
ist der grie

nennen,
selbstverst?ndliche
dass
sie
Metaphysik
Voraussetzung?so
selbstverst?ndlich,
wenn wir den Zusam
oft gar nicht ausgesprochen
wird, sondern uns erst entgegenspringt,
J. Stenzel,
der Gedanken
verstehen."
des Altertums
d.
(Handb.
menhang
Metaphysik
Phil.
I, Munich,
1931), p. 29.
74
homo sit minor mundus,
Die
in L. Baur,
Robert
des
Quod
Grosseteste,
Philosophie
Robert Grosseteste
d. Phil. d. MA.
twofold paral
(Beitr. z. Gesch.
1912, Vol. 9), p. 59. The
chischen
349
MICROCOSMUS
a "mechanistic explanation
Fr. Mauthner
calls cosmocentric microcosmism
of man" as set over against the "psychological explanation of the universe" by
as an advanced
Since he views mechanism
anthropocentric microcosmism.
stage and "animism" as the obviously primitive form of speculation, he believes
that anthropocentric microcosmism
is, by necessity, the older conception.75
Many other writers, especially of the nineteenth century, are in agreement with
It
this view. But it is not necessarily in agreement with the facts of history.
is really as general a form of
may be even questionable whether "animism"
But even if this be the
primitive world conception as it is usually presented.
case, it is to be considered that "animism" supplies primarily an explanation of

particular things and events, and rarely, if at all in truly primitive stages, one of
or fictitious?wholes.
The wind, the river, the sea, the tree, and
complex?real
the brute, are conceived as animated.
But the conception of the universe as a
whole and, therefore, as one animated being, seems to pertain to a rather ad
vanced stage of speculation. When reflection has progressed so far as to com
prehend all the multifarious events and objects as forming one universe,76 the
notion of universal order may easily appear as the primary fact and become a
starting point for speculation not less, or even more, plausible than anthropocen
or
trism
"animism".
Primitive "animism", to become transformed into a truly philosophical con

ception of the universe, presupposes reflection on the nature of man as a being
resting in itself. But such reflection seems to be the product of a stage much
The small child is believed to indulge in a more or
later than true primitivism.
This is, perhaps, not
less "animistic" interpretation of the surrounding world.
or functions
and the elements,
and one of
is noteworthy.
There
is one of organs
on the other.
in this con
of the body, on one hand, and parts of the universe,
(Terra,
not
refers
to
but
to
the
element
the
The
text, obviously
planet.)
formula, too, that the
is in an organ is not without
"ratio"
of an element
is
It indicates
that the relation
interest.
lelism
parts
not one
but of correspondence.
of composition
this passage
might
Insofar,
instance
of symbolistic
structural
The
interpretation.
viewpoint,
uses the same
Such ideas remained
alive a long time.
dominates.
Cusanus
as
an
the
to illustrate
intention
to Plato:
view
De
docta
the conception
ignorantia,
II,
of the earth
13 (Opp.
edd.
be quoted
however,
argument,
as a living being.
He
ascribes
E. Hoffmann
and R. Klibansky,
also
pre
with
this
I,
1931, p. 111).
Leipzig,
"
75Fr.
der Philosophie
W?rterbuch
Mauthner,
(2d ed., Leipzig,
1924), II, 324 ff.
76The
of Anaximandros
had not yet developed
that this philosopher
airepoi
suggest
of a e
the idea of there being but one universe.
A Democritean
too, speaks
fragment,
. However,
a
a
one has to consider
or
are quite ambiguous.
that the words
a of the upper
De c?elo, A (278 b 11 ff.), three meanings:
Aristotle
(1) the
distinguishes,
e
the planets,
a, of the universe,
(2) the body next to this, comprising
sphere, or
a
as opposed
as included by the
to Earth,
that is
sun, and moon,
(3) the whole universe
In any case, one must distinguish
number
of
circle.
between
the indetermined
uppermost
a
a ?an
or
of such
notion
of a definite number
, and the Pythagorean
universes,
most
to these
that
of regular bodies.
assumed
by the number
They
philosophers
Tim. 55, c. 7. Wherefrom
of which
Petron
,Plato,
got his 183 worlds,
on Plato1 s Timaeus,
we are ?old by Plutarchus
A Commentary
p. 79), seems
(A. E. Taylor,
or did, create
or not God
not to be known.
It is quite
another
whether
could,
question
idea
there
suggested
are five
several
universes,
in the
thoughts
a problem
of Giordano
which
plays
a great
r?le
in late medieval
speculation
Bruno.
and
also
350
TRADITIO
as certain as some psychologists want us to believe, but insofar as this attitude

exists, it is indubitably an unreflected one and does not imply any conscious
knowledge of the individual's own nature. When the child has developed so far
that he considers the question, "What am I?", his attempts to find an answer do
not start with self-analysis. He rather applies to himself the knowledge he has
acquired in regard to things. Similarly, anthropocentric microcosmism, on the
philosophical level, results from a re-interpretation of human nature in the light
of the previously attained idea of the universe.

It is noteworthy that anthro
Its first
pology or psychology appear late in the history of Greek thought.
period ismainly occupied with cosmology and the metaphysics of being.77
The cosmocentric viewpoint sometimes appears linked to the anthropocentric.
Because
the universe is an animated being and this is taken to be the primary
fact, man, being animated too, is viewed as an image or reproduction of the
universe. He too must be ruled by an all-pervading principle as the macrocos
mus
is.78 The notion of the living universe and theWorld-Soul
will be discussed
later.
For Christian authors, the necessity arose to bring together cosmocentric

microcosmism with the doctrine of creation. The notion of the microcosmus
imperceptibly glides into the idea of man being
reproducing the macrocosmus
created ad imaginent et similitudinem Dei.
Sometimes, it is the universe which
so
to
Creator
and man; the universe is pri
between
the
is,
speak, interpolated
an
as
of
and
is?at least in the natural
man,
image
marily
God,
microcosmus,
a
This view develops
such
features of his being?only
reproduction.
secondarily
are
who
influenced
with
those
authors
strongly
by Neo-Platonism.
particularly
The emanation istic conception of this school entails a gradually vanishing like
ness
between
the One
and
the various
successive
emanations.
greater
likeness
exists between the soul and God than between man and God.
The idea that the
soul is as such persona?as
for
of
St.
Victor?is
related
by
instance,
held,
Hugh
to this conception, whereas in Thomism persona names the psychophysical unit
of prime matter and soul.
one cannot
However
close Christian authors may come to Neo-Platonism,
well speak of something like a theomorphic microcosmism, at least not within
The awareness of the infinite distance separating Creator and Crea
orthodoxy.
tion was too much alive even before the principle of the analogia entis had been
expressly formulated.
Those
authors who, eventually, deviated
from orthodoxy
77
W.
a little too far in his emphasis

on the
(2d ed.), I, 356, goes perhaps
Jaeger, Paideia
a useful cor
But his statement
of "cosmic"
primacy
speculation.
implies, nevertheless,
to overestimate
to this
rection of the tendency
the r?le of "animism".
First,
according
it is art which
in the harmony
discovers
author,
aus kommt der Grieche
"Vom Kosmos
jetzt auch
delt nicht erlebnishaft
als chaotische
Innerlichkeit
of the cosmos.
of the body the principle
zur Entdeckung
des Seelischen.
Es bro
sondern wird umgekehrt

als der
hervor,
des Seins, der noch nicht von der kosmischen
Idee durchdrungen
... Es
taucht
unterworfen.
einer seelischen
ist, gesetzlicher
Ordnung
jetzt der Gedanke
as set over against
Geformtheit
On the Greek
"vision
auf."
of the individual"
the one
letzte
noch
?brige
Bereich
see ibid. p. 163.

characteristic
of Christianity
of the Christian
and, especially,
Occident,
78
von Bath Traktat De
for instance,
Adelhard
of Bath, H. Willner,
Des Adelhard
Thus,
.Gesch.
eodem et de diverso.
d. Phil. d. MA.
(Beitr.
1903, vol. 4, 1), p. 82 f.
351
MICROCOSMUS
and approximated pantheistic views are closer to such a conception.

The desire
to harmonize certain philosophical ideas with the tenets of Christianity became,
in fact, the source formore than one heretical proposition.
is
cosmocentric microcosmism varies insofar as the microcosm
Sometimes,
seen in the whole visible world, including man, and as an image of a better world.
This better world bears features of the eternal life and of the mundus intelligibilis.
This lack of clarity need not amaze us. The philosophers of old, especially up
to the thirteenth century, read the pagan authors somuch in the light of the faith
that they did not realize, many times, the incompatibility of ideas which they
put side by side without the slightest hesitation.79
Many Christian philosophers, however, extend their speculations not farther
than their pagan predecessors had done. When speculating on man's position
in the created universe, they leave out all consideration on creation or the rela
tion between Creator and created world.

Their interest focuses, when they
write on these questions, exclusively on the relation ofman and universe. Man
appears to them as an image of the whole nature or creation. He discovers
within himself the nature of the surrounding things. This is stated clearly by
Nemesius whose De natura hominis figured, up to the sixteenth century, among
the works of Gregory of Nyssa.80 We contemplate inman as in an image the
external world, he says; man carries in himself the image of the whole
and, therefore, is a microcosm.81
creation
b. Anthropocentric Microcosmism
Reasons have been shown above why anthropocentric microcosmism
cannot
be considered simply as a form or, eventually, remnant of primitive animism.
The man who
It is difficult to imagine Plato as a victim of popular prejudice.
a would be the last to take over
and
sharply distinguished between '?
unexamined any current belief. But it is Plato to whom the philosophers specu
lating on the microcosm mostly refer as the originator of their ideas.
Primitive animism may, for instance, claim that the sun and the moon are liv
ing beings. The shadow overcasting the sun in an eclipse may appear as a wolf
But there is apparently no case
threatening to swallow the light of the world.
an animated whole (provided
as
of primitive animism envisioning the universe
79Bernardus
hie mundus,
of "sensilis
mundi
for instance,
speaks occasionally
Silvestris,
s. Microcosmus
et Megacosmus
universitate
S.
De mundi
(edd.
II, X
imago".
and J Wrobel,
si
Barach
p. 55) : "In minori mundo,
homine, Physis
intelligit non errandum,
ibid. II, XIV
in exemplum";
maioris
similitudinem
mundi
(p. 64).
sumpserit
80The
e a
was translated
of Salerno
Uepi
(1058-1085)
by Alf anus, Archbishop
melioris
But the ideas of this "first anthro

in the twelfth century.
and again by Burgundio
Pisano
some exaggeration,
as B. Domanski
the occidental
reached
calls this work with
pology",
Die Psychologie
des Nemesius
B. Domanski,
channels:
world
(Beitr. z. Gesch.
through many
d. Phil.
One old manuscript,

however,
stemming
probably
1900, vol. 3, 1), p. xix.
F. Bliemetzrieder,
Adel
the work to Nemesius:
St. Michel,
attributes
correctly
d. MA.
from Mont
hard von Bath (Munich, 1935), p. 390.

81De
horn. c. 1 (P.G.
e . And*,
not.
e
e
e
40, 529 and 532 f.) :E

e
) a&' ea
e e
,
e
, a
a
e
'a
a
a
'
ae
352
TRADITIO
To conceive of every
primitive mentality attains the concept of the universe).
thing and every event as part of one whole demands obviously an advanced stage
of speculation, the more so if this whole is to contain many things which do not,
nor ever will, become objects of experience.
There is, in truth, but a superficial
likeness between primitive animism and the philosophies talking of a World
Soul.82
are stated in Timaeus and

The ideas of Plato concerning the World-Soul
Philebus.
The argument of the latter dialogue (28d-30c) is best rendered in the
wording of A. E. Taylor :82a
and
are agreed
to agree with
to reject the theory that the cause of the universe

is random
(eUrj 28d),
the traditional
belief that it is directed
(
)
by a supreme wisdom
our own body
of which
is made
and intelligence
materials
(vovs) in every particular_The
are only small parcels
and these constitu
of the great cosmic masses
of similar materials,
in the universe
than in our bod
ents are found in a much
higher degree of purity elsewhere
ies.
The
"We
the sun.
'fire' in us
And
again
is small
the
in bulk
'fire' or
and
'water'
in substance
with the fire in
'impure'
compared
in us is fed and kept up by that in the larger world
(29c). And generally our littlebody is fedby themass of body without (29e). By analogy,
we may
infer that since there is soul in us, it too comes from a greater and brighter
soul in
the universe.
it is
Also, we see in our own case that when
things are amiss with the body,
of the medical
art.
in the soul, which
order by means
the intelligence,
resident
reestablishes
at large the same holds good.
The order in
is only found in souls.
So we may hold that
intelligence
that it is their intelligence
which
is the cause of cosmic
...
And we may answer
the question
order (30a).
by saying that vovs (intelligence)
belongs
the class of the cause of the mixture
to the fourth of our classes,
(30c)".83
So we may reasonably
it is due to intelligence
there are superhuman
hold
that
in the universe
(vovs), and
souls, and
Thus, in Philebus only the existence of suprahuman souls is asserted, how many
of them remains obscure.
But no word is said of one World-Soul,
though one
may deduce its existence from the reference to the one cosmic order.
Not Philebus, but Timaeus was the work which became influential with Plato's
successors in Antiquity
this
and throughout the Middle
However,
Ages.
spirit ,because of the commen
dialogue was mostly interpreted in a Neo-Platonic
taries which were written at a time when Neo-Platonism
already dominated.
the medieval writers became acquainted with Timaeus nearly exclu
Especially
least up to the later part of the twelfth century?through
the com
sively?at
In Timaeus, 34b, the idea of one World-Soul
is clearly
mentary of Chalcidius.
stated. This World-Soul
conception, a twofold
fulfills, within the Platonic
office. It explains the order and the operations of the

,and it is the arche
It is the principle of generation of whatever exists or
type of the human soul.
82
J. Burnet,
the world
that
Early Greek Philosophy,

was
in some sense a $
One may
safely surmise
ever doubted
128, note 4, affirms that "no Greek
an
is obviously
That
felt this way
every Greek
or Thebes
of Athens
never
that many
inhabitants
p.
".
exaggeration.
even in regard
to the problem.
to the philosophers,
But
this statement
gave a thought
seems to go too far.
82aA. E.
The Man
and theWork
Plato,
(New York,
Taylor,
1936), p. 416 ff. On Timaeus,
see the same author's
on Plato's
A Commentary
Timaeus
1928).
(Oxford,
83The four
a ), the mix
are: the unlimited
of the actual
classes
(a e
(
), the limited
ture of both ( e
23c.
them in the mixture
), the cause uniting
(
) ;Philebus,
353
MICROCOSMUS
is going to exist.84 But neither in Philebus nor in Timaeus does Plato assert
that the individual human soul forms part of or takes origin with the World
Soul.
The development of the relation between these souls was left to Neo
Platonism.
Moved by the desire to spread his own goodness, the

made out of the
chaotic disorder an ordered world, since order is better than chaos. To make it
still better he endowed this world with mind (or reason,
) and thus, since rea
son exists only in souls, the world was given a soul (
so
that it became an
)
animated being with soul and mind.85 The world was
fashioned, Timaeus
on
or
*
model
the
likeness
had
the
,perfect
proceeds,
conceived, a
? ? , and living. Why this "idea" in the mind of the
and complete,
has to be a living being, and not simply the idea of such a one, is not quite clear.
,of course, possesses life as one of his perfections ;but what he con
ceives need not be necessarily alive, too. But according to Timaeus, the world
was formed as an embodiment of a living being (
), and all living beings are
a
are alive because they are
of
it.
One
ask
whether
the
of
this
world
may
part
The
But the answer must be to the negative, because there

parts of the living whole.
. There can
are lifeless beings, too, which equally are parts of the living
be but one
, since uniqueness is a property of the model in the demiurgic
mind, and this property must reappear in the reproduction of this model.
The procedure by which Timaeus exposes his cosmology is not anthropocen
He does not even start with the universe
tric. He does not start with man.
. The conception within this mind,
but with the creative mind of the
the a
, is not only the formal cause of the universe, but also furnishes
all the arguments concerning the nature of the world.
Plato declares that all
a
in
movement
This
like animism.
But
"soul".
sounds
rather
originates
Plato does not claim that all movement
another interpretation is possible.
stems from a soul inhabiting the moving body itself. Since there ismovement
in the universe, and nothing outside of the universe, there has to be a cosmic soul.
Plato cannot conceive of the
himself moving the world, because things
There is no change in eternity,
eternal are identical and, therefore, immovable.
where there is no time; time rather is "the moving image of eternity".
Eternity
, an intermediary agent is needed which
being the mode of being of the
84
e
See
antiker
Leg. X, 896:
. A. Schneider,
und patristischer
a
"Der
?v
? ?
Gedanke
Beitr.
Zeit",
"The World-Soul
der
Erkenntnis
z. Gesch.
d. Phil.
re
des
Gleichen
d. MA.
Suppl.
durch
II
6*
Gleiches
(Festgabe
a
in
Cl.
the capacity
of knowledge.
is credited with
It
1923, p. 68:
in its composition
and thus the knowledge
of identity and diversity
the elements
comprises
of the eternally
Thus
it is able to know the ideas and their
identical
and of the differences.
. . .The
same
is true of the immortal
terrestrial
soul, which
part of the human
images.
less pure, elements".
The
latter idea takes on, with
part is formed of the same,
though
souls are
the form that the human
of the Middle
certain
Ages,
"Platonists",
especially
Baeumker),
formed out of the

85 Tim.
30b:
of the World-Soul.
. These
.
a
a a
? ?
pavos',
?par?v
92c, on the
are repeated,
much
of the
without
statements
modification,
by later authors,
especially
vet. II, 693), from Diogenes
Stoic,
Stoa. Eg. Chrysippus
(H.v. Arnim.
Laertius,
VII,
Frag.
a XoyiK?v a ?
a voep?v.
e a
142:
"remnants"
?
?
354
TRADITIO
becomes responsible for all movement of the universe as a whole and within the
This soul can be conceived
universe.
Hence, the necessity of theWorld-Soul.
as the only source of movement, and thus makes superfluous the conception of
like those characteristic of animism.
"thing-souls"
is a living being, by its
The
, and rational by its vovs. It comprises
within itselfmany other living beings: "gods" (created or made gods, a notion
in the sky, birds in the air,

which acquires importance much later with Cusanus)
on
water
the land.86 The "created gods" are spherical in
and
animals in the
are
self-luminous; they are the stars, not however the
shape, consist of pure fire,
planets, which, perhaps because of their changing positions, were not deemed
worthy of being gods.
(Of astrology there is no trace in Timaeus.
Astrology
apparently began to play a greater r?le only in later times, although there existed
a fully developed theory and practice ofmantles.
If one adheres strictly to the
and the human souls, and theWorld-Soul
that the "gods"
text, it appears
were
86Even
if it is admitted
that everything
has to be alive,
the fundamental
idea
moving
can hardly
accuse
from primitive
animism.
One
Varr?
of having
very different
in so simplistic
But he is reported by Isidore
of Seville,
views.
1
Etymol. XIII,
indulged
that "nulla
eius (sc. mundi)
concessa
elementis
82, 471 C) to have asserted
(P.L.
requies
et ammalia
Varroni
videntur
elementa
est . . .Unde
per semetipsa,
quoniam
inquit, moven
It is not far from this statement,
it would
tur".
of "freedom"
seem, to the conception
is still
as suggested
world
The
r?le which
by some contemporary
physicists.
is played now by "ind?termination".
More
than
played with Varr?,
important
on movement
is the conception,
in first line by the Stoa,
this emphasis
developed
apparently
that the
dead and living, irrational
and rational
comprehends
beings
and, therefore,
in its totality all these characteristics.
of the human body
Just as a member
has to possess
in the infra-atomic
movement
sumus corporis magni,

life of the world?membri
Seneca,
Ep.
95, 32?so
come to the single beings from the universe.
since according
rationality must
Also,
than the part, the former
the whole has a greater dignity
assumed
to a generally
principle
cannot
lack any perfection
the latter presents.
"The world
is better than its parts;
there
as quoted
in Sextus Empiricus,
fore the world must be gifted with life"; Zenon,
by I. Heine
owes
its life to the
life and
II (Breslau,
It should be noted,
metaphysische
1928), 175.
Schriften,
the strictly Platonic
creates
of human nature
certain difficul
interpretation
If the body is a substance
with the notion of the microcosm.
combined
in itself,
and the soul imprisoned
therein?hoc
corpus, hoc est tenebrosum career, as Augustinus
wrote,
can hardly be a microcosm,
Contra Academ.
the essential
because
I, 3, 9?then man
unity of
mann,
Poseidonios1
that
however,
ties when
is a break
in his nature.
This difficulty apparently,
has not been
felt as serious, by those writers who unhesitatingly
speak of man
mundus
of two independent
united
and, at the same time, as consisting
substances,
one to the other in a more or less accidental
manner.
The difficulty is eliminated,
perhaps
a which
in the Stoic conception
a
a uni
of the
only to some extent,
by means
supplies
for the whole
and for all its parts.
in this context,
One may
fying principle
recall,
is missing;
noticed,
as minor
there
or if noticed
not
on one hand, and

between
the res extensae and the res cogitantes
the cleavage
in Cartesianism
to safeguard
the unity of the
Leibniz*
of pre-established
har
attempt
by his notion
It is Cartesianism
which
made micrososmism
in its "classical"
forms
mony.
ultimately
it must
be noted
that the statement
he makes
in the
Timaeus,
impossible.?Concerning
dialogue
spoken
which
of as
bears
a
are
his name
a
indeed
e
, Tim.
unequivocal
microcosmism?e.g.
88, c. 7; but also that his words
when
do not
man
is
render
own views,
as A. E. Taylor
never tires to point out, A Commentary
Plato's
on
necessarily
as microcosmistic
Plato's
ideas are to be found with St. Augus
Timaeus,
passim.?Insofar
to the all-pervasiveness
same order which
of order.
The
holds
tine, they are limited
the universe
is also within
the higher the
every being, and the more
together
clearly visible
being.
De
Civ. Dei,
XI,
22 (P. L.
41, 335).
355
MICROCOSMUS
all "made" by the

, and in this regard there is no difference between
It is not certain whether Plato thought of the lesser souls as being made
them.
as if the latter provided the material
from the World-Soul,
for the former.87
In some dis
The notion of a World-Soul has a long and complicated history.
guise itmay be said to be alive even to-day. But all these, however interesting,
ramifications can be considered here only insofar as they have a bearing on mi
crocosmism. Up to now, nothing more has been established than that the
is an animated being. No reason is given in the Platonic argument
why the universe ought to be considered as "the greatest and most perfect man."88
Here, the idea that man is placed "in the middle" of being becomes important.
W. Jaeger89 considers as the profoundest intuition which the Greek mind achieved
universe
and expressed, the conception of "the human as the common boundary between
animal and divine existence, in the middle of the cosmos, neither raising himself,
in hybris, to a superhuman existence, nor debasing life in an attitude of cynicism,
In
but revolving in the vital spheres to which man is bound by natural law".
than it
this sense, the idea of "man the middle"
acquires a deeper meaning
receives within elementaristic microcosmism.
There the position in the center
results simply fromman's containing, as itwere, more elements than either the
beings below, or those above him; the former lack reason, the latter are devoid
In man the suprahuman and the infrahuman meet; he becomes the
ofmatter.
nodus et vinculum, the medietas et catena, which holds the world together.
a a
The universe is conceived as a
, as soon as another principle,
is introduced, namely, the Aristotelean cate
besides the one of theWorld-Soul,
There must be a principle of continuity warranting the extra
gory of evolution.
polation by which the infrahuman beings are conceived as a gradual approach to

the perfection achieved by human nature, and this scale of perfection as pro
py?s,
ceeding beyond man into infinity. The highest being may be the
lv, or the personal God of Jewish or Christian faith. It may be
So also were the
also the universe itself,which then is credited with personality.
or the Plotinic
87J.
texts
des Altertums,
p. 156, seems to go farther than the Platonic
Stenzel, Metaphysik
"Die Welt-Seele,
und diejenigen
die Gestirnseelen,
Seelen, denen die Eink?rperung
f?r Plato
in einer einheitlichen
Seelenkraft
in menschliche
Leiber
bestimmt
ist, gingen
warrant:
[what this term exactly

sich selbst und anderes
zun?chst
is not clear] zusammen,
deren Wesen
means,
zu bewegen,
in alles Tun und Leiden".
sich einf?gend
darin
besteht,
It is hard to
can "fit itself into all doing and suffering",

since it is
how the one World-Soul
in astrological
Plato
himself did not indulge
origin of any event whatsoever.?If
some
it seems, already
there existed
this tendency,
during his lifetime even among
beliefs,
et les Sto?ciens
J. Moreau,
du monde
chez Platon
L'Ame
of his followers.
1939),
(Paris,
understand
the only
and
is to Plato
the World-Soul
only a "symbol"
to it prior to the later Academy.
the
Likewise,
of a later age "une
with the "so-called"
silent harmony
of this soul becomes
Pythagoreans
on
A Commentary
sonore".
See Tim. 37 b, and Moreau,
harmonie
p. 54 f. A. E. Taylor,
times.
Plato's
became
p. 182, thinks that astrology
only in Hellenistic
important
Timaeus,
p. 74. Moreau,
that no physical
incidentally,
reality was
thinks
that
attributed
even in Aratos'
See Fr. Boll,
(ca. 275) poems.
implication
is, indeed, no astrological
und Sterndeutung
(3d ed. Leipzig,
1926), p. 21.
De migr. Abrah.
220; see also De opific. 146, De aetern. 80, and other
Judaeus,
it
Philo
feels quite sure in regard to this doctrine;
however,
passages.
sometimes,
Usually
somn.
as
a
De
15.
cf.
him
rather
e.g.
I,
daring hypothesis;
apparently
impresses
89
W. Jaeger, Humanistische
Reden und Vortr?ge
1937), p. 170.
(Leipzig-Berlin,
There
Sternglaube
88Philo
356
TRADITIO
came to be identified with

heavens ( a
) or the stars. Or the World-Soul
as
or
God conceived
the animating principle of the universe.90
God,
In connection with speculation on the universe as animated, the stellar
deities play an important r?le, in Antiquity and inmedieval times.
It is note
worthy that the Fathers, at least some of them, did not approve of this idea.
St. Jerome is not in favor of it,91nor is Damscenus,92 nor St. Basil.93 Augustine
does not reject this doctrine absolutely, but he expresses himself in a markedly
If he did go farther in some earlier writings, he was careful to
reserved manner.
correct his statements later. Thus he declares his opinion on the World-Soul
to be temeredictum.94 He is not willing to decide whether the stars be governed
by spirits95 or belong to the society of the angels.96
Philo did not consider the stars merely as luminous bodies.
He taught that
they not only are governed by spirits, but themselves of a spiritual nature; they
are "not only animated but vods through and through".97

Whether Philo influenced Plotinus or not, there is no doubt that Oriental ideas
were at work in the Neo-Platonic
system.98 Together with the views of this
school, posterity became acquainted with, and willing to accept, these "astro
90Cf.
bantur
e.g. St. Augustine,

animad vertiese
quid
mundum
gubernantem".
23.
See
also VII,
mundi";
mens
universi".
on Varr?
civ. Dei,
's view:
"Hi soli vide
IV, 31, reporting
eum esse animam motu,
sc. ratione
esset Deus
qui credideruiit
. . .Deum
se arbitrari
esse animam
Ibid. VII,
6: "Dicit
Varr?
De
Quaest.
Seneca, Natur.
I, praef. 13:
in hoc mundo
locum deus obtinet,
"quem
id in nobis corpus est."
on the Ilept a
of Origen
(P.L.
124, ad Avitum,
e
:
De fide orthod. II, 6 (P.G.
96, 885 AB)
furthermore
65, 24:
Ep.
est illic materia,
animus;
quod
91St.
Hieronymus,
Ep.
92Joannes
Damscenus,
a
e a
which
have
been
quoted
a ?a e
'a
a a a
y?p e
in favor of this idea refer either
est deus?
"Quid
hunc
in homine
22, 1062).
e
e e
.
he adds,
passages,
Scriptural
to rational
creatures
(men, angels),
or are metaphorical.
93St.
a
e ol
c. 9 (P.G.
Horn.
III.
in Hexaem.
,e e
29, 76 AB):
Basilius,
"
"
a
e
e a
e
a
e
a
?
a' a
,e e
"Auqyo?vTai
(Ps. 18, 2),
''
a
e
(ibid.).
94
De immortal, anim.
Retract.
St. Augustinus,
32, 1033).
15, 24 (P.L.
I, 5, 3 (ibid. 591);
also Retract.
I, 11, referring to De mus. VI,
14, 43.
95St.
De gen. ad lit. II, 18, 38 (P.L.
34, 279).
Augustinus,
96St.
c. 58 (P.L. 40, 260) : "ne illud quidem
Enchir.
certum habeo
utrum ad
Augustinus,
eandem
sol et luna et cuneta

sidera:
(sc. angelorum)
pertinerent
videantur".
corpora non cum sensu vei intelligentia
De somn. I, 135; De opific. 73; De gig. 8. Cf. H. Schmidt,
Die
Judaeus,
von Alexandreia
Philons
(Inaug. Diss.
Leipzig,
1933), p. 27 f.
societatem
nonnullis
97Philo
pologie
98Philo
Plotin
nie
(Paris
influence
is maintained
and
Fr. Heinemann,
any such connection:
1905)
denies
emphatically
97. R. Cadion,
si?cle
(Et. de Th?ol.
emphasized
is overlooked.
influence, he claims, usually
on some of his predecessors
ence of Plotinus
is one
Poseidonios
served mainly
was acquainted
Schriften,
of them.
in Cicero
with
II
Les
by Guyot,
Plotin
reminiscences
(Leipzig,
Anthro
de Philon
le Juif chez
189). W. R.
Inge
(3d ed. London,
1929),
au d?but du IHe
d'Alexandrie
1921, esp.
of Plotinus
p.
The Philosophy
de l'?cole
jeunesse
d'Origene, Histoire
Histor.
26 [1937], 371 f.)
(Rev. Sc. Phil.
1936), is reported
Paris,
Th?ol.,
in the formation
the r?le of Christian
of Neo-Platonism,
which
thought
La
to have
sische
quam vis
lucida
There
and
of the depend
ought to take account
not ignorant of the Hebrew
tradition.
are many
in the Poseidonian
pre
parallels
fragments,
to passages
in the Enneades.
Poseidonios,
however,
Seneca,
the ideas of the Old
(Breslau,
1928),
One
also
who were
Testament;
210 and passim.
I. Heinemann,
Poseidonios'
metaphy
357
MICROCOSMUS
They took hold of the minds, in theMiddle Ages, the criti

biological'' notions.
cal attitude of such authorities as St. Augustine or St. Jerome notwithstanding.
The history of philosophy knows of few chapters as fascinating as the one dealing
with Neo-Platonism.
The system of Plotinus is a great, though unsuccessful
to
attempt,
synthesize many of the currents which in the past had run parallel,
sometimes intermingling, never really unified.98a The fundamentally syncretis
tic nature of Neo-Platonism

facilitated the combination of the original system
with all kinds of ideas, which sometimes were in fact incompatible with its basic
tenets. To the mixture of Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Stoicism in Plotinus
were added ideas stemming from Neo-Pythagorean,
Gnostic, Oriental sources.
to combine
These features allowed thinkers like Ficino or Pico della Mirandola
with
their "Platonism"
they got out
notions
of cabbalistic
and Hermetic
writings.99
The idea of the microcosm presents some particular difficulties when envi
sioned on the background of Neo-Platonism.
History, of course, shows that
But
Neo-Platonism
became associated with various types of microcosmism.
historical factuality and systematic possibility are very different problems.
The fundamental conception of emanation postulates
that the lower levels
of being be unequal to the higher ones, even though they derive from them,
and retain some kind of similarity. ?Especially,
the diversity which appears
creates an unbridgeable gulf
when emanation proceeds beneath theWorld-Soul
on
one
and
the
between the One, the vovs,
hand, and the individual human
man
an
on
of
souls
the other. Thus,
may be
image or, even more so, a symbol
'
as
can
as
the living universe insofar
he is alive, but he
Con
hardly be imagined
taining" within his nature the properties characteristic of the higher emanations.
and microcosmism, however, is brought
synthesis between Neo-Platonism
speculations on
about, to a large extent, by the adoption of Neo-Pythagorean
e
and of any individual is qua oneness the
The "oneness" of the
numbers.
a .100
same. Hence the r?le played by the notion of the
The
98aE.
Warburg,
fundamentals
der Renaissance
und Kosmos
in der Philosophie
der
(Studien
the
and Neo-Platonism
try to combine
1927), p. 19: "Plotinus
from
but the result
and Aristotelean
is, considered
thought;
mixture
of the two constituents.
The
only an eclectic
systematics,
Individuum
Cassirer,
Bibl.
X, Leipzig,
of Platonic
the viewpoint
nie
Neo-Plato
of
of 'transcendence'?
the ab
is dominated
concept
by the Platonic
system
. . . But
the
dialectic
of
the
and
the
sensible.
solute
tension,
intelligible
opposition
of the Aristo
and incorporation
within Platonism,
is dissolved
insolvable
by the reception
and the Aristotelean
of transcendence
The Platonic
of evolution.
telean notion
category
. . .The Christian
Middle
them the hybrid notion of 'emanation'.
of evolution
beget among
transmitted
this
from
Dionysius
Pseudo-Areopagites]
mainly
by
[Neo-Platonism,
Ages' got
the
fundamental
category
and
transcendence,
of mediation,
proceeding
intact on one
steps,
leaving
on the other
and practically,
of spiritual
powers."
by
hand
hand
overcoming
it, theoretically
and a hierarchy
of concepts
by the idea of a hierarchy
99
L'Anima
delV
to Salvacci,
Benvieni
See the letter of Gerolamo
by Olgiati,
quoted
e del Rinascimento
Umanesimo
justly is Count
(Milan,
1929), p. 605 f., referring to Pico: He
the most divers currents of thought.
of Concordia,
since he tries to reconcile
100
views
to combine Neo-Platonic
with microcosmistic
It is also possible
by making
or mankind,
is found to the
not individual men, but man,
the microcosm.
By this, a bridge
divine
Averroistic
actually
any
conception
relation
of the unitas
between
intellectus.
Averroism
I do not venture
and microcosmism.
to suggest
that there is
there is a note
However,
358
TRADITIO
The human soul cannot have the same degree of being as the World-Soul
from which it emanates.
the human soul cannot well be con
Consequently,
sidered either as part or as embodiment of theWorld-Soul,
although this view
has been maintained.
Some authors think, in a somewhat naive manner, that
Nor
the human souls are formed out of the "remnants" of theWorld-Soul.101
can one speak consistently, within an emanationistic system, of the lower being
"mirroring'' the higher.102 A mirrored image, though lacking true three-dimen

It is
sionality, is correlated by a one-to-one correspondence to the original.
essentially on the same existential level. This contradicts the fundamental
On the other hand, theWorld-Soul
is conceived
assumption of emanationism.
as the animating principle of the universe of which individual man is a part.
The relation of the
He too, therefore, must share in this general animation.
to the universe is exactly the same as the relation of the human soul
World-Soul
to the body: anima tota in toto corpore et tota in quolibet parte.
But, this
De
remark in Nemesius,
worthy
ideas.
refers to the Manichaean
horn. c. 2 (P. G.
nat.
the author
40, 537 B, also 577 A), where
of some such connection
passage might be indicative
see p. 366 f.) The
to above.
in Nemesius
remark
be
may
(On Manichaeism,
. . . ist dem
on Poseidonios.
"Das Denkverm?gen
wie wesen?hnlich,
Alldaimon,
as alluded
dependent
so stammverwandt":
pp. 35 and
a
the cosmic
101Pseudo-Beda
ibid.
This
I. Heinemann,
Poseidonios1
metaphysiche
vovs is characterized
the individual
120, where
.
II, 22;
Schriften,
as an inseparable
see also
part
of
. . . animas
constitutio
(ninth century), Mundi
(P. L. 90, 902 A) : "Plato
author
esse."
animae
This
lists also the following
reliquiis mundanae
. . .
. . . ita ut una anima
esse animam
unam
tantum
"Dicunt
(ibid. D):
quidam
opinions
e andern mundanam
dicunt quidam
in pluribus
"Praeterea
animam
(ibid. 903 A):
rebus";
esse in homine
et fit in nomine".
are
anima
de qua vermes
Whose
pari ter cum humana
dixit
humanas
de
That
the human
soul is a fragment of the ether is an opinion
these ideas?
reported by Dio
in the Comment Pythag. VIII,
27. But the author of the Mundi
constitutio
genes Laertius,
source
have
known
of the idea is probably
cannot
this work.
The
the Stoic
notion
a. The
of a
idea of two souls is also in Chalcidius
and probably
goes back to Numenius.
the body and is under the power of the stars.
The other soul is rational,
One soul animates
from God.
free and
may
safely
berger, Die
surmise,
Philosophie
3, 5), p. 50; Cl. Baeumker,

It would
1890), p. 385.
considered
as an
meiner
Brust,"
in Jung.?The
and
critisized
are
a good and a bad soul.

This
notion,
stems, as one
and ismaintained
Cf. J. Espen
by Plutarchus.
.Gesch.
des Petrus
d. MA,
Lombardus
d. Phil.
(Beitr.
1901, vol.
Das Problem
der Materie
in der griechischen Philosophie
(Munich,
there
Thus,
from Oriental
sources
an interesting
whether
this two-souls
be
theory may
question
of modern
"Zwei
Seelen wohnen,
ideas, from Goethe's
ach, in
or the animus-anima
to conceptions
like the "id11 in Freud,
notions
be
ancestor
down
out of remnants
of the human
soul being made
of the World-Soul
is
Theol.
Christ.
It must
have
by Abaelard,
rejected
I, 4 (P. L. 178, 1151).
a certain r?le even in the late twelfth century, since William
of Auvergne,
played
too, has a
of this notion: De universo,
refutation
II, 2, c. 10 (in the text erroneously
11; Opp. Parisiis,
It may be traced back, presumably,
to a misinterpretation
of Tim.
1674; I, 816b-819a).
idea
41d, 4-7.
102
however,
Plotinus,
occasionally
of umbra appears
that the metaphor
of Stoic
origin.
When
donios.
103Qf #
Enn.
Plotinus,
statement
is Augustine.
Nemesius
IV, 2, 1.
Proclus,
uses
within
credits
For
this expression,
Neo-Platonic
animals
with
the medieval
In Tim.
32c
Enn.
9, 4.
the source
authors,
(ed. Diehl,
IV,
speculations.
a a
a
II,
53),
sees
It is noteworthy
it is probably
But
,he quotes
of this much
an even
closer
Posei
quoted
anal
359
MICROCOSMUS
relation does not make any part of the human body a likeness of the whole.
Also
it does not follow from the all-pervasiveness
of the World-Soul
that there
is any true similarity between a part of the universe and the whole, so that the
formermay be considered as a microcosmus.
To the medieval
"Platonists"
it appeared as obvious that theWorld-Soul
is,
as it were, distributed throughout the whole universe.104 As it is well known,
some authors tried to identify the anima mundi of the pagan philosophers with
Foremost among the
the third person of the Trinity of Christian doctrine.
of
this
is
Abaelard
whose
opinions were condemned at
theory
representatives
the Council of Soissons in 1121. A section of the Theologia summi boni exposes
this view.105 Warned
perhaps by Abaelard's
fate, Alanus de Insulis carefully
It is in "sympathy"
with itself and thus
loves himself, so does the universe.
As man
ogy.
? 5?
,'
The
influence.
text reads:
There may
be some Christian
itself.
preserves
'
a a ?
? .
?
a
a
?avr?v apa
a a
104
In Boethii
de consolatione
of Conches,
phil. comment, ed. Ch. Jour
See, e.g., William
sur la
et Nicolas
Triveth
de Conches
commentaires
in?dits
de Guillaume
"Deux
dain,
et Extr.
des M SS.
de la Bibl.
de la philosophie
Not.
de Bo?ce,"
consolation
Imper.
20, 2
(Paris,
omnibus,
mitteret;
World-Soul
1862), 76.: "Quidam

sed in medio mundi
ita
animam
intellexerunt
posita,
i.e.
in sole,
mundi
et inde vires
falsum est, postponatur."

quia aperte
is erroneous.
The
criticism may
non quod
esset
in
in corpora
et potestates
to speak of any location
of the
mediam
suas
Obviously,
of the school of Chartres.
refer to teachings
in De mundi universi
the sun with the mens mundi,
in fact, identifies
Silvestris,
and J. Wrobel,
etMicrocosmus,
p. 44): "sol
II, 5 (ed. C. S. Barrach
tate, sive Megacosmus
mens mundi".
This
idea goes
illustrior
lumine, potentior
viribus,
augustior
majestate,
. . .Thus
on this dialogue.
also in the late excerpt
and the commentaries
back to Timaeus
a
Locrensis
which under the name irepl
from Timaeus
;
figures as a work of Timaeus
39.
Graecorum
Chalcidius
F. G. A. Mullach,
(Paris,
1881),
II,
Philosophorum
Fragmenta
Bernardus
has
manner
in a noteworthy
J.
"he
the Stoic Kleanthes;"
follows
conceptions;
source may have
des Petrus Lombardus,
Die Philosophie
p. 28. The proximate
see E.
see De nal. deor. II, 41.
On the general
Silvestris,
spirit of Bernardus
d'
Doctr.
Lit.
du
M.-A.
3
Hist.
Arch,
Bernardus
de
Silvestris",
cosmog?nie
similar
Espenberger,
been Cicero,
"La
texts.
Whether
there is any
1. The
remind of certain Hermetic
ideas of Bernard
(1928),
I am unable
to say.
Cf. J. Kroll, Die Lehren des Hermes
direct relation,
(Beitr.
Trismegistos
z. Gesch.
d. Phil. d. MA.
1914, vol. 12, 2-4), p. 28.
105
.Gesch.
d. Phil.
d. MA.
Beitr.
summi boni (ed. H. Ostlender,
Abaelard,
Theologia
cum
nec
:
tus
saneti
personam
videtur,
praetermisisse
[se. Plato]
spiri
1939, 35, 2, p. 13) "Qui
esse astruxerit
tertiam a deo et noy personam
animam mundi
[referring to Tim. 34 c, i.e.
. . . quae dicuntur
. . .De hac autem anima
ab hoc
ed. J. Wrobel,
31, 22-32, 1]
Chalcidius,
. . . nulli rei potuerunt
involucri
sancto per pulcherrimam
nisi spiritui
aptari
philosopho
Gilson,
vero
in the passage,
is implied
The same identification
p. 16: "quod
figur?m assignentur".
. . .maximam
universorum
concordiam
Dei
unum
dicit Plato,
animal
totum mundum
... sic et
unum corpus
cum unitatem
demonstrat
ecclesiae
demonstrat
Apostolus
operum
... est genus de
"In argumentum
the term involucrum:
Christi
Concerning
appellat".
et involucrum
unde
involvens
intellectum
narratione
veritatis
fabulosa
sub
monstrationis
dicitur".
Bernardus
Silvestris,
Comment,
super
VI
LL.
Eneidos
(Greifswald, 1924). See also John of Salisbury, Polycrat. VIII,

Thus
seem
it would
as
ifAbaelard
it not that elsewhere

sion, were
the spiritus
sanctus, e.g. Theol.
intellexerunt
spiritum sanctum
de anima
mundi
a philosophie
Virgilii,
ed. G.
Riedel
24 (ed. Webb, II, 415).
or symbolical
use only of an allegorical
expres
on the identity of the anima mundi
and
is quite explicit
ni
mundi
L.
"anima
4
Christ.
quam,
fallor,
1156):
(P.
178,
I,
''
'
ea quae
Ibid. 1159:
'ipse praeterea Macrobius
philosophi.
. . .meminit".
esse
The
sunt mystice
dicta
interpretanda
had made
he
360
TRADITIO
avoids the expression of anima mundi, though he too considers the universe as
an animated being; but he calls the unifying principle by the name of "nature".106
Abaelard
got involved in the difficulties which inevitably beset all Christian
if they wanted to preserve unaltered the Plotinian teachings.
Neo-Platonists,
if it identifies the Logos-Christ with the vous and the Holy Spirit
"Platonism,
with the universal soul, cannot maintain that the three Persons are co-equal".107
of Soissons,
the condemnation
1140, repeats
listing
sanctus
sit anima mundi"
370).
"Quod
(Denzinger,
spiritus
to a fragment edited by C. Ottaviano,
of Conches,
William
according
di Conches
della
di Guglielmo
'Philosophia'
(Naples,
1935), p. 17, quoted
Council
of Sens,
among
the
errors
condemned:
Un
brano
inedito
op.
by Ostlender,
aliud quam divina
omnibus
vigorem
nichil
cit. p. 17, reports on authors who considered
the "anima mundi
earn esse quandam
vei spiritus
whereas
"alii dicunt
sanctus",
benignitas
. . . cum
. . .Haec
anima
et anima hominis
r?bus inhaerentem
ipsa sit in homine
similiter,
sunt in homine".
vide tur posse probari
See also De philos, mundi,
quod duae animae
I,
note
101. We
15 (P. L.
not told who
Cf. above
these alii were.
are, however,
172, 46).
In this regard one might
refer to a fragment
listed by Diels
(4th ed.), I, 105 (Hippocrates,
a a a a
a ea
a
a
a &
the World-Soul:
concerning
a . Anaxagoras
a
e vods, frag. 12; but
a a
Used the expression
to the authors
of the twelfth century.
Tim.
this text was hardly known, nor were others,
a
a
has
, too.
37d, 5, however,
that those who made
the anima mundi
For the rest, itmust be admitted
coincide with the
De
victu),
obviously
a
e
on which
sanctus might
have
to rely.
found certain auctoritates
Of course,
these
spiritus
had to be interpreted
in the particular
passages
they had to be some
spirit of these readers,
cereum nasum qui in quamlibet
what
said: "auctoritas
habet
twisted, but as Alanus
potest
There
in St. Augustine
flecti directionem."
which
lend
are, especially,
passages
easily
an interpretation.
was not in favor of the anima mundi
Augustine
or Eriugena,
found in the works
the students
of Neo-Platonism,
Dionysius,
est rerum universitas
of Hippo
ita quod
like these: "Deus
phrases
siquidem
unum est et omnis
(Lib. de spir. et anima,
II; P. L. 40, 788); "summe
singularium"
to such
themselves
But
theory.
of the Bishop
nulla
formae
this not recall the Plotinian

One?
(De gen. ad lit. X, 32; P. L. 34,
princ?pium"?did
or: "spiritus
in se habet,
sed quae
sapientiae
multiplex
7, 22) eo quod multa
(Sap.
haec et est et ea omnia unus est"
The
latter
(De civ. Dei, XL,
10, P. L. 41, 372).
"
a
seems to be influenced by Enn. VI, 2, 18: e
e a
a
?a
Statement
234);
habet
a
a.
nec
can
passages
in Nicolaus
Cusanus
Similar
still effective
sol nec
in post-Augustinian
texts.
These
ideas are
he writes,
for instance:
"Universum
licet non sit
sol et in luna luna; Deus
autem non est in sole sol et in
be
found
when
luna, est tarnen in sole

est sol et luna sine pluralitate
et diversitate;"
De docta ignor. II, 4
luna, sed id quod
and R. Klibansky,
"nec animam
Also:
(Opp. edd. E. Hoffmann
1931, p. 74).
I, Leipzig
nec naturam
illam (se. mundi)
in omnibus
aliud esse conicio quam Deum
omnia
operantem
luna
c. 13 (ed. Richter
Liber de mente,
in E. Cassirer,
quem dicimus
spiri tum universorum."
und Kosmos
in der Philosophie
Individuum
der Renaissance,
1927, p. 284).
Leipzig
106
z. Gesch.
M. Baumgartner,
Die Philosophie
des Alanus
de Insults
d. Phil. d.
(Beitr.
seems to refer to the question
MA.
when he remarks, Dist.,
1896, vol. 2, 4), p. 80. Alanus
sub voce
Dei
factus
(P. L. 210, 866 B, C) : "Dicitur
sapientia
juxta quam mundus
a prophetis
res pro
dicitur
natura
mundi."
Also:
mediante
"Deus
archetypus
Contra Raer.
Cf. Cicero, De nat. deor. II, 29: "natura
I, 40 (P. L. 210, 345 D).
creaturus,"
. . . eumque
est igitur quae
contineat mundum
tueatur."
107
W. R. Inge, The Philosophy
Such
identifi
(3d. ed. London,
1939), p. 210.
of Plotinus
cations managed
to pass as long as the trinitarian
doctrine was not yet fully defined.
Clem
'mundus'
est, quae
to accept
the immortal
ent, Strom. 4, 25; 5, 14; 7, 7; Theodore
tus, 4, 750, do not hesitate
of the Platonists,
"the One we call God
the One,
the
, and the World-Soul:
principles
the Father,
vods the Son or Logos,
the soul The Holy
But Bernardus
Spirit".
Silvestris,
to designate
Him
E.
too, seems to identify Noys with the Son, or perhaps
by this name.
361
MICROCOSMUS
idea that the universe is animated becomes with many, especially me

writers
the reason for calling man the microcosm and for comparing the
dieval,
Thus it had been with Philo, thus it remained through many
universe to man.
is the true image of the universe because both are animated by
centuries. Man
had been stressed by Macrobius
souls.108 The rationality of the World-Soul
is gifted with
and became a generally accepted doctrine.109 The World-Soul
owe
to it their
and
human
from
the
the
former,
rationality,
souls, deriving
as the
same
to
in
the
relation
stand
their
bodies
much
rational powers.
They
The
to the universe,
"bodies".
respective
Then,
Numenius
ascribes
pable.
dangers the uniqueness of
inacceptable by several of
World-Soul
insofar as both are the governing principles of their

inesca
the micro-macrocosmic
parallel becomes
such a view to Plato.110 This view, however, en
the human person and was, accordingly, deemed
Abaelard's
criticism has
the earlier Scholastics.
been mentioned before.

or only, qua soul,
Whether the human soul be a real part of the World-Soul
of the same nature; in any case man, by possessing a spiritual soul, stands on the
The two realms
boundary where the material and the spiritual worlds meet.
which otherwise appear as totally separated from one another become united
by and inman.
Thus, man not only is placed in the center of creation?insofar
as he is, so to speak, equidistant from the lowest and from the highest existential
he actually "holds together" the totality of being. The spiritual

level?but
realm is conceived either as comprising only personal or personlike beings, like
the angels, the intelligentiae, anima mundi, vovs, tv,God, or as the mundus intel
ligibilis, the realm of ideas. Both conceptions appear often together, although
not without conditioning grave difficulties or inner tensions which sooner or
later disrupt the system. Man's place among spiritual beings is defined already
Statements to
in the words of the eighth Psalm :paulo minuisti eum ab angelis.
a similar intent may be found also in the writings of pagan philosophers.111
.
St. Augustine calls man medium quoddam; sed inter pecora et angelos . . m?dius
homo . . . infra angelis sed supra pecoribus; homini cum pecoribus mortalitatemr
Gilson,
"La
(1928), 12ff.
108Alanus
de Bernardus
cosmog?nie
de
Insulis,
esset
Arch.
Silvestris",
d'Hist.
Lit.
Doctr.
du M-A.
"Ut sic pygmaeus

fraterculus
(P. L. 210, 517 B):
Anticlaudianus,
seems
Adelard
minor mereatur
of Bath
to
imagine
pingi."
its lofty spirituality
loses somewhat
by contact with matter,
/ maiorisque
gigantis
that the World-Soul
suggest
see: K. Werner,
von
as the human
down by the same
"Wilhelm
soul is dragged
reason;
zu den Piatonikern
Sitz. Ber. Wiener
Verh?ltnis
des XHten
Jahrhunderts",
Auvergne's
d. Wiss.
Phil. Hist. Kl.
Akad.
74 (1870), 120.
109
De somno Scip.
de qua est nata
rationem".
purissimam
I, 14, 7: "habet
Macrobius,
et quidem
has "animam
292.: the universe
Also Chalcidius,
rationabilem".
110
a e a a
e a
a
a a ras
a a
De nat. hom. C. 2, PG. 40, 580. :
Nemesius,
a
a a
e a a
a e
a
e y?p e a
a
e a
a
a e
,e a
,
a
e
, a
'
. . . a
e a
a ?e
a
a
a
,
in the latter's
the Platonist
treatise
111
Tim. 35a; Plotinus,
Enn.
Plato,
this view.
phasized
a,
a
ee a
. . .
e a
a
V,
3; VI,
a
-a
a
a
7, 6.
^
a
. Nemesius
.
e
refers also
a
.
a
a
a a
ee a
to Theodoros
a e
Especially
the stoic
philosophy
em
362
TRADITIO
rationem vero cum angelis.112 Another formula says that the human soul is
supratemporal and stands on the horizon of eternity.113 Among the Schoolmen,
Alanus de Insulis was apparently the first to use this expression.114 Many others
Aquinas.115
followed, among whom Gulielmus Parisiensis, Albertus Magnus,
Whether because of the growing influence of Aristotelianism, or because cer
tain intrinsic and extrinsic contradictions were more clearly realized, the idea
It is
lost much of its appeal during the thirteenth century.
Alexander of Hales apparently is not interested in the
less often mentioned.
Gulielmus is definitely hostile to the idea,116although he occasionally
question.
Still later, allusion is made
refers to some kind of symbolistic microcosmism.
to the anima mundi mainly to repudiate the idea. But itmust have retained,
together with the conception of the spiritual nature of the stars, a certain vitality,
of the World-Soul
since a refutation is still thought worth while.

Only much later, the anima
mundi appears to Suarez as a mere superstition.117
The anima mundi, however, regained its prior importance with the philosophy
112
De civ. Dei,
St. Augustinus,
IX, 13 (P. L. 44, 267); see also De Trin. XII,
4, 4; 7, 12;
later writers
the ideas of the doctor
12, 17 (P. L. 42, 1000, 1005, 1007).
Many
repeated
of St. Thierry
Der Entwicklungsgang
for instance, William
der
(see K. Werner,
gratiae,
d. Wiener
d. Wiss.
Phil. Hist.
mittelalterlichen
Denkschr.
Akad.
Kl.
Psychologie,
25, 82.),
of St. Victor, De sacr. I, 4, 26, (P. L. 176, 246), also Erud.

theol. VII,
14: "homo
Hugh
quasi
in medio
habet
sub se mundum";
Petrus
II. Sent.
super se Deum,
collocatus,
Lombardus,
In the thoughts
of Augustine
himself microcosmistic
holds
but an in
1, 7.
speculation
''
'
:
ismainly
His outlook
is his problem
; individual man
significant place.
'anthropological
man
who
encounters
longs to live and is forced to die

obstacles
inside and outside
to do his will and

(De civ. Dei, XIV,
25) ;who wants
of himself
(Conf. VIII,
9); who fights himself,
in
sal. 140,11)
;who strives for the good and succumbs
. . .Deum
"Duo
et animam."
solum scire quaero.
But
adversus me gero"
(Ennar.
in his relation
to evil; man
to God:
man
concern to St. Augustine.
in his relation
to the tangible world was not a question
ofmuch
113Thus
cf. O. Bardenhewer,
de causis,
Die
the Liber
pseudoaristotelische
Schrift ?ber
das reine Gute, bekannt unter dem Namen
Liber de causis
i.B. 1882), p. 165. The
(Freiburg
seems to go back,
to Stoic notions.
"horizon"
like so many
others, ultimately
expression
"bellum
on Stoic philosophy
whose dependence
is known and has been emphasized
Nemesius,
a a
a .
iv ?
times here, has the expression:
114
Die Philosophie
des Alanus
de Insults,
p. 100, note 2. Alanus
Baumgartner,
author whose writings
first Latin
show the influence of the Liber de Causis.?Ibid.
several
is the
pp. 10,
Geschichte
der
a Longo
on whom
to Radulfus
see M. Grabmann,
75, 93, references
Campo,
Methode
scholastischen
and
(Freiburg
i.B., 1911) II, 48. Radulfus
speaks of the World-Soul
as of two invisible
from God and the angels.
the
distinct
substances,
115
see Baumgartner,
of Auvergne
On William
op. cit. p. 19. On Albertus:
(Parisiensis),
.
.Gesch.
Die Psychologie
Albert des Grossen,
d. Phil.
Schneider,
(Beitr.
d.MA.,
1903,
11. XXVI,
Also De animalibus
Beitr.
4, 5-6), p. 219.
1, 22, tr. 1, c. 5 (ed. H. Stadler,
z. Gesch.
d. Phil. d. MA.
it is stated that the outstanding
prop
1920, vol. 16, p. 1355), where
is "quam
dicit Hermes
ad Esclepium
et
scribens quod homo solus nexus est Dei
erty of man
Vol.
mundi."
Also,
(7.67. II,
Aquinas,
68.
For
the Hermetic
texts
see W.
Scott,
Herm?tica
be a livingbeing so long as it exists, that
(Oxford, 1924), I, 233. God willed that the
a
. 183. Also J.
a
a
? a,
a a
it have a
Die
Lehren
des
Kroll,
z. Gesch.
Hermes
d. Phil. d. MA.
(Beitr.
Trismegistos
1914, vol. 12, 2-4).
116
Gulielmus
De universo,
Parisiensis,
I, 3, ce. 29-33 (Opera, Parisiis
1674; I, 801a ss.).
117
de Mayronis,
In II.
d. 12, q. 1, a. 4 (Venetiis
e.g. Franciscus
1520, f.
sententiarum,
"Dico
celi non sunt animati".
On stars, ibid. d. 13, q. 1 (f. 154va-155rb).
151rb):
quod
Suarez,
De
superstitione,
II,
5 (Opera,
Paris,
1859;
13, 485).
363
MICROCOSMUS
of the Italian Renaissance.

The revival of Platonism or, rather, Neo-Platonism
was accompanied by a keen interest in all sorts of more or less related ideas.
Some of them were quite fantastic. Not only did Neo-Pythagoreism
reappear,
with its speculations on numbers, but gnosis, cabbalah, together with astrology
and magic, began to play a dominant r?le. Not that astrology had not been
on the stage before.

Its adepts had achieved great successes.
They were ad
visers of princes, authors of much studied treatises, admired because of their
alleged knowledge of the future, but also close to suspicion because of activities
contrary to faith and morals.118 Theologians and philosophers had been mostly
The distinction made (see below^, note 145) between
antagonistic to astrology.
two kinds of mathematics
reveals the hostility against astrology among some
minds
of
the
twelfth
leading
century. St. Augustine had long ago voiced his
So
did
The critics, too, believed in an influence of the
Aquinas.
objections.
but
the
freedom of man and the unreliability of the
stars,
they emphasized
'
astrologers predictions.
It is, at first sight, somewhat amazing that the age which gave birth to the
new science, which revived the study of the classics, and generally is considered
as the beginning of the "modern times", should also have been an age of un
This belief is partly a "scientific"
restricted belief in astrology and magic.
view, corresponding to the state of knowledge of these times, and partly the
logical outcome of certain basic conceptions concerning the plan of the uni
verse as a wrhole. To be sure, critical Voices were not absent.
But the astrolo
courts. Tycho
in
universities
and
at
the
the
became
gers
important personalities
de Brahe filled the post of an astrologer to the imperial court of Rudolpn
II,
is known to have relied
Wallenstein
and so did after him Johannes Kepler.
The instances
blindly on the predictions of his personal astrological adviser.
can be multiplied ad libitum. The belief in astrology was linked up, in the
minds
of the philosophers, with

discussing astrology,
the microcosmistic
conception.
Marsilio
Ficino, when
of dead elements,
but a
is not an aggregate
that the universe
can there be in the universe
mere
Nowhere,
accordingly,
existing
'parts',
a definite
as a part is in truth an organ, having
of the whole.
What
appears
independently
. . .Differentiation
and function
in the vital context of the cosmos.
does not indicate
place
. . .but a
of the part from the whole
mode by which
the whole
expresses
particular
separation
itself."119
"starts
with
living
being.
the statement
118
and magic
felt to be closely
niost
allied.
The
art?necromancy?were
Astrology
one of them in hell: "Michele
Dante
did not escape
famous astrologers
places
suspicion.
frode seppe il giuoco"
delle magiche
Scoto
che veramente
115). Magic
(Inf. XX,
appeared
a fraudulent
to Dante?however
his thoughts
be?as
Cf. on Michael
medieval
activity.
Scotus:
and
Ch. H. Haskins,
in Medieval
Studies
astrological
prediction
et les Sto?ciens,
Paris,
Studies
Culture
in theHistory
Science
Mass.
ofMedieval
(Cambridge,
1925)
In a consistent
Aristotelean
system,
du monde
chez Platon
remarks
(L'Ame
1929).
(Oxford,
As J.Moreau
is out of place.
?m?sure
du premier
1939, p. 149, n. 1) : "chez Aristote,
qu'on
s'?loigne
donne
lieu ? la contingence
et au disordre,
croissante
des ph?nom?nes
ciel, la complication
et ne laisse subsister
Met. E. 2
la r?gularit?
absolue
exclut
que la constance
approch?e".
.
c?s kwl
(1026 b 30):
119E.
d. Bibl. Warburg,
und Kosmos
in der Renaissance
Individuum
(Studien
X,
Cassirer,
Leipzig, 1927), p. 116.
364
TRADITIO
The astrological ideas acquired a still greater significance since the Renais
sance "Platonists", Ficino himself and others, stressed a point inNeo-Platonism
which had been originally of a subordinate importance.
Plotinus had cor
related the planets with some of the emanations.
Saturnus became identical
with pods,and Jupiter with
, that is theWorld-Soul.
Thus, Saturnus or the
corresponding "sphere" represents the higher, Jupiter the lower emanation.
Plotinus can hardly be understood as having conceived of the human soul as
This
actually wandering through the "spheres" on its descent into matter.
idea would entail a direct procession of the individual soul from the One.
But
the human soul emanates from the
, and therefore cannot pass through the
however had held such
higher region of Saturnus or vovs. Late Neo-Platonism
was
it
For
Florentine
Platonists
obvious
that the "children
the
opinions.120
of Saturnus"?in
ordinary judicial astrology the most unfortunate of all mortals
?were
in reality predestined for a life of intellectual contemplation, whereas
the "children of Jupiter" were predestined for a life of rational action.121
These speculations on the "spheres" and man's relation to them, the attempts
to determine a person's fate by the study of "constellations" and such like ideas
more, were, on the whole, but one aspect of the many fold endeavors to reach a
However
satisfactory conception of man's nature and place in the universe.
fantastic these speculations appear, they are ultimately dictated by a very
The gradual weakening

of traditional
rationalistic, even scientific attitude.
the
with
of
dissatisfaction
formalistic
the
faith,
teachings
philosophy on one
on
and
the
the
part of the mystics,
emphasis
"negative theology"?on
hand,
but also of philosophers and theologians like Nicolaus Cusanus?on
the other,
forced the speculative and inquisitive mind to seek for a new interpretation of
?man's
being.
The
increasing
interest
in the
sensible
world,
too?an
interest
of
which science and art give testimony?directed

attention towards the universe
as a whole.
One cannot help being reminded of certain contemporary develop
ments which sometimes strikingly look like a repristination of phenomena of the
past. But itwould lead us too far afield, were we to discuss the curious interest
in occultism, astrology, and the like, which is noticeable today. However, one
may consider the possibility that a more penetrating study of the history of ideas
might throw some light also on our own times.
It has been said that in the age of the Great Renaissance man tried to under
stand his particular worth and himself as an inhabitant of the visible universe.122
120
De
Macrobius,
"rationationem
sphere
a
agendi
quod
reports
earth.
that Poseidonios
somn, Scip.
I, 12-14, explains
et intelligentiam
quod
dicitur."
idea is Stoic
The
believed
in a descent
that
the soul
/ et
?
receives
in the Saturnie
in Jo vis vim
vocant;
as well as Oriental.
Sextus
Empiricus
of the human
to the
soul from sun and moon
Adv. Math.
See I. Heinemann,
Poseidonios1
IX, 71b-73.
metaphysische
Schriften,
idea of such a descent
of an ato?os of the soul after sepa
II, 108. The
and, correspondingly,
ration from the body is also found in the Hermetic
texts.
In descending,
the soul acquires
of impurities
in the planetary
it is purified
in its ascent:
J. Kroll,
spheres of which
Lehren
des Hermes
p. 296.
Trismegistos,
121E.
in Iconology.
Studies
Humanistic
in the Art of the Renaissance
Themes
Panofsky,
all kinds
Die
(New York,
1939), p. 209.
122B.
(Hdb.
Groethuysen,
Philosophische
Anthropologie,
"In der weiteren
der Renaissance-Anthropologie
Entwicklung
d. Phil., Munich,
1931),
sucht der Mensch
p. 108:
seinen
MICROCOSMUS
365
This tendency was, however, not altogether new.

It was in fact the seculariza
no
tion ofmedieval
But
God
seemed
speculation.
longer as close to man as he
had been in previous times, the emphasis on His transcendence, hiddenness and
A theocentric conception of the world
incomprehensibility notwithstanding.
seemed no longer the only possible philosophical
interpretation. God could be
attained only in personal mystical experience.
Speculation of the type common
in previous centuries was no longer satisfactory. God had to be made immanent
in the universe, as in Bruno's pantheism, or to be eliminated from philosophy
and left to the theologians.
The Averroistic cleavage between the "two truths"
had furthered this development.
At the beginning, reason tried to assert itself,
also in regard to theological speculation; Ficino's Docta Theologia seems tobe
conceived
in conscious opposition to Cusanus's Docta Ignorantia.

The microcosmistic
ideas became an important link between humanistic
rationalism and theological transcendentalism.
But the intrinsic dialectic of
these notions brought about, before long, disintegration and separation.
Only
''
'
then did Renaissance
Humanism'
become more like the picture which the admirers
of modernity love to draw.123 Some of the forms which microcosmism took on
in these centuries, and later, will be discussed in the last part of this article.
Before passing on to the symbolistic interpretation, however, a few words must
the theory namely that
be said on a particular conception of the World-Soul,
there are two of such souls, a good and a bad one. Related with these ideas are
also certain doctrines of Oriental, especially Manichaean

origin.
The mystical trend running through the philosophy of Plotinus is too well
is also the first among
known to need any further expatiation.
Neo-Platonism
to
that in this, too,
One
surmise
the
may
pagan philosophies
emphasize
Ego.
ideas.124 The shifting from
Plotinus had been influenced by Judaeo-Christian
the universal to the individual, from the eternal immutable world of ideas and
the Good to personal fate and happiness, produced a definite alteration of
This individualistic trend appealed to the thinkers of the
original Platonism.
Italian Renaissance
and made
them willing to consider notions of a rather
von der Welt

Eigenwert
seines Selbstbewusstseins."
a place
occupy
and
microcosm
123E.
Gilson,
nous
la d?crit,
Lo
her zu erfassen:
es verlangt
ihn nach einer kosmischen

Begr?ndung
in fact, declares
that man
does not
Mirandola,
of this order, being alone a
in the scale of being, but rather stands outside
See below note 211.
image of the Creator.
telle qu'on
Les
id?es et les lettres (Paris,
1932), p. 192.: "La Renaissance,
Pico
della
Dieu."
le Mo yen-Age moins
1926), p. 189. : "E la divinizza
This
di tutto."
later
la spiritualizzazione
le Mo yen-Age
pas
l'homme, mais
plus
e del Rinascimento
dell1 Umanesimo
(Milan,
n'est
spirito
Olgiati,
della
della
zione dell'uomo,
natura,
of Humanism
has been
development
?
realt?;
characterized
as the "pride
of the
by Eichendorff
sees the
and historian
this German
Hochmut
des Subjects?in
which
poet
subject"?der
Romanticism.
German
he felt, also destroyed
and which,
basic
evil of the Renaissance
124J.
d. Phil., Munich,
des Altertums
1931), p. 56: "Only
(Hdb.
Stenzel,
Metaphysik
refer to the self (
seven hundred
did Greek philosophy
,Plotinus)
years after Parmenides
con
not be overlooked
that a certain
as a philosophical
It should,
however,
principle".
Poseidonios'
See I. Heinemann,
in the later Stoa.
of the self appears
sideration
already
I, 62 f. W.
metaphysiche
Schriften,
nie philosophy.
founder of Neo-Plato
ibid. p. 59, n. 2.
inus.
is the real
that Panaitios
Jaeger has, in fact, suggested
of Plot
the ancestor
Poseidonios
makes
Heinemann
366
TRADITIO
the
heterogeneous nature.125 The Oriental notes peculiar to Neo-Platonism,
general inclination towards all kinds of unusual ideas, the emphasis on indi
vidual man and his power, making magic a desirable thing because of the ap
parent influence to be gained over the world of things and spirits, all these trends
mind susceptible for cabbalistic and

co-operated to render the Renaissance
similar vagaries.
It is, perhaps, not without significance that a revival of some
of these Oriental systems, particularly Manichaeism,
had occurred in close
of the twelfth century in the Albigensian heresy.126
relation to the Renaissance
In the context of the present survey it is irrelevant whether this metaphysical

and cosmological dualism has its first origin in Iranian thought or elsewhere.
In any case, it reached the Mediterranean
world through its many contacts
with the East and became more influential when the mixture of cultures de
veloped further.
The main representative of the theory of two World-Souls
is, in late Greek
speculation,
indubitably Plutarchus.127 He teaches the existence of an evil
Manichaeism
combines this notion in a curious manner withmicro
World-Soul.
cosmism.
"The five gods or luminous bodies are represented as good forces
imprisoned five kinds of demons; but the devil had his revenge by im
Plutarchus
prisoning luminous forces inman whom he made a microcosm".128
too establishes, after the fashion of microcosmism, a parallel between the uni
verse and individual man.
To the two World-Souls
corresponds a duality in
man.129 There is*nothing, apparently, in Plutarchus of an actual war between
which
125E.
Hoffmann,
Phil. Hist.
d. Wiss.
und Mystik
im Altertum",
Sitz. Ber. Heidelberg.
Akad.
of Platonic
1939, Abh.
35, thinks that the development
philosophy
of two authentical
Platonic
is the effect of a twofold deformation
themes,
"Piatonismus
Kl.
towards mysticism
in reality, united by /??#e?is,and the idea of the soul.
Ideas and r?ya??v
the idea of diversity
are both primary and irreducible
in placing
The falsification
consists
; there is no processio.
soul in the center, making
of individual
the main
the individual
issue, and there
happiness
:
in all things Neo-Platonic
the presence
of God
emanationism.
The "pres
fore postulating
or Judaeo-Christian
ence of God"
of which Hoffmann
of Christian
ori
is probably
speaks,
The notion of God, at the same time transcendent

and immanent,
the world
governing
gin.
not quite a new theme in the polyphony
it by the concursus,
of
and maintaining
is however
since the late Stoa harbored
similar notions.
Greek
thought,
126Besides
an edition of an authentic
the known sources,
there is now available
Albigen
du XlIIe
ed. A.
sian treatise: Un trait? N?o-Manich?en
si?cle, Le Liber de duobus principiis,
Dondaine
(Rome,
127
"Plutarchus
1939).
comes nearer
to the Manichean
than any other Greek
solution
thinker.
... we must
come from God
of the world
cannot
assume
therefore
two
imperfection
. . .The
we find evil to be a positive
cannot be Matter,
evil principle
because
principles.
so characterless
as
from anything
and indetermined
active
thing, such as could not proceed
as an evil
Matter.
be a spiritual
There must
power of evil which may best be designated
The
W. R.
of Plotinus,
Inge, The Philosophy
I, 90. The* idea of the two souls
adumbrated
in the post
by Plato
is, however,
himself, Leg. X, 896c, 906a, and emphasized
it becomes
Platonian
somewhat
doubtful
whether
Plutarchus
Epinomis.
Thus,
depends
on Eastern
sources.
exclusively
128L.
A History
and Experimental
(New York,
Thorndike,
ofMagic
Science,
1923), I, 382.
129
>
a ev ea
?
a
28:
E.g. De virt. mor. 3; De anim. procr??t.
a . He argues also that the chaos must
have a soul, and since the chaos
is the opposite
World-Soul".
of the
, the chaotic
soul must
be evil.
367
MICROCOSMUS
the good and the evil principle as in Persian religion, although he was acquainted
was part of the
The fight between the two World-Souls
with these doctrines.
to
of Apamea.130
Chalcidius
refers
Numenius, without
teachings of Numenius
however mentioning the idea of a war between the two principles. According
to this source, Numenius
identifies the evil soul with matter.131'132
Of the confused Manichaean
doctrine, one point deserves mention since it
a
real descent.
Both in Gnosticism and inManicheism
introduces the idea of
is applied to various entities.
Sometimes it is the primeval man,
the term
are
not liberated by the "spirit of
"A
; sometimes the elements which
life" and remain under the domination of darkness receive this name.133 The
"Av&p wos falls from the higher into the lower spheres, into darkness (
)
In other passages however,

and becomes somehow united with theWorld-Soul.
there is no real downfall, but only an illumination proceeding from the "Av?p wos
above into the lower spheres.
It is difficult to say, without further investigation, how far these Oriental ideas
This is also the case with cabbalistic
influenced in detail Western speculation.
ideas. True, Pico is very enthusiastic about them, and so are several others,
partly dependent on him. But one would have to distinguish between the
original doctrine of the cabbalah and the sense read into the work by those who
studied it during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
3. Holistic Microcosmism
this interpretation any "organized whole" may be considered as a

or the universe.
This idea can be attained by
reproduction of the macrocosm
as an animated being. Then
of
the
universe
the
further
conception
developing
course
of
other
man, because of his spirituality,
every
living organism, especially
a
as
microcosm.
else
Whatever
appears as a whole, such that its parts
appears
are subservient to the whole, may be conceived in a similar manner as an image
The prototype of this conception is the organismic or organic
of the universe.
Within
theory of the state. An organism is the reproduction of the living cosmos; the
state is an organism fashioned according to the same principles as an animal,
or man; ergo, the state is a microcosm.
The same result can be reached also
a
state is an organism, because of its
The
somewhat
different
syllogism.
by
many analogies to a living being. The universe is considered as a well ordered
130
in Stobaeus,
Eel.
I, 844.
Jamblichus,
131
In Tim.
laudat quod
idem Numenius
?295: "Platonem
Chalcidius,
sc. silvam quae
unam beneficentissimam,
alteram,
autumet,
malignam
is questioned
correctness
of this statement
The
by Inge, The Philosophy
He
ple
also
and
rather
thinks
that
acting
on matter
the anima maligna

from without.
rules over matter,
duas mundi
fons malo
as in Plutarchus,
animas
rum est".
of Plotinus,
being
I, 91.
a princi
*32
P. O. Kristeller, Der Begriff der Seele bei Plotin (1929), p. 36, note 1, finds two souls
a
to distinguish
the World-Soul,
and
individual
souls
both
comprising
World-Soul,
principle
psychic
superior
. But
Kristeller's
Whether
there is no trace of an anima maligna.
interpretation
in the philosophy
of Plotinus.
One
has
,
a
or not is of no concern here.

tenable
133See the informative
work of W. Bousset,
pp. 178, 181.
Hauptprobleme
der Gnosis
(G?ttingen,
is
1907),
368
TRADITIO
state and thus becomes, too, an organism. The analogy of state and universe
can be worked out also independently of animation.
The tertium comparationis,
or rather the property common to both state and cosmos, is then the principle of
order.
Whether starting from the notion of organism or from that of civic order, the
analogy leads to the idea of the res publica universi. This idea allows for various
modifications.
It can be made the basis for the demonstration of a ruling cosmic
or
It develops, eventually, in a special form of the
power, personal
impersonal.
so-called physico-teleological
One also might
proof for the existence of God.
conceive of the universe as a republic in the strictly political sense of the term,
so to speak as a democracy of cosmic powers or stellar spirits. No such concep
tion seems to exist in history. Apparently, man conceived, whenever he thought
of the universe in terms of political order, the order as of the monarchical

type.
The most common form of holistic microcosmism is no doubt the one based on
the analogy to the organism. This fact creates a certain difficulty forW. Jaeger's
theory that the political order, the 7r?Xis,supplied the Greek mind with themain
Since this type of microcosmism per
principle of cosmological interpretation.
tains more to the history of political theory than to philosophy or a general
history of ideas, it will be dealt with only briefly. Some few quotations will
suffice.134
In ancient and medieval

times, imagination discovered many analogies be
In hac rep?blica deus
tween the human organism, the state, and the universe.
est imperans, angelus operans, homo obtemperans. To these three instances
correspond in man sapientia, voluntas, voluptas: Sapientia
imperantis suscipit
vicem . . . voluptas usurp?t obtemperantis imaginem.1*5 Since the res publica
universi and individual man stand inmicrocosmic relations, any res publica may
There is an endless number of such remarks.
be compared to individual man.
Most of them seem to depend on Plutarchus : Est autem respublica, sicut Plu
John of
tarcho placet, corpus quoddam quod divini muneris beneficio animatur.
.
.
.
a
on
to
in
E
the
detail.
ad
cultum
cany through
quae
Salisbury goes
analogy
religionis
. . . vicem
. . . obtinent.
animae,
. . . cordis locum senatus, etc.136 The

134A more
notion
detailed
of persona
would
discussion
mor?lis
and
therefore
cal
Princeps
individual
vero
capitis
. . . obtinet
citizens are analogous
locum
to the
a study on the origin and the legitimacy

of the
a lengthy digression
on various
and politi
juridical
the relations
be between
microcosmism
organismic
entail
conceptions.
Interesting
though
the scope of this article.
the idea of persona mor?lis,
they are beyond
135
The passage
Alanus
de Insulis, De planctu naturae
goes back to
(P. L. 210, 444 A-D).
Cf. Augustinus,
14 (P. L. 41, 238).
De civ. Dei, Vili,
Chalcidius.
But already
Chrysippus
e a may
as a
even be older.
statements.
of the world
had made
similar
The notion
and
De republ. VI, 61.

metaphysische
Schriften,
II, 283; Cicero,
to consider
of this holistic
have
the manifold
relations
a. Marcus
e
a
for
with
of
refers to
Aurelius,
instance,
conception
principle
as the foundation
of both cosmic and civic order.
this principle
See K. Reinhardt,
Kosmos
Cf.
I. Heinemann,
detailed
A more
Poseidonios'
analysis
the Stoic
would
uses the words

and
1926), p. 178 ff. St. Augustine
(M?nchen,
compassio
a. De Trin. XIII,
c. 3, 6
a e a and
of
of translations
conspiratio,
by way
(P. L. 42, 1017).
136Joannes
1-35 (ibid. 589ss.).
Sarisberensis,
Policraticus,
V, 2-4 (P. L. 199, 540), also VI,
und Sympathie
369
MICROCOSMUS
of the human body, an idea strangely reminiscent of very recent con

ceptions and no doubt threatening, by an easy exaggeration, the dignity and
the rights of the individual person.137
This analogy, however arbitrary and superficial itmay appear tomany modern
minds, appealed obviously to a great number of writers, even up to rather recent
It is mentioned not only by authors of the thirteenth and fourteenth
times.
centuries,138 but even by Suarez and Molina, who conceived of the state as a
body governing its limbs, just as John of Salisbury; and Nicolaus Cusanus or
Marsilius
of Padua
likened the powers of government to the organic functions
members
and Gassendi's
within the body.139 Even in Thomas Hobbes'
political theories
the same ideas are utilized.140 The latter refers expressly to Plutarchus as his
source.
Some have expatiated on this analogy by comparing or identifying the Church

with the soul, the State with the body, and likened their mutual relations to
those obtaining in the human person. When the state comes to be considered
as a real person, the organismic microcosmism blossoms out in quite fantastic
theories.
Sometimes, especially in earlier times, the expression is used merely
as an analogy;141 others, however, seem to believe that the state is actually a
living person.142
On
the universe
nios'
as a res publica
metaphysische
in writers
of late Antiquity
see, e.g. Heinemann,
to Philo
is made
reference
special
130, where
however
Laertius,
592 a, b.
Schriften,
I,
Diogenes
Spec. Leg. 1,13.
See also Plato,
IX,
Repub.
137On the citizens
as members
(Diels,
I, 293),
Poseido
Judaeus,
lists the idea as of Anaxagoras.
or organs,
see e.g. Joannes
Sarisberensis,
Policraticus,
V,
De regim. princ.
I, 12.
1; Aquinas,
138
De regim. princ. II, 7; IV, 11, 25.
of Lucca?)
of
(or Tholomaeus
Engelbert
Aquinas
De
16. Nicolaus
concord.
ortu et fine imperii Romani,
De
III,
Cusanus,
Admont,
I, 10;
In c. 15 he calls the anima
pacis,
I, 2.
1; 41. Marsilius
Patavensis,
Defens.
14r-17; III,
of the state.
the princ?pium
universalitatis
factivum
139See O. v.
. Freyd
tran.
The Development
of Political
(New York,
Theory,
Gierke,
1939), p. 208 ff. and note 117.
140Hobbes'
are well known.
The
of the state as organism
theories
organismic
concep
in accordance
with the general
in his hand a pure mechanism,
tion becomes,
trend
however,
ideas can be found,

and the Cartesian
Gassendi's
of his philosophy
of the body.
conception
. . .
librum Diogenis
in decimum
in P?tri Gassendi
Animadversiones
Laertii
for instance,
Cf. also G. S. Brett,
de vita . . . placitisque
1547), I, 375b-376a.
(ed. Ilia, Lugduni,
Epicuri
The Philosophy
the
p. 140, where
(London,
1908), p. 23, on the World-Soul;
of Gassendi,
souls from the World-Soul
is denied.
origin of the human
141
The Develop
De regim. III, 2, c. 3., quoted
by O. v. Gierke.
Romanus,
E.g. Aegidius
ment
unum
of Political
Theory,
hominem multorum
homines
196, note 56: "plures
et multarum
manuum".
oculorum
p.
principantes
The "body
quasi
constituunt
whether
politic",
in a democ
people
or by the whole
in an oligarchy,
by some few ruling persons
a person.
racy, thus becomes
"quasi"
142The
from a mere
of the persona mor?lis
varies
legal fiction to the idea of an
conception
latter view is found, e.g., with J. Chr. v.
nature.
The
being of personal
actually
existing
as a single person
that the state must
be regarded
claims
(Institut.^
850) and
Wolff, who
for instance
the individual
itself against
thus has as much
any other person,
right to defend
constituted
citizen
who
commits
an offense
against
the "person"
of the state.
(?1030).
370
TRADITIO
4. Symbolistic Microcosmism
It has been remarked before that it is not easy to distinguish between the
Especially with many medieval
symbolistic and other types of microcosmism.
writers, the symbolistic trend is quite general and the symbolic reference is taken
for granted. No special mention, therefore, is made when an author shifts
from, e.g., the structural to the symbolistic interpretation, sometimes without
noticing it himself. One has not to forget that symbolism does not deny to the
phenomenon or to the nature of things either reality or significance. Things
remain what they are, but they acquire, in the light of symbolistic interpretation,
another, higher significance besides their natural one.
Symbolism becomes particularly complicated when envisioned on the back
ground of a world conception which admits several levels of being. Then, any
thing on a lower level may be a symbolic representative of something pertaining
to a higher level, which in turn refers to a still higher form of being. Ultimately,
all the levels of being become, according to their natures, symbols of the last
The often quoted word of St. Paul that the visible
and highest reality, God.
us
of
this
world
towards the invisible things of God is understood not
draw
things
sense
in
of
rational
Not only by realizing that the
the
contemplation.
only
a
at
of
necessary
cause, that the order of the universe
contingence
things points
reveals a creative intelligence, and what other speculations there may be, but
by directly "reading the book of reality", by translating its "signs" into the real
ity they indicate, we attain some knowledge of the wonders beyond.
This type of interpretation is applied primarily to the Scriptures.
Persons
and facts as told in the Scriptures prefigure the advent of the Savior and His
work of redemption.
Similarity, everything and every event reveals something
to
This world bears the imprint
the
eternal
plans and works of God.
pertaining
The vestigia trinitatis are everywhere. Any of the
of the creative mind of God.
From St. Gregory's
Holy Books has a symbolic besides the literal meaning.
an
to
of
Canticles
the
the
Middle
late
endless number of
up
interpretation
Ages
such treatises were written.
This symbolism, however, is no longer strictly of the nature ofmicrocosmism.
is envisaged not as a reproduction of the macrocosm, but as
The microcosm
The manyfold speculations on
created in imaginem et similitudinem Dei.uz
the symbolic significance of created things must, accordingly, be ignored in the
s.str., since the
present context. They had some influence on microcosmism
doctrine of the Trinity stimulated the imagination to speculate on numbers and
thus contributed to arouse interest in Pythagorean or Neo-Pythagorean
ideas.
Long before mathematics developed into a true science and long before its prac
tical value became evident, the mysterious properties of numbers fascinated the
But number-symbolism
is only one form of symbolistic
speculative minds.
of
its
because
Number
interpretation.
is,
properties and applicability, a symbol
of relatively easy accessibility.
It can function as a name (Sixtus, Octavus,
man's
It
determines
fate (every tenth man).
It represents
eventually
etc.).
143
est expressa
"Imago
est inexpressa
"vestigium
tr. 1, s. 2, q. 1, (Quarachi,
similitudo,"
similitudo",
1927;
II,
Augustinus,
Alexander
46, n. 36).
LXXXIII
Halensis,
Quaest.
Summa
q. 74 (P. L.
Theol.
I-IT,
40, 86);
inq.
1,
371
MICROCOSMUS
wealth and thus confers a particular worth on a person; he is, for instance,
"a million aire".
The knowledge of time and distance is expressed by numbers,
and so on. No wonder, that number excited the curiosity already in early times.
There is a symbolism of names. There is one of things. One has, however, to
beware of a hasty identification of the highly developed medieval?or,
to a cer
tain extent, also ancient?symbolism

with the "symbolic thought" allegedly
characteristic of primitive mentality.
There is little of so-called "magic think
The "law of participation"144 is not effective in
ing" in medieval
symbolism.
medieval
in the higher
The tangible things do not participate
symbolism.
reality, they are analogical to it. This is something very different from primi
tive participation and even from the Platonic p??e&s. The notion of analogy
was always active in the minds of the Scholastics, also before this principle had
been expressly defined and applied by the Aristoteleans of the thirteenth century.
Analogy is a principle of the whole realm of being. But no thing loses, by
virtue of any analogy, its proper nature.

This is true of concrete things and of
universals, of existing things and of entia rationis. Numbers may have all kinds
of symbolic signification, and their relations may reveal others of a much loftier
dignity; but numbers remain, nonetheless, modes by which to express adequately
are as such in no
the quantitative aspect of reality. The laws of mathematics
way laws of suprasensory reality; as such, they are just true propositions on the
"behavior" of numbers; but they "express" also truths concerning a realm of a
very different nature.145
Some of the old Pythagoreans
had, as reported above, attributed definite
numbers to things or species of things. Because of this, a true identity ofmicro
and macrocosmos
The universe cannot have, or be, the
appears not possible.
same number as any of its parts.146 But the universe may comprise, as a bigger
144
This
followers.
But
law has
There
it is active
and
primitive
peoples.
numbers
ideal or symbolic
is already
clearly stated by Plato,
between
science
of medieval
understanding
of mathematics:
meaning
and
overrated
by L?vy-Bruhl
definitely
a great r?le in primitive
it exists and plays
and by far not the universal
specific conditions,
emphasized
that
is no doubt
only under rather

even with the most
of reasoning,
145The
distinction
of mathematical
been
texts
is sometimes
mathematica
rendered
often means
and numbers
Phil.
his many
thought.
principle
as the proper
238d-285c.
55c ;Polit.
difficult because
there
calculation
astrological
one.
and a superstitious
object
The
is a third
and
theory.
a scientific
De doctrina
two meanings,
Augustine
distinguishes
in Hexaemer.
Christ.
followed
him, e.g. Abaelard,
Expos,
II, 28 (P. L. 34, 56), and others
see also Dialect,
(P. L. 178, 755), where he condemns
(ed. V. Cousin,
astrological
procedures;
different spellings.
of St.
Some
tried to prevent
confusion
IV, 435).
by suggesting
Hugh
to be used
Victor wants matesis
to be the name of the superstitious
and mathesis
practice,
D. C,
Diss. Washington,
Didascal.
II, c. 3 (ed. Ch. H. Buttimer,
doctrine,
m?thesis
John
the two meanings
of
1939, p. 24).
by pronunciation,
Salisbury
distinguishes
on the a) naming
the science, mathesis
(with a long e), the superstition:
(with the accent
same distinction
of Eberhard
Policrat.
is in the Graecismus
The
p. 102).
II, 18 (ed. Webb,
for the sound
of Bethune
Mathe
facit m?thesis,
sed divinare
math?sis,\
"scire
p. 85):
(ed. Wrobel,
name.
or numerical
no particular
matical
received
symbolism,
however,
146A.
The Pythagorean
(Columb.
of Recollection
Cameron,
Background
of the Theory
with the original
Univ. Diss., Menasha,
number means,
that to "have"
Wis.
1938), believes
and
"to be"
This
is not even certain of the older schools,
such a number.
Pythagoreans,
it definitely
does not apply to later and medieval
systems.
372
TRADITIO
It is not perfectly clear whether Old- and

number, the numbers of its parts.
Neo-Pythagoreanism
interpreted numbers as symbols or saw in them the true
essence of things. The same uncertainty prevails in regard to other schools
which united speculation on numbers with their own ideas. Among these,
stands in the first place, although there is a good deal of Neo
Neo-Platonism
In Neo-Platonism
ideas also in the various Stoic philosophies.
Pythagorean
of the older
school was
"the arithmetical
(sc. Pythagorean)
symbolism
given a deeper
and the Indefinite
cate
The Monad
became
Dyad
meaning.
metaphysical
metaphysical
the ground of all good, of all perfection
and
By the name of the One,
gories of wide scope.
was the
and unchangeable
indicated.
The Dyad
being, was
order, and of all imperishable
was the sign
and change.
of disorder
The Monad
and badness,
ground of all imperfection
of the Godhead,
of Spirit,
of Form;
the Dyad
as the root of all evil."147
of Matter,
symbolic significance of numbers depends, of course, on many factors. Al

retained much of its importance also during the Middle
though the Monad
It has
Ages, the Three there plays, for obvious reasons, a predominant r?le.
been, however, emphasized also by pagan writers likeXenocrates,
Proclus, and
others. These details need not concern us here.148
The
147
W. R.
148There
I, 84.
of Plotinus,
Inge, The Philosophy
on number
in old, medieval
is an extensive
literature
and modern
symbolism
are given in H. Fl. Dunbar,
and Arabian.
Some references
times, pagan,
Jewish, Christian,
in theDivina
in Medieval
Commedia
(New Haven,
Thought and its Consummation
Symbolism
Further
information
in D. Mahnke,
pp. 501, 505, and in the bibliography.
1929), especially
zur Genealogie
Unendliche
Beitr?ge
Sph?re.
is mentioned,
question
other authors.
by many
The
and
A few passages
tions established
incidentally,
suffice to illustrate
will
der mathematischen
by A. Dempf,
medieval
Sacrum
ideas
Mystik
Imperium
on numbers.
(Halle
a.S.,
1937).
(Munich,
1929)
Most
of the rela
in Stoic texts and in others depend

by the writers have their antecedents
of the two to the female sex, e.g., is
ent on the former.
The relation of the One to the male,
in the Hermetic
treatises.
J. Kroll,
Die Lehren
des Hermes
mentioned
p. 51
Trismegistos,
ff.
that this symbolism

roots than the
has deeper
be pointed
out, incidentally,
is able to discover.
passages
fancy of the Freudian
Many
psychoanalysts
. . .
in the philosophers
of Chartres
deal with such problems.
declares:
"Unitas
Thierry
It might
rather
cheap
creatio numero rum est rerum creatio;

unitas
et Extraits,
B. Haur?au,
I (Paris
Notices
1890).
in unitas, aequalitas,
unitatis
The triad causa efficiens, form?lis, finolis is repeated
aequalita
et PAvicennisme
avant
"Les Porr?tains
1250", Rev. Scienc.
tisque connexio: M. H. Vicaire,
in creatione
est omnipotens
numerorum;
in rerum creatione";
igitur est omnipotens
Phil.
Th?ol.
26
Barach-Wrobel,
ciliante
fidem".
(1937),
p. 35):
Alanus
sed
Bernardus
467, note.
'Tnduxi
rebus formas,
De universitate,
etc. II, II
(ed.
numero
con
ligavi / Concordem
: "Quae
numeri
(P. L. 210, 514 D)
char
ratio, foedus, concordia,
limes",
Silvestris,
elementa
Anticlaudianus
de Insulis,
amor,
lex, quis nexus et ordo / Nodus,
virtus, quae
number
acterizes
; the relation of even and odd numbers
is back of the following dichotomies:

death-life
sense-reason,
male-female,
body-soul,
earth-heaven,
(Ibid. 515 B).
grief-joy,
II c. 7 (ed. Ch. H. Buttimer,
of St. Victor, Didascalion,
autern numeri
p. 30) : "virtus
Hugh
cuneta
sunt".
formata
It is easy to see how the One sym
est, quod ad eius similitudinem
comes to be represented
and how the Godhead
bolizes God
by, or even identified with the
The Monad,
itself again, brings forth at the same time another Monad,
positing
as one reads frequently?and
to the first?monas
also the alteritas or
gignit monadem,
the dyad of which
the ancient
is the a
However,
pluralit?s.
symbolists
?vas,
spoke
Monad.
equal
the
indeterminate
30, already
identifies
, not
the anima
two.
A fragment of Xenocrates,
Aet. I, 7,
just the number
mundi with the dyas.
there is a number-symbolism
Thus,
373
MICROCOSMUS
Among the many statements on numbers, there is one which deserves brief
consideration.
The others may be left aside, since they contribute nothing
essentially new. Many authors refer to a word ofXenocrates,
qui ipsam animara
numerum
esse
was
definivit
dicens:
"anima
est
numerus
se movens."149
Xenocrates
the second scholarchos of the Academy after Plato.

With him, the Pytha
gorean trend, noticeable already in the Epinomis
(of questionable genuineness),
became
had abandoned
the Platonic
stronger. His predecessor, Speusippus
numbers the source of everything.
theory of ideas and made the mathematical
did not resume Plato's distinction between ideal and mathematical
Xenocrates
numbers, but he returned to the Platonic ideas insorfar as he identified them with
mathematical
numbers.
Thus, numbers became, at once, the ideal nature of
a higher reality. He is, in fact, reported to have
were
endowed
with
and
things
a
as
of
soul
number
the
moving itself. Apparently he had inmind the
spoken
was
at
This
statement, although original with Xenocrates,
tributed by many to Pythagoras, whose words the Athenian philosopher was
This is also the opinion of Nemesius who well may
supposed to have repeated.
have been the source for Adelhard and the other twelfth-century authors who
quote the theory ofXenocrates;150 there is however also a passage inMacrobius.
World-Soul.
One understands,
that Alanus
for the processio Dei ad intra as well as ad extra.
accordingly,
. . . cetera vere non sunt."
This
existit
remark may
say (P. L. 210, 642) : "Sola monas
on a passage
in Dionysius
which
is rendered
Pseudo-Areopagita
by Scottus
depend
non participans
De
divin, nom.
est multitudo
"non
(P. L.
122, 1169 C):
Eriugena,
quid
can
unius";
820 D,
acterize
text reads:
the original
the translation
whereof
what
of number."
acterization
cover
E.
Cassirer
Philosophie
which Aristotle
ovb?y?p
is in P. L.
gives of the Pythagoreans,

ev be rots a &
to numbers,
likenesses
everywhere
a
&
(Met. A; 988 b 27), applies
149
in H. Willner,
Des
of Bath,
Adelhard
.Gesch.
d. Phil. d. MA.
1903, vol.
(Beitr.
evos (P. G.
122, 1149 A).

not unjustly
calls the "process
II
der symbolischen
Formen,
These
examples
of divinization
1925), p.
(Berlin,
that they always
eb?Kovv?e pe?v
to the medieval
writers.
equally
von Bath Traktat De
Adelhard
3, 980 A; see also

will do to char
and
canonization
179.
The
wanted
a a
eodem
char
to dis
a rots
et diverso
is not willing
4, 1), p. 23.
however,
Adelhard,
se ipsum moveat,
se ipsam
numerus
anima
autem
"cum nullus
this definition:
to accept
see
non
numerum
Fr.
esse
earn
On
this
author,
Bliemetzrieder,
intelligamus."
moveat,
von Bath
stand considering
The
the
Adelhard
1935).
however, may
comparison,
(Munich,
De
lib.
On the eminence
of number,
of number.
see, e.g., Augustinus,
dignity
particular
. . . formas hominum
et terram
"Intuere
caelum
arbitr. II,
16, 42 (P. L. 32, 1263-1264):
. . . adirne illic
A quo ergo sunt nisi a quo nu
hominum
haec, nihil erunt.
quia num?ros
. . .
tenentur
in loco . . .
formati
numeri
merus.
iam pulchritudinem
corporis,
Inspice
in tempore".
versantur
in corpore,
numeri
nobilitatem
150
Se?v
De nat. Homin.
?
e'iKa?ev ?el a
(P.G. 40 569 A) :Hv dy?pas b?
Nemesius,
a'
a ^
a
a
a
eavT?v
a
a a rots a
,a &
etco?cbs,
'
a
ev
e
s.
a
etrrt
ev
tols
ort
\
?
?vo
evTiv
tols
rt
&
a
a
Cicero
too
?eaev
,
numerum
et quasi
"animi
that Xenocrates
corpus
esse, verum
negavit
figur?m
reports
a
a
eavT?v
Plac.
Tuscul.
dixit esse,"
philos. IV, 2:Uv?ay6pas
I, 10, 20. Plutarchus,
Th.
numerus
cf.
se
Macrobius
anima
Macrobius'
On
movens,
Whittaker,
ipsum
).
(
et les Sto?ciens
du monde
chez Platon
VAme
J. Moreau,
(Paris,
1923), p. 60.
(Cambridge,
.
words as if they were amere metaphor.
interprets Xenocrates'
3., apparently
1939), p. 51,
... ne peut ?tre repr?sent?e
"l'?me
He writes:
que sous la forme de la totalit?
organique,
est le sens de la d?finition
de X?nocrate."
Tel
comme
de relations.
autonome
syst?me
in this manner.
Xenocrates
For
did understand
But
it does not seem that ancient writers
374
TRADITIO
and of other similar enun

interpretation of the sentence of Xenocrates
is not easy. The modern mind is accustomed to quite another idea of
numbers. We read with amazement that the Pythagoreans
solemnly invoked
number as the "Father of the Blessed."151 Whether the soul is called a number
moving itself or simply defined, as by Plato, as that which moves itself, in any
The
ciations
case the particular nature of the soul and its kinship to the highest power are
It seems that theXenocratian
declaration was perfectly intelligible
emphasized.
it is quoted, it is so without any expression of won
to the ancients. Whenever
the
der or without the need of any further explanation being felt. Whatever
sense was in which this statement was understood, it contributed to strengthen
From the moment onwards when the ancient

the microcosmistic
conceptions.
laws governing the universe, any
mind alighted at the notion of mathematical
reference to numbers playing a r?le in the big and the small world emphasized
their similarities.
(On "law of nature", see above note 25.)
In Pythagoreism the "arithmetical" considerations were closely linked to the
One can hardly overestimate the impression which
notion of "harmony".
the discovery must have made that musical harmony is founded on measurable
To the students of that time, itmust have seemed as if suddenly
proportions.
a bright and altogether new lightwere shed on the mysteries of this world.
Two
totally heterogeneous fields of experience revealed themselves not only as related
to one another, but as identical: both were founded on number.
No inquisitive mind could fail to seek for an explanation of this wonderful
new fact. The Pythagorean answer was to make reality to consist in, or at least
to be adequately expressed by, number.
But this explanation proves unsatis
soon
as
as
overcomes
first shock which this unexpected,
the
mind
the
factory
arouses.
and
bold
statement
The
further elaboration of the idea into
fantastic,
the conception of the "harmony of the spheres", too, demands a metaphysical
Science may be content with correlations and functions. But

foundation.
common sense as well as philosophy ask formore.
To renounce any further
attempt at penetrating into the secrets of reality is not a sign of wisdom but of
intellectual cowardice.
The will and the courage for far reaching metaphysical
the Platonic
root
of
see Tim.
A
35b 1-3; A. E. Taylor,
became
this theory of number
times,
that Campanella
it is understandable
Thus,
Fr. Olgiati,
disseminated
the universe
throughout
this definition,
In later
p. 111.
Timaeus,
emanationism.
Neo-Platonic
Plato's
of God
"rays
e del Rinascimento,
Umanesimo
p.
151
4
In Phys.
Simplicius,
III,
,
(ol TLvdayopeioi) : e
ever, some of the spirit of old, one
bers
construction had been

on
Commentary
associated
with
calls
Lo
the num
spirito
dell1
742.
e
Graec.
Comm. Aristotel.
9, 453, 9: ov
(ed. Diels,
'
.
a a
a
how
, a e a
e, a e
By assimilating,
as it seems, to an understanding.
The number
arrives,
as such, but one number,
not number
the One.
The
namely
is, one may

surmise,
source of everything.
ismore
than a symbol of the Urgrund
of being;
it is this ultimate
on Plato's
Xenocrates
p. 112),
had, as reported
by A. E. Taylor
(A Commentary
Timaeus,
that the One and the multitude,
declared
The
latter is everything
, are indefinables.
invoked
One
the One, diversity, multiplicity,

and so on.
It is, accordingly,
also change,
since change
or results
in it. One
multitude
need only to arrange
the invocation
differ
presupposes
sense: Father
of all, who art the indefinable,
sublime One.
ently to get an acceptable
not
375
MICROCOSMUS
It had lost much

very much alive during the great years of Greek speculation.
But once more it rose to an imposing
of its impetus at the end of Antiquity.
This philosophy endeavored to synthesize the basic
height in Neo-Platonism.
elements of all the other currents then existing and to develop an all-comprising
Plotinus attempted to realize this synthesis by means of the
theory of being.
The emanations, however unlike the original One they
notion of emanation.
traces
of
their
retain
origin. There is a certain parallelism between Plotinic
be,
To the vestigia Trinitatis there, corresponds what
and Christian conceptions.
one might call the vestigia unius here. The lower emanations particularly retain
is be
features proper to their proximate source, the World-Soul.
Harmony
Later Neo
lieved to have its origin in proportions within the World-Soul.152
Platonism, especially during theMiddle Ages, derived this idea from still another
The Neo-Pythagorean
speculation of number had been incorporated
in a commentary on Timaeus, and from
into the Stoic system by Poseidonios,
there had passed into the commentary of Chalcidius which is known to have been
and the spreading of the
most influential until the arising of Aristotelianism
source.
texts.153
original Platonic
The relation between human music, inner harmony, and the harmony of the
spheres, therefore the cosmic law, explains the high esteem in which music was
times. Some writers, indeed, have felt the need to
held throughout medieval
to a rather profane art, but most of them approve
accorded
esteem
this
justify
of music without any misgivings and emphasize its symbolic and metaphysical
the authors distinguish musica mundana,
significance.154 Following Boethius
to the musica mundana
The
references
instrument?lis.
seem, with
humana,
an
a
in
more
used
first
But
not
than
way of an
image
some,
poetical image.156
152
on a Latin
De Somn.
II, 34. Macrobius
depends
Scip.
especially
passim,
Macrobius,
M.
on Timaeus,
of some Neo-Platonic
translation
commentary
by Porphyry.
probably
des christlichen
des Macrobius
und ihr Einfluss
Die Philosophie
auf die Wissenschaft
Schedler,
z. Gesch.
himself
refers
d. Phil. d. MA.
1916, vol. 13,1), p. 3f, Plotinus
(Beitr.
Mittelalters,
a kv
a
?
a
of a lyre ;
of the stars as being like the harmony
to the movement
a , Enn.
in the World-Soul
is often mentioned.
rooted
being
IV, 4, 8. Harmony
von Bath
Traktat De
eodem et de
Des Adelhard
in H. Willner,
of Bath,
e.g., Adelhard
diverso, pp. 25, 27.
153See M.
B. W.
Des
des Macrobius,
Die Philosophie
p. 23, note.
Switalski,
Schedler,
.Gesch.
d. Phil. d. MA.
zu Platos
Timaeus
Kommentar
Chalcidius
1902, vol. 3, 6),
(Beitr.
a?
See,
p.
86.
154The
are sometimes
rather quaint.
of music
for justification
See, for in
suggestions
De
trinitate et operibus
Tuciensis
of Rupertus
statements
the curious
(of Deutz),
stance,
of the num
16 (P.L. 167, 1779-1780), where the proportions
De Spiritu
eius XII.
sancto, VII,
to God are found to be the same as those of
bers of the just (Gen. 18) mentioned
by Abraham
and thus to justify the study of music.
intervals
musical
155
.Gesch.
d. Phil,
ed. L. Baur,
De divisione
(Beitr.
philosophiae,
E.g. Gundissalinus,
rerum diver
as
modulatio
241.
He
defines
vol.
d. MA.
"quaecumlibet
4, 13-14), p.
1903,
of "mu
the general
sarum Concors modificatio"
applicability
(ibid. p. 96), thus indicating
sic".
156
when
Thus,
musice
concinunt,"
sis, Liber
XII
of the
Mamertus
speaks
statu animae,
I, 22 (C. SS E. XI,
c. 2 (P. L. 172, 1197B):
"Summus
Claudianus
De
quaest.
et
moderate
"quae
Or Honorius
Augustodunen
quasi magnam
opifex universum
four elements
73).
376
TRADITIO
illustration easily turns, at least with the medieval mind, into a true symbol.
It is sometimes difficult to ascertain which significance prevails.
Music and harmony are important factors in themicrocosmistic view. Through
music and harmony the micro- and macrocosms appear to be related in a particu
One is perhaps not wrong in comparing the function ofmusic in the
larmanner.
of previous times to the r?le mathematics play in today's
systems
cosmological
Just as the abstract mathematical
world conception.
laws, in a sense, precede
the concrete physical happenings, so music precedes, according to Boethius,
the movements of the stars.157 Since music and mathematics are made to coin
assertion
cide, the statement of Boethius is in accordance with St. Augustine's
that numbers and their laws are higher than even human reason.158 From such
there stem many passages dealing

remarks in Augustine, Boethius, Macrobius,
with the eminence ofmusic.159 One passage out ofmany may serve as illustra
states that physics deals with the mobile
tion. Robert Grosseteste
things,
of movement.
with the measurement
mathematics
therefore, has a
Music,
universal significance, that is to say, it is higher and prior to the other two
sciences.160
Imperfectly and analogically, human music reproduces that of the universe,

In this regard too, the dividing line between sym
the harmony of the spheres.
of Paris, in a
bolistic and structural microcosmism becomes blurred. William
one
cannot
that
of
remarks
conceive
the
De
his
of
hymns sung
universo,
passage
as
nor
of
of
the
the
universe
the
blessed
harmony
being of the same
spirits,
by
kind as themusic man makes, because he oftenmakes very bad music ; terrestrial
is but a pr?figuration of the celestial one. To others, Honorius of Autun
for instance, the celestial and cosmic music is the exemplar on which human
music
condidit
citharam
si and
seem
veluti
in veluti
to
indicate
varias
chordas
a mere
ad mult?plices
But
the
metaphor.
mundana.
sonos
same
reddendas
Qua
posuit."
elsewhere
is very
in combina
appears
author
on the reality of this musica

The
idea of harmony
as verba prae
in a passage
which Scotus Eriugena
the microcosm
designates
De div. nat. II, 4 (P.L.
dicti magistri
"[homo]
Confessor),
122, 530 D):
(i.e. of Maximus
sunt
in ea siquidem
omnia conferunt,
condita
iure appellatur;
officina omnium
quae a Deo
definite
tion with man
ex diversis
distantibus
sonis composuit.,,
naturis
veluti
quibusdam
"Die Musikanschauung
des Johannes
Scotus
study by J. Handschen,
u. Geistesgesch.
316.
sehr.
d.
Literaturwiss.
5
Deutsche
(1927),
Vierteljahr
(Erigena)",
157
cursus
musicae
vim astrorum
Inst, arithm.
praecedere".
I, 1: "constat
Boethius,
unamque
Cf. the
So also
conditum
harm?ni?m
excellent
De artibus
hunc mundum
per musicam
(P.L.
70, 1208 F) : "Pythagoras
Cassiodorus,
et gubernari
posse testatur' \ Isidorus Hispalensis,
Etymol.
Ill, 17 : "Ipse mundus
?
so no rum fertur esse eompositus".
link
the notion of the
Also
harm?nia
quadam
seems to be derived
from musical
har
into an organic whole
ing all parts of the universe
von
Nemesius
Berlin
W.
See
p. 109.
mony.
Emesa,
1914, Weidemann,
Jaeger,
158St.
Die Begr?n
lib. arb. II, n. 20; also Confess. X,19.
Cf. J. Hessen,
De
Augustinus,
d. Phil. d. MA.
nach dem heil. Augustinus
(Beitr. a. Gesch.
1916, Vol.
dung der Erkenntnis
19, 2), p. 21 f.
159
Macrobius
.
. . musica
"iure
has a very high idea of music:
capi tur omne quod vivit,
ex musica".
ori ginem sumpsit
universitas
caelestis
qua animarum
animatur,
anima,
quia
to music
that number
is
De somn. Scip.
987a, proves by reference
II, 3, 11. The Epinomis,
?a .
the basis of everything
good, beautiful,
divine, and of all the
160L.
.Gesch.
des Robert Grosseteste
d. Phil. d. MA.
1917,
(Beitr.
Baur, Die Philosophie
vol.
17, 4-6), p. 16 ff.
377
MICROCOSMUS
been fashioned.161 In addition, the fundamental identity of these

makes man a microcosmus because the principle here and there is
It should be noted, however,
namely the law of musical harmony.
a originally means the gammut and not consonance of chords of
in the former sense makes the beauty
which we think mostly today. Harmony
Each sphere having its proper
of the musica mundana somewhat questionable.
a
seems
to
in
this
continuous
music
consist
sounding of all the tones com
sound,
music has
two musics
the same,
that a
posing the gammut. There are other difficulties, too, arising from contradictions
between the postulates of harmony and the theories of planetary movements
(A. E. Taylor has dealt thoroughly with these questions in his Commentary
on Timaeus).
is in this, as usually, in no way original. He voices only the ideas
Honorius
suggested by many other writers,162but he is a good representative of this general
opinion.
Thus, music and the study of music assume a particular dignity.
One does not study music simply formusic's sake or to get enjoyment out of it.
is part of philosophy, it is not an "art" in the modern sense, but truly
Music
a
"science".163
One of the reasons why the notion ofmusic was extended far beyond the world
of audible sounds is the fact of rhythm. Everything measured in time appeared
as related to music.
One may surmise that the regularity of stellar movements
had something to do with the original idea of the harmony of the spheres. Roger
Bacon says expressly that there ismusic in regard to audible and in regard to
But he is no longer enthusiastic enough to make music an
visible changes.
ultimate principle; he rather thinks that it is a human product and rooted in
gesture.164
161"Hi
autem
venta
orbes
(sc. planetarum)
septem
caelestis
ad firmamentum
usque
... a terra ad lunam
afRrmatur
etc."
mensuratur
volvuntur
harm?nia
ad
...
cuius
exemplum
ad Mercurium
nostra
terra
in
semitonus,
tonus, a luna usque
as the
bodies
stand in the same proportion
of the celestial
the distances
De
Honorius
(P.L.
172, 140).
I, 80-81,
imag. mundi,
Augustodunensis,
enim hie mundus
adds
septem
(ibid. 82): "sicut
farther, since Honorius
(Obviously,
musical
cum dulcissima
musica
intervals),
The
est
goes
parallel
tonis et nostra musica
nostri
sic compago
vocibus
septem
corporis
disiungitur,
septem
. . .
viribus
tribus
dum
anima
copulatur
elementis,
corpus
quatuor
coniungitur,
numero
cum sic consono
caelesti
dicitur
i.e. minor mundus
et homo microcosmus
unde
Suchlike
ideas
See also Joannes
musicae
I, 6.
Sarisberensis,
Polycrat.
par cognoscitur".
ed. Frisch,
of 1596 (Opp.
in his Mysterium
are still active with Kepler,
cosmographicum
mundis
V, 315).
162For
5 (P.L.
Alanus
de Insulis,
for instance,
Anticlaudianus,
III,
and seasons
as the force by which hours and months
is presented
vices
elementa
/ Astra mo vet variatque
planetas
ligat, cogitque
et
Ordinat
minorem
humani
nectit
musica
/
specie
mundumque
partes,
/ Corporis
quae
honor?t".
melioris
mundi
163See G.
?coles
si?cle: Les
du Xlle
La Renaissance
and P. Tremblay,
Par?, A. Brunet
vol. III, Ottawa
medi?v.
Inst. d'?tudes
et renseignement
1933), p. 174.
d'Ottawa,
(Pubi.
Arch.
des Boethius",
in der Philosophie
der Musik
"Die
Ci . also L. Schrade,
Stellung
in Tim. 80b,
mathematics"
"audible
is called
41 (1932), 360. Music
already
d. Phil.
Gesch.
the
same
idea
see,
210, 517 B) where music

are regulated
and "...
6-7.
IV
164"Musica
alia
(ed. Bridges,
vertitur
I, 237).
circa
And:
circa visibile."
alia
audibile,
vero has partes musicae
"Praeter
Roger
quae
Bacon,
Op. mai.
sunt circa sonum
378
TRADITIO
Music
supplies only one, if a powerful, motive in symbolistic microcosmism.
There are other features of an even more strikingly symbolic nature.
Sym
bolism is so common with medieval writers, even up to the times of Dante, that
a complete survey is out of question, and to choose illustrative instances becomes
quite difficult. Also, a further discussion of the problems needs would carry
us too far into an analysis of types of symbolism, a study of the psychological
factors back of this mentality, and other problems not to be approached
in this
context.
Symbolism is mixed up, in medieval writings, with all kinds of empirical

in to solve all kinds of practical problems.
and is brought
knowledge,
and morals, politics and science, whatever there is to know, receives
Medicine
deeper significance on one hand, and enlightenment on the other, by the symbo
listic view. A striking example is offered by the well known writings of St.
In her Causae et curae she exclaims: "0 man, look at
of Bingen.
Hildegardis
man ! For man has in himself heavens and earth . . .and in him all things are
His head corresponds to the heavens, the eyes to the stars, the ear
hidden".
to the air, arms and touch to the latera mundi, the heart to the earth, the abdo
men to the creatures. There is not only the already known parallelism of the
parts of the human body and the parts of the universe, not only the idea of an
animated universe, but there are everywhere the most varied and manyfold
relations between all kinds of things, so that nothing is devoid of a deeper sig
nificance.165 The parallelisms she discovers are not only those of order or shape,
but also those of finality. The symbol is in the realm to winch it belongs a
mere fact, independently of its symbolic function; it is destined to realize the
same or the corresponding end as does the symbolized on its level. Although this
is, perhaps, not worked out clearly, the result of such an idea is a threefold sym
bolic relation. The symbol and the symbolized, the end or destination of the
one and of the other, finally the relation between these two destinations, form
a network of symbolic correspondences which is not easily unraveled.
The
crossing and recrossing of these symbolizations constitute one of the greatest
difficulties in the interpretation ofmedieval
symbolic writings.166
For reasons already mentioned, a further discussion of symbolistic micro
cosmism is omitted. But we cannot well leave the genuine forms of micro
cosmism without taking account of one thinker who in a way summarizes the
medieval mentality and lets it once more light up with its old brilliancy.
As St. Anselm of Canterbury stands at the beginning of Scholasticism
and
et omnes
exultationes
quae sunt circa visibile,
quod est gestus, qui comprehendit
... Et istud dicitur
in libro De ortu scientiarum
sc. quod
corporis
[by Alfarabi],
tert. ed. Brewer,
p. 232.
gestus est radix musicae".
Op.
165
Lib. divin, oper. Vis.
Hildegardis
Bingensis,
I, c. 4, 82 (P.L.
197, 813 D, 839 C, 862 D)
et passim).
Man
is the image of every kind of creature:
omnes creaturas
"Deus
especially
in ipso homine
secundum mensuram
signavit".
166H.
a thorough
has presented
Liebschuetz
and painstaking
study, Das
allegorische
sunt aliae
flexiones
Weltbild derHl. Hildegard von Bingen (Stud. d. Bibl. Warburg, XVI, Leipzig 1930); on
Microcosmism:
gard",
Stud,
p. 59 ff. Cf. also Ch. Singer, "The Scientific

in theHist,
1 (1917), 1.
and Meth.
of Science,
Views
and Visions
of St. Hilde
379
M?CROCOSMUS
full-grown medieval mentality and has, therefore, been hailed as praecedentium

stands at the end of
compendium, Scholasticorum dux,167 so Nicolaus Cusanus
a
no
medieval
but
times,
praecedentium compendium also,
dux, although not
without great influence on many of his successors and, in a definite sense, much
more "modern" than most of his contemporaries.
Theologian, mystic, philos
opher, scientist, politician, an ardent student of his predecessors, an intrepid
seeker for the truth, the great Cardinal cannot be given a place within any defi
If he is mentioned here, it is more by a certain embarrassment,
to subsume his ideas to one or the other of the microcosmistic
He makes use of all of them, and at the
t}rpes which have been distinguished.
same time, is critical of all of them.
Ideas which had been repeated, more or
less uniformly, by innumerable writers, reappear in the Cusanian texts, but some
subtle modification gives them quite often a new and very different turn.168
There is a certain mathematical
He
speculations.
symbolism in Cusanus'
nite pattern.
an incapacity
loves to use arithmetical and geometrical propositions for the sake of illustrating
and "symbolizing" metaphysical
and theological
ideas. Numbers
have for
Cusanus a deeper signification. But it soon becomes obvious that his manner
to look at these problems differs from the speculations current during the twelfth
a very general principle.
becomes with Cusanus
century.169 Microcosmism
as
man
is
who
it
is
considered
the
Although
specifically
microcosm, the funda
microcosmistic
relation is extended to any finite being whatsoever.
ismirrored in every part, and thus the universe and each of its parts
is the microcosm, containing virtually the whole uni
become perfect.170 Man
mental
The whole
167Saenz
St. Anselmi
de Aguirre,
1680) I, introd.
(Rome,
Theologia
168He
for instance,
of the universe
and refers to terrestrial
of the harmony
har
speaks,
as analogical
a belief
to the former.
in the all
But there is no longer so simplistic
monies
we know reveals
of music.
Nor does he feel that the harmony
the truth
power
covering
In things of this earth, he says, no such perfect harmony
the one hidden beneath
it.
about
of the universe
The perfect harmony
will be
is found that it could not be much
greater.
to us only thereafter.
De docta ignorantia,
edd. R. Hoffmann
revealed
and
II, 1 (Opera,
R. Klibansky,
1932; I, 62).
Leipzig.
169One need
aware
to become
of this difference:
passage
only read the following
"Quia
est prima
et unitas
universi
ab ista, erit unitas
universi
secunda
unitas
absoluta
unitas
in quadam
ut in De
Et quoniam,
coniecturis
existit.
quae
(L, 5 ff.) ostenditur,
pluralitate
est denaria,
unitas
decem uniens praedicamenta,
erit universum
secunda
explicans
primam
De docta ignorantia
unitatem
contractione."
denaria
II, c. 6 (ed. cit.
simplicem
of the properties
of this
the universe
is given the number
ten, not because
Here,
or its particular
but because
of the logico-ontological
order
symbolic
significance,
a Bernardus
of a Thierry
of being, a viewpoint
of Chartres,
far from the number
symbolism
or an Alanus
de Insulis.
Silvestris,
170De
1. On the exceptional
of man,
ludo globi, L; De docta ignor. II, 2; III,
position
. . .
vero natura
est illa quae
est supra
omnia Dei
elevata
ibid. III,
3: "Humana
opera
absolutam
I, 79).
number
et sensibilem
... a veteribus
intellectualem
microcosmus
human
been
nature,
achieved
perfection.
Heidelberg,
Cf.
ac
naturam
complicane
vocitetur".
rationabiliter
all
also perfects
by God
becoming
Cusanus-Texte,
p. 33.
other
man.
edd.
beings.
The
ut
intra se constringens,
the universal
Man,
by perfecting
true perfection
of human
nature
has
universa
the Incarnation
its
every thing attains
Through
E. Hoffmann
and R. Klibansky
(Sitz. Ber. Akad.
1929),
380
TRADITIO
verse, he is deus hum?nus, placed on the horizon between time and eternity.171
In his treatment of these questions Cusanus proves himself to be not throughout
a Platonist?though
he is well acquainted with all this literature and especially
with the Pseudo-Dionysian

texts172?but to be also under the influence of Aris
state
totle. There are passages which read like transcriptions of Aristotelean
ments, especially concerning the notions of act and potency.173
The idea of the microcosm is linked, in the mind of Cusanus, to the Redemp
tion. Such associations had been established previously.
They are Suggested
a
in
creaturae
St.
Nam
Paul:
revelationem
passage
by
expectatio
filiorum Dei
.
.
enim
creatura
omnis
et
Scimus
expectat.
quod
parturit usque adhuc.
ingemiscit
man
and
Since
within
19
his
nature
the nature of all
comprises
(Rom. 8,
22).174
as
his
and
his
elevation
it
divinization
were,
redemption
things,
imply also
and,
the elevation of the totality of things.175
The type of microcosmism

advocated by Cusanus
is not sharply defined.
Some passages read as ifhe held a strictly elementaristic view, but elsewhere it
seems as if he interpreted man as a microcosm mainly because of his capacity
to know.176 He comprises the universe notionaliter. There are also passages in
which the world of ideas, created by the human mind, appears as the microcosm.
The sensible is transformed and united in the spiritual. Man's
thought is free;
171De
docta ignorantia,
"Not only the
sap. 32.
III, 3; De coniecturis,
II, 14; De venatione
this universe
is ... so to speak, a created
worlji, but also every single creature within
A. Faust,
Der M?glichkeitsgedanke
On "creatura
1932) II, 287.
god":
(Heidelberg,
quasi
s. occasionatus",
see De docta ignorantia,
infinitas finita aut deus creatus
II, 2. Cf. also
von Kues",
Phil.
"Das Unendliche
Jahrb. 40 (1927), 44.
ex
S. Lorenz,
bei Nicolaus
The
whole
deus creatus may go back to Pseudo-Apuleius.

See Apulei
de philosophia
Platonici
pression
source
The ultimate
Timaeus.
libri, ree. P. Thomas
1908), p. 45.
is, of course,
(Leipzig,
172
to Cusanus,
22.
Conrad
of Geissenfeld
Referring
writes, Aug.
1454, to John of Weil
in sancti Dionysii
haim:
libris studiosissimum
E. Van
pre ceteris
"quern
agnovimus".
z. Gesch.
Autour
d. Phil.
de la docte ignorance
d. MA.
(Beitr.
steenberghe,
14,
1915, Vol.
2-4), p. 219.
173E.
from the Impugnatorium
which Vincent
of Aggsbach
dir
quotes
Vansteenberghe
of Cusanus,
ected against
the admirers
"Votre
against Marquard
particularly
Sprenger:
et s?cr?te que si elle s'accorde
Cusa ne re?oit la th?ologie mystique
pour divine,
spirituelle
avec
le troisi?me
du De
chapitre
p. 66.
exact
interpretation
ignorance,
174The
anima
of this
de
text
son mis?rable
is controversial.
Autour
Aristote".
Some
de
refer omnis
la docte
creatura
it as signifying humanity
of man,
others
consider
beings with the exclusion
as a whole,
P. Dulan,
See. e.g. on this matter
creatura
"Omnis
Div.
ingemiscit",
37 (1934), 386, and 39 (1935), 431; F. Tueco,
ibid. p. 320, opposes
Dulan.
(Plac.)
created
articles
contain
instance,
by Cornelius
86 a,b.
1717) p.
175De
docta
also
also
a Lapide,
III
to other
Commentarius
III, 2. Cf. E. Cassirer,

Vol.
(Stud. d. Bibl. Warburg,
c. 20. Also Cusanus,
vis. Dei,
to De
aut
microcosmus
Deus,
ne
est divinum
"Mens
Idiota,
references
ignorantia,
der Renaissance
made
several
{de mente),
hum?nus
writers.
in omnes D.
Older
opinions
Pauli
ep?stolas
are
to
taken
Thorn.
These
reported,
for
(2d ed., Venetiis,
und Kosmos
in der Philosophie
Individuum
reference
is
1927) p. 42, where
X, Leipzig,
coniect. II, 14: "hum?nus
Excit?t.
IX; De
mundus".
sua vi complicans
rerum exemplaria
omnium
notionaliter",
c. 5 (ed. J. Richter,
in E. Cassirer,
und Kosmos).
Individuum
semen
381
MICROCOSMUS
by his own ind?termin?e! activity he creates his own world.177 Out of the mes
sages received by the senses, man builds a realm of his own in which he rules
in freedom, the microcosm.178 One has, however, to remember that Cusanus
is true to the tradition. The proposition, intelligibile in acta est intellectus in actu
has lost none of its validity. Man, thus, by "having" a microcosm also becomes
one, in one sense or the other. There is no contradiction between the two
statements that man is, and that he has, a microcosm.179
Cusanian microcosmism has little in common with the holistic view insofar
as the latter rests on the theory of a World-Soul.
Cusanus,
indeed, criticizes
Aristotle for having found fault with Plato's conception of theWorld-Soul,
but
he also holds that Plato was mistaken, as were all his followers, in considering
this soul as different from, and outside of, God.
They fell into this error,
they had no correct notion of the highest Absolute: De m?ximo absoluto
sufficienter instructi non erant. Solus enim Deus est anima mundi, eo modo quo
anima (se. humana) quasi quid absolutum . . . consider atur}m Such statements
because
made
the Cardinal
of
inclinations.
Johannes Wenck
suspect of pantheistic
a
to
of
at
in
in
work
prove
Pferrenberg, professor
theology
Heidelberg, tried,
fact,
De ignota litteratura that the views of Cusanus necessarily must lead to pantheism,
177De
ludo globi, I.
II, 14; De
coniecturis,
178
Vili.
Compendium,
179P.
Il Cardinale
Niccol?
Univ.
Cusano
1928, Pubbl.
Rotta,
(Milan,
cosa ? un' infinit? finita, un Dio
Se. Fil. XII),
"Ciascuna
p. 344, writes:
Catt.
del S. Cuore,
un Dio
creato, anzi
e diede
cre? s? come poteva,
creare s?, ne potendo,

occasionato,
perch? Dio, volendo
origine
a ci? quod fieri potest Deo
il quale,
similius
(De coniect. II, 2), il che vuol dire l'universo,
sua diventa
in un limite, fa che l'infinitudine
contrarsi
per esso un
appunto
perch?
pu?
un finito contratto
con
dell'
infinito universo,
ed appaiono
finito; cos? le cose diventano
? gi? un contratto
dell'unit?
alla sua volta
prima assoluta.
rispetto a quello, mentre
sono il contratto
non direttamente
di Dio,
individui
della possibilit?
attuale
adunque
ma
? possibilit?
della
contrazione
della possibilit?
solo indirettamente
dell'universo,
traibile
Gli
che
dell'universo,
deriva
questa
che
? appunto
importantissima
infinit? e diventi
questo
la sua
la possibilit?
l'infinito e sempre
reali, sicch? in questi
non c'? che una parte di quella
infinit?,
cosa appaia
finita".?This
able summary
otal point in Cusanian
metaphysics?seems
is a microcosm
tutto ci?
contrazione
particolare.?Da
il Cusano,
che l'infinito perda
?, deduce
solo si contrae nei singoli
finito, no, l'infinito
mentre
in atto
solo in potenza,
latente, perquanto
conseguenza:
o quest'
altro
della
non
la quale
cos? attuata
fa che
solo in parte
of the difficult theory of "contraction"?a
to suggest
and
that man,
it is also conceivable
that being
But
only potentia.
in being a macrocosm
in potentia.
some have
docta ignor. II, 9. What
rerum n?cessitas",
absoluta
the
atque
precisely
180De
called
idea
"contrahens
the anima
mundi
so any other
a microcosm
is in truth
quella
piv
creature,
consists
"ratio
et
per ipsum possibilitatem

admirer Dionysius
Carthusianus
(Rykkel)
II, 7. Cusanus'
as an ani
of the idea of a World-Soul
and of the universe
quod
et constringit";
ibid.
in his rejection
is very explicit
as "opinio
of these notions
insana nec rationi nec fidei consona",
mated
He
being.
speaks
De
this work
is, incidentally
1902);
contemplatione,
I, a. 69 (Opp. minora,
IX, Tornacis,
are many
to the same intent;
in Dionysius
to Cusanus.
There
dedicated
other passages
a. 9, on the words:
"Tu vivificas
e.g. In II. Esdrae,
1899, p. 252) ;
omnia",
(Opp. I, Tornacis,
De divin, nom. c. 2, a. 15 (Opp. XVI,
60).
n?cessit?t
382
TRADITIO
a reproach against which Cusanus defended himself vigorously.181 But however

far Cusanus was from any pantheism, it is true that his views could be exploited
in such a sense and that they did not fail to influence later doctrines of veiled or
open pantheism.182 This danger exists, in fact, whenever in a microcosmistic
conception the mirror-relation between particular parts of the universe, the
whole universe, and the Creator is overemphasized.183
The principle, totum in toto, or quodlibet in quolibet?which
latter formula is
but the same idea stated from a different viewpoint?is
applied in the phi
But Cusanus does not, because of this,
losophy of Cusanus to the macrocosm.
see any need to introduce the idea of a World-Soul.
His conception of the
abandons the old idea that everything is arranged around a center, as it
was the case with Aristotelean or medieval
In the Cusanian uni
cosmology.
verse, there is neither a center nor are there any definite directions. All de
pends on the standpoint.

Opposites which are very obvious to the human
appears
mind, like above and below, have no significance in reality. The
no longer as a system of spheres but as one of relations. The modern notion of
physical law is adumbrated.
is the mediator between medieval microcosmism and related ideas
Cusanus
of later times. One one hand, he is the continuator and, accordingly, the in
tradition. The soul and the
terpreter of his successors, of the Augustinian
knowledge which man has of himself are the starting points of Cusanian specu
181E.
Vansteenberghe,
(Beitr. z. Gesch.
de Cuse
contre Nicolas
ignota litteratura de Jean Wenck de Herrenberg
in his Apologia,
d. MA.
1910, voi. 8, 6), p. 11. Cusanus,
condemned
but also tries to defend Eriugena,
because
position,
Le De
d. Phil.
only justifies his own

of allegedly
doctrines
of Vercelli
by the Council
pantheistic
a rehabilitation
and even goes so far as to attempt
hardt;
du d?cret de 1210: I. David
Autour
de Dinant
Th?ry,
(Bibl.
not
Cusanus
Kain,
1925), p. 24 f?. However,
omnes
of everybody.
admonent
"Recte
subtrahatur".
tellectualis
But
this
does
sancti
not want
quod
lux intellectualis
in 1050;
of David
recommends
Ecke
of Dinant.
Cf.G.
VI,
Thomiste,
these books placed
illis debilibus
mentis
Le
Saulchoir,
into the hands
oculis
lux
in
is found
in the writings
also, e.g.,
refer to condemned
works
only.
so that this warning

of Dionysius
does not
Areopagita,
St. Albert
in a pan
of Dinant
omnia
the anima
says that David
interpreted
quodammodo
sense.
theistic
S. Th. I, tr. 1, q. 5, a. 8. The
influence of Scottus
may be de
Eriugena
tected by comparing
certain passages
in his works with concepts
by, and charac
developed
contractio when
of the Cusanian
One is reminded,
for instance,
read
of, Cusanus.
. . .
non cuiusdam
ing in De divis. nat. (P.L.
122, 631 A) : "Est
partis assumptio
participatio
... a summo usque
sed divinarum
dationum
ordines
ad deorsum
inferioribus
per superiores
teristic
distribution.
182
"L'universo
... poteva
a s? stesso, in quanto
in s? pareva
sembrare
contenesse
bastasse
di tutta la realt?;
il principio
il Dio
trascendente
ridursi ad essere il Dio
immanente
poteva
senza alcuno
sua e della sua libert? in quanto
alla sua neces
sacrificio dell'infinit?
identica
P. Rotta,
ed allo Spinoza".
To con
op. cit. p. 351.
sit?; in altri termini, eccoci al Bruno
or
sider Cusanus'
is definitely
system as outright pantheism
going too far, nor can Gerson
be made
d'Ailly
into
as W. Dilthey
of panentheistic
does
philosophies,
Ges. Werke,
vol. II, Leipzig,
1921, p. 324).
Pantheismus,
on the moot
in the controversies
considered
whether
question
a pantheistic
in the school
of
note or even an outspoken
pantheism
representatives
(Der entwicklungsgeschichtliche
183This
to be
point ought
or not
there
existed
V?cole
is not yet definitely

the emphatical
answered,
question
notwithstanding
on the part of De Wulf and Gilson.
La doctrine de la cr?ation dans
Also J.M. Parent,
de Chartres
m?d.
(Pubi, de l'Inst. d'Etud.
1938) de
Ottawa-Paris,
d'Ottawa,
VII,
clares
that
Chartres.
denials
The
there
is no panth?isme
Chartrain.
383
MICROCOSMUS
and his
lation. Thus, he figures among the long line of ancestors of Descartes
followers. His cosmological speculations, on the other hand, are related to
views which developed into the monadology of Leibniz,184 with whose ideas there
stresses the notion of continuity,
is also the further similarity that Cusanus
although not quite in the same sense as this notion is understood by Leibniz.
By emphasizing certain aspects of Cusanus'
philosophy and neglecting others,
one arrives at pantheistic systems like the one of Giordano Bruno.
Finally,
trend in Cusanus' way of thinking
there is the strong scientifico-mathematical
which makes him a precursor ofmodern mentality?his
theology, his mysticism,
and his decidedly metaphysical
turn ofmind notwithstanding.185
5. Psychological
and Metaphorical
Microcosmism
two interpretations may be opposed, as no longer genuinely microcos

to
those listed before in which the notion of the microcosm retains its
mistic,
full value and metaphysical
significance. They are treated, therefore, together,
themore since theymerge one into the other.186 The father of this type ofmicro
cosmism isAristotle.
Although he too speaks ofman as a microcosm, as quoted
These
above (p. 321), his use of the term is less charged with metaphysical
speculation
The
than either the systems of the Academy or any of the later philosophies.
notion of a World-Soul has no place in the conception of the Stagirite, nor has he
Man, to him, is not simply a
sympathy with Pythagorean number-speculation.
a
one
And the soul is not simply
"somehow".
is
such
but
he
only
microcosm,
a a a.187
7rcos
and strictly speaking all things, but it is all things only "somehow":
184The
mermann,
Phil.
Wiss.
and Leibniz
Cusanus
between
similarity
von Kues
Cardinal
"Der
Hist.
Kl.
1852, p. 321.
als Vorl?ufer
There
is also
has been
noted,
Leibnizens",
an (anonymous?)
for instance,
by R. Zim
d.
Akad.
d. Wiener
Abh.
article
in Der Mainzer
Katholik of 1887, listed in the bibliography ofPhilos. Jahrbuch 1 (1888), 105. This article
vom Kosmos
von Kues
Lehre
to J. Schaeffer, Des Nicolaus
1887, Inaug.
(Mainz,
see e.g., De
coniect.
to
Leibniz'
For
similar
views
II, 14:
Monadology,
Glessen).
are "spe
are "imagines
varie s. differenter".
Creatures
beings
Spiritual
repraesentantes
cula clariora
et rectiora".
185On the influence
als
see E. Panofsky,
Die Perspective
of Cusanian
ideas on Kepler,
may
Diss.
refer
Unend
also D. Mahnke,
Form
1924/25),
X, Leipzig,
(Vortr. d. Bibl. Warburg,
symbolische
a. S. 1930), p. 143.
liche Sphaere
(Halle
186
is used here in
stated that the name "psychological"
it ought to be expressly
Perhaps
or any other contemporary
to scientific
is made
its original
sense, and that no reference
for his
the reason
name
is a microcosm,
This
indicates
that, ifman
simply
psychology.
These
of his soul and of the way it functions.
being one has to be sought in the peculiarities
and
peculiarities
held this view?and
functions
derive
of the soul?as
conceived
by those who
of its nature.
to reality, because
Psycholog
It is not a theory
to do with "psychologism".
from the nature
from the relations
it has
has nothing
ical microcosmism,
therefore,
One might have
of the soul.
of the origin of our ideas, but starts from a definite conception
im
were
not
that
this name
it
of
considered
microcosmism,
"epistemological"
speaking
a realistic
or idealistic
philosophy.
mediately
suggests
187
Aristotle
does not favor the idea that human
De anima,
III, 8 (431 b 20).
Aristotle,
that the vous alone
In De gen. anim.
souls are parts of a World-Soul.
(736 b 29) he declares
is different from, and more divine

"the soul has part in a body which
However,
? a, a fire which does not
in the
fire contained
the so-called
the elements",
namely
. He had held, it seems, views more
a
in accordance
with
as
a
but
life
destroy
gives
is divine.
than
384
TRADITIO
Medieval Aristoteleanism followed the Philosopher in this respect too, however

not without retaining several of the notions, or at least terms, of its predecessors.
Man, with Albert the Great, is the "center" of creation,188 in the sense explained
before. Albertus mentions several of the current ideas, e.g. that the stars be of
a spiritual nature, but he does not accept them in the traditional sense. The
stars are not themselves animated, but moved by intelligentiae.m Aquinas
seldom omits, when speaking of the problems involved, the restricting quasi
or quodammodo or quidam. Man has "some" similarity with the world and,
but he does not say that man is, strictly speak
therefore, is called a microcosm ;190
a
such
It
rather
microcosm.
is
remarkable that St. Thomas does not stress
ing,
more the notion of the microcosm, because he, too, considers man as standing
on the confinium of the sensible and the spiritual world and emphasizes that the
human soul comprises also the powers of the vegetative and sensitive life.191
He also declares that man is the end of the whole creation and, therefore, con
tains within his nature all the powers proper to the infrahuman beings.192 He
does not, however, admit a thorough-going likeness or parallelism between macro
and microcosm.
There is quaedam similitudo ordinis universi in man,193 but
this likeness is only secundum aliquid and not in every regard.194 St. Thomas is
Timaeus
and
de Platon
similar
Laws
aux
view
a
?keyev (
Arist. Graeca,
188
Albertus
in De
Sto?ciens
:
to Plato
philosophia
1939),
(Paris,
?
'
) elvai, Iva y ly
and Protrepticus.
p. 106 ff. Joannes
a
^ .a
a.
a ovray^
Comm.
in Arist,
See,
J. Moreau,
Philiponus
? a
?
de anima
Ame
ascribes
du monde
a somewhat
a
(ed. Hayduck,
Comm.
in
1897, pp. 77, 20).

S. Th. II, tr. 11, q. 4, m. 2 (Opera ed. Borgnet,
32, 608b) ; tr. 12, q.
Magnus,
74 (ibid. 33, 51). Man
owes this position
to the general plan of creation which
aims at the
of the whole
Since man
is specifically
perfection
by being an image of divine perfection.
ad imaginem
et similitudinem
he completes
and crowns creation.
Cf. G. v. Hertling,
Dei,
15, Berlin,
z. Gesch.
Albertus Magnus
d. Phil. d. MA.
(Beitr.
1914, vol. 14, 5-6), p. 173.
189
St. Albert
returns to this question
quite often: De causa et proc. universi, m. I, tr. 4,
c. 7; In II. sent. d. 14, a. 3; S. Th. II, tr. 11, q. 53m, m. 3; S. de cr??t. II, q. 55, a. 3. He
also denies
that the spheres are moved
In this, he is in accordance
with
directly by God.
S. Th. II, q. 5, m. 2, a. 4, q. un.; q. 18, m. 4. The

same opinion
in
Halensis,
C. G. II, c. 69; III, c. 23; In II. sent. d. 14, q. un. a. 3; S. Th. I, q. 70, a. 3. Also
In II. sent. d. 14, p. 1, a. 3, q. 1; a. 3, 2.1.
Bonaventura,
190
. . . homo
cum
In VIII.
similitudinem
Aquinas,
Phys.
1.4, ad 3m.: "Habet
quandam
. . .
mundo:
unde dicitur
quod homo sit parvus mundus".
191
et alia ratio quare
"Est
anima humana
abundat
diversitate
potentiarum,
videlicet,
est in confinio spiritualium
et corporalium
et ideo concurrunt
in ipsa
quia
creaturarum,
Alexander
Aquinas,
virtutes
"quod
utrarumque
numero
eodem
I, q. 76, a. 3c.
192
C. G. II, 20:
in quibus
plantae
creaturarum".
est
anima
S.
Th.
in homine
On the unity of the soul:

I, q. 77, a. 2c.
et nutritiva".
et intellectiva
Ibid.
sensitiva
haec vero propter viventia

ergo elementa
corpora mixta,
propter
sunt propter
homo
est enim finis
ammalia
ammalia,
hominem,
propter
"Sunt
totius generationis".
193In II. sent.
d.
est quaedam
similitudo
ordinis universi,
unde
1, q. 2, a. 3.: "In homine
dicitur
in homine
The Commen
confluunt".
quia omnes naturae
quasi
is an earlier work than the Quodlibeta.
It seems that St. Thomas
be
tary on the Sentences
came even more
cautious
in later times.
nature of man
the microcosmic
concerning
194
ad aliquid
mundo
homo assimilatur
maiori
Quaest.
quodlib.
IV, a. 3: "quod
quantum
. . . non tarnen ad omnia assimilatur
universo".
Also S. Th. I, q. 91, a. le; q. 96, a. 2c;
I-II, q. 17, a. 8c. and ad 2m.; De pot. q. 5, a. 10.
et minor
mundus
385
microcosmus
obviously less inclined than his master Albert to expatiate on these similarities.195
When St. Thomas repeats after Aristotle that the soul is "somehow" all things he
is careful to make a distinction.
The soul is actually only what it actually
The anima quoddammodo omnia
knows; all other things it is but potentially.
to a microcosmistic
lends itself, accordingly,
interpretation only in a meta
In fact, when St. Thomas
speaks of this, he does not refer to
phorical sense.
the notion of the mundus parvus.196
Thus, the two great medieval Aristoteleans are not too much inclined to in
These are, in fact, somewhat contrary
speculations.
dulge in microcosmistic
to the general spirit of the Peripatos.
Not even the ideas, held by the Philos
opher himself, on the animation of the spheres or heavens, on the intelligentiae
as movers
of the stars, and similar notions, could induce the strict Aristoteleans
to build any system as fantastic as those evolved by certain Platonists, earlier
or later. Of the later Aristoteleans,
indeed, there were not a few who managed
to combine peripatetic principles with ideas of quite another nature and origin.
Albertus himself is not always free of such syncretistic tendencies.
Platonic
But
and Aristotelean tradition were not yet neatly separated in his philosophy.
Aquinas
held himself aloof of such conceptions.

V. The Decline
Although ideas never die, they exhaust their vitality after a certain time and
under the prevailing circumstances.
They then sink, as it were, under the
threshold of the consciousness of an age, not to be destroyed or dissolved, but to
return to a dormant state, chrysalis-like, and to re-awaken when the spiral as
cent of the human mind has moved on once more to a point where these ideas
may resume the same place (or a similar one) as they used to occupy centuries
ago. Perhaps, the ideas are never quite asleep; in some corners of civilization
they live on, cherished by a small minority
of minds?by
esoteric circles, ad
195Albertus
tr. 1, c. 9, text. 17 (Opera,

In VIII.
ed. Borgnet,
3, 540):
Magnus,
Phys.
in eo est motor
sicut in
et praecipue
homo dici tur mundus
parvus
primus,
quia
et appetitus
et virtutes
sunt
et sunt in ipso motores
sicut phantasia
quae
tellectus,
moti,
et calor naturalis,
et est in eo motum
sicut corpus et
et musculis,
in nervis motivis
tantum,
et motores
sicut est inmundo
inferiores habent motus
membrum
proprios,
corporis
aliquid,
"Animal
et ideo quod
fit et in magno
vide tur debere
in parvo mundo
magno:
III.
de somno et vig. tr. 1, c. 9 (Opera
ed. Borgnet,
9, 189).
196
c. 8, 1, 13 (no. 788 ed. Pirotti):
In III.
de anima,
See particularly
vero
sunt in potentia;
se habent
et sensibilia
scientia
ad scibilia
quae
in actu
ordinantur
in sensibilia
et scibilia
quae
scire
et id quod
animae
sensitivae
potentia
vei scibile,
sed est in potentia
ipsum sensibile
one has to read the statement
(ibid. no. 790):
totum ens in quantum
ut sit homo quodammodo
Sed
fieri".
"Scientia
geistlich,
Sphaere,
p.
darum
bin
ich und
sie
eins",
also
In
et sensus
et sensus
sunt
. . .
in actu,
sed tarnen
non est
i.e. potentia
intellectiva,
potest,
ad ipsa".
In the light of this explanation
quae
diversimode
sunt
"anima
est homini
secundum
animam
omnium
formarum,
est quodammodo
omnia
Th. I, 9.84, a. 2, ad 2m:
ad
per sensum quantum
loco
formarum."
See also S.
omnium
est receptiva
prout eius anima
est in potentia
ad omnia,
in quantum
"anima
omnia,
quodammodo
vero ad intelligibilia".
Later
writers,
per intellectum
however,
sensibilia,
: "Alles was
in der grossen Welt
to prove a kind of microcosmism
argument
mir
See
Valentin
Weigel,
in D.
use
a similar
in
ist, ist auch
Unendliche
Mahnke,
122.
386
TRADITIO
mirers of the past, and believers in the greater wisdom of the predecessors?the
greater, the dimmer the light of history becomes.197
It often happens that ideas, immediately before being cast into temporary
oblivion, blossom out violently, tend to expand and to become fantastically
It is difficult to say whether this is a contributing cause of the final
exaggerated.
Sometimes it seems as if the

defeat, or an effect of the impending disaster.
over-intense development and extension were, if one may use this metaphor, the
last effort of a dying mentality, a futile attempt to prove convincingly its fruit
fulness. In other instances one obtains the impression as if the final stage of a
natural development had been reached and as if the ideas, destined to pass
away, did only contrast more and more with the new attitudes beginning to assert
themselves.
thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries had been quite critical of micro
Albertus and Thomas had abandoned the more concrete forms of this
in the
Nicholaus Cusanus no longer spoke ofman the microcosm
conception.
The
cosmism.
197The
?a
of, and the often firm belief in, a kind of golden age of the human mind
was in close communication
with the ruling powers,
had a knowledge
of
a curious phenomenon.
and so on?is
The
idea that
secrets of the universe,
admiration
time when man
the deepest
is on the decline
mankind
of vigorous
conception
is characteristic
of certain
historical
the opposite
;whereas
epochs
outlook
into the
over-optimistic
legend of the ages of the world?aurea
prima
is a tremendous
for instance
tragedy
(expressed
an optimistic
progress,
The
in other centuries.
even
and
future, predominates
that history
the impression
sata est aetas?,
to Emperor
illustrate
the first viewpoint.
in his dedication
Frederick)
by Otto of Freising
or the way some felt at
as it developed
in the eighteenth
of progress
The notion
century,
von Hutten's
Es ist eine Lust zu leben?manifest
the
of modern
times?Ulrich
the beginning
that even in such optimistic
times the feeling
It is, however,
second attitude.
noteworthy
of the "modern"
world
Some who, on the whole,
is not the same with all.
fully approve
In the midst
to strange moods.
of the aliveness,
of the en
fall victims,
may
occasionally,
of
and affirmation
joyment
there are
Great Renaissance,
covered
by Epicureanism.
esser
"Qui vuol
Magnifico:
makes
understandable
stronger
We have
and
attracts
witnessed
so characteristic
of the
powers,
reality, of the trust in man's
even of despair,
be it even thinly
heard voices of despondency,
canzone
the well known
il
One need only recall
by Lorenzo
lieto
the success
wider
such
notion,
tendencies
doman
sia / Da
of Savonarola.
non
c'?
certezza".
This
undercurrent
on the past becomes

the emphasis
a symptom
of an epoch nearing
this is perhaps
its end.
in our own times, in the shape of the many
sects who
When
secret wisdom
handed
down since untold
to possess
centuries.
We probably
live
an age decaying
and one not yet born.
return to
of transition,
This
between
in a period
of the laudatores
the past should not be confused with the attitude
temporis acti, or with the
claimed
as it occurred
on viewpoints
rendered obsolete
insistence
by recent developments,
at the time of Galileo.
This attitude
aims at preserving
in regard to Aristotelean
physics
its dissolution.
The other attitude
alive the immediate
feels
and keeping
past and opposes
of dissolution
and as bringer of a remedy which,
however
itself as a prophet
old, is new to
The general
is not simply that of repristination
the present world.
feeling of a Renaissance
is new for the present.
Renaissance
is always
of the past, but of finding in the past what
tenacious
a standard
ismeasured
of the present, which
against
by the "great
provided
past".
a
a
a a
have
felt this way when he referred to the a
,Enn.
might
the differences
the two attitudes
between
III, 7, 1. Nor ought one to overlook
just men
on the other.
Romanticism
tioned on one hand, and that of Romanticism,
is interested
critical
Plotinus
in the wisdom
of the past.
only incidentally
of life. This may
the forms and conditions
as well
as
in the love
for things medieval
Its main
be
seen
interest
is in the general Lebensgef?hl,

Retournons
? la nature
in Rousseau's
in the Schlegels.
387
MICROCOSMUS
same sense as the writers of the twelfth century had done. The universe ceased
to be generally recognized as an animated being; there were many who dis
had lost much of its attractiveness.
approved of this idea. Microcosmism
It revived to display an unexpected vital
But microcosmism was not yet dead.
ity and to achieve a dominant position in the philosophies of the Italian Renais
sance and, later, with many who were influenced by these philosophies.
The
of these years were not less, but rather more of Neo-Platonists

"Platonists"
than their medieval predecessors had been. And this in spite of the fact that
Aurispa and Traversari had brought to Italy the whole corpus platonicum in 1423,
and that the Council of Florence in 1439 had furthered the knowledge of Plato's
works.
To modify a well known saying, the new "Platonists" might have
The friendship extended also
claimed: amicus Plato, magis amicus Plotinus.
to certain pupils of the master who had, while preserving more or less his doc
trine, mixed into it heterogeneous elements, mainly of Oriental origin.
It is recognized today that the thinkers, artists, politicians of the Italian
were much more indebted to medieval
tradition than some un
Renaissance
critical admirers of "modernity", a short time ago, were willing to admit. There
Not even the "Dark Ages" constitute such
is no break inWestern civilization.
a break.
One has only to recall the informative studies, initiated by Fr. Wick
hoff, on the continuity of artistic tradition. Nor did the "Modern Age" arise
suddenly, as a thing altogether new, without any relation to its immediate

ideas not otherwise than with many of the
past.198 It was with microcosmistic
medieval notions.
They had a determinant influence not only on those thinkers
who, in the appreciation of the "modern" public, replaced the Schoolmen, but
Sometimes the dependence
is ob
far beyond the the next two generations.
vious ; in others the channels are hidden by which the medieval thoughts reached
authors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.199,200
198It suffices
osophy,
H.
to recall E. Gilson's
Die
Heimsoeth's
1934).
Berlin,
199A. H. Wolfsohn
has
on conceptions
he learned
over parts of the doctrine
sechs
studies
grossen
on Descartes
Themen
in a convincing
from certain medieval
shown
and, in the general history

der abendl?ndischen
Metaphysik
manner
Jewish
was
that Spinoza
authors.
They,
of phil
(2d. ed.
largely dependent
in turn, had taken
see
microcosmism
On the latter's
of Purity.
Anthro
p. 27, and Die
(Leipzig,
1868), especially
of man,
The analogy
the microcosm,
and the mac
1871) p. 41.
(Leipzig,
pologie der Araber
.Gesch.
rocosm
d. Phil,
is discussed
(Beitr.
vitae, ed. Cl. Baeumker
by Ibn Gabir
l, Fons
ibn Zaddik
208.
77
Also
vol.
d. MA.,
(see
by Joseph
1892),
I, 1-2; III,
2, p.
f; 111,58, p.
Guide
des ?gar?s, ed. Munch,
note 67) and especially
above
Maimonides,
I, 354.
by Moses
are built on this
of the second part of the Ethics
"The first thirteen propositions
[Spinoza's]
Dieterici,
Die
Lehre
of the Brethren
von der Weltseele
I-IX
describe
the
and
the macrocosm
the microcosm.
between
Propositions
analogy
the
the microcosm,
X-XIII
describe
whereas
macrocosm,
showing wherein
propositions
The Philosophy
two are alike and wherein
(Cam
of Spinoza
they differ": A. H. Wolfsohn,
with God.
Al
identifies
the macrocosm
of course,
1934), II, 7 f. Spinoza,
bridge, Mass.
to the microand
had spoken
of the mechanistic
interpretation
given
ready W. Dilthey
Pantheismus
macrocosms
Der
(Ges. Werke,
II, 287).
entwicklungsgeschichtliche
by Spinoza,
200The
an extensive
use of
of the seventeenth
Protestant
century made
theologians
a connection
of Suarez.
between
Scholasticism
This suggests
Scholastic
treatises,
especially
and
later German
T?binger
Stift
philosophy.
Hegel
and might
well have
were both students

at the
and Schelling,
particularly,
with some of these doctrines.
On
become
acquainted
388
TRADITIO
translation had made the scholars of the thirteenth century better ac

quainted with the ideas of Proems whose influence waxed stronger.201 As the
new spirit made further progress, it revealed itself as a curious mixture of very
Side by side run the trends of Platonism and Neo-Platonism,
divers elements.
of Aristotelianism and Averroism, of the new science, and of a gradually growing
New
naturalism which branches off either into naturalistic pantheism or into pure
materialism.202 This naturalism, however, is not quite of the same kind as the
one we have come to know inmore recent times. The naturalism of the Renais
sance and the immediately following century is only to a certain extent de
pendent on science. To the greater part, it rests on a purely imaginary inter
It is, of course, correct to oppose the scientific
pretation of natural processes.
and the magic view to one another ;but they also have much in common, as one
need not explain after Thorndike's
great work. Magic
interpretation is the
naturalism of an ignorant and highly imaginative mind.
for in
Campanella,
was
wrote
and
statements
convinced
he
made
true
that
science
stance,
objectively
on the nature of things. But he did not hesitate to give one of his works the
title: De sensu rerum et de magia.
believed themselves Plato

One part of the writers of the Italian Renaissance
nists and revivers of the original Platonic conceptions which, they felt, had been
thinkers. Others still thought on me
greatly misunderstood by the medieval
dieval lines, but their views had undergone strange modifications so that they
These
hardly resembled those of their predecessors, for instance, of Aquinas.
views had become adulterated on one hand by Averroism, on the other, by the
inclination for fantastic and imaginary constructions. Hence the general inter
est in astrology and similar things. But the belief in astrology was not so gen
Ficino held a more moderate view, insofar
eral as to meet with no objections.
as he considered the constellations as mere signs indicative of the cosmic influ
ences, and he believed in astrology only to this extent.203 He instigated Pico
on the Protestant
see
of Aristotelianism
the influence
and Scholasticism
theologians,
der aristotelischen
Geschichte
und scholastischen
im protestantischen
Petersen,
Philosophie
Deutschland
1921).
(Leipzig,
201
M. Grabmann,
II (Munich,
Mittelalterliches
On the study of
Geistesleben,
1936), 418.
see E. Vansteenberghe,
Proclus
Arch. Hist. Doctr. Lit. 3 (1928), 275.
by Cusanus,
202"The most
between
the Platonism
of the Neo-Platonists
and that
striking difference
of the Renaissance,
is the stronger accent
laid on by the latter on naturalistic
pantheism.
. . .
. . .Plotinus
as divine
the heavenly
bodies
and can, on occasion,
like
regards
speak
of the earth as one of the stars.
Bruno
The doctrine,
is less prominent
than his
however,
of intellectual
and supe ressenti al divinity.
With
Bruno
the reverse
is the case.
concept
too seizes on the materialistic
And Campanella
side of the doctrine
to confound
the despisers
The Neo-Platonists
of the visible
world."
Th. Whittaker,
(2d. ed. Cambridge,
1918).
to a later phase
But
the development
into naturalism
of the Renaissance.
Here
belongs
we
are concerned
Renaissance
of Italian
203pr<
mainly
with
1935),
(London,
Neo-Platonism".
those years which N. A. Robb,

Neo-Platonism
of the Italian
"the incubation
p. 270, calls, with a happy
expression,
period
e del Rinascimento,
Lo spirito delV Umanesimo
of the Uni
p. 526, speaking
Olgiati,
then a stronghold
of Aristotelianism?although
of a rather impure one?
versity of Padua,
era allora
il personaggio
remarks:
ritenuto
all'universit?".
"L'astrologo
pi? necessario
And p. 789: "Magia
in quest'
ed astrologia
furono un risultato
del panpsichismo".
epoca
some restriction.
The
latter remark,
fundamentally
true, needs
although
Panpsychism
389
MICROCOSMUS
to write his treatise against astrology, which work in turn induced Savonarola
to publish his Opera singolare contra Vastrologia divinatrice.
The influence of tradition was, however, not limited to the Aristoteleans or
The admirers and renewers
those who still carried on the work of the School.
of Platonism, too, stood under this influence, whether they were aware of the
fact or not. Marsilio Ficino himself has in his writings numerous passages and
terms which show his indebtedness to the past. After all, he became a Canon
at the Cathedral of Florence under Archbishop St. Antoninus, who was a pro
found student of Aquinas and the author of a much read commentary on the
and the Thomistic
the Augustinian-Platonic
Summa
theologica.m Both
Aristotelean traditions were still effective.205
has to be considered.
cannot be made
towards
naturalism
; the tendency
responsible
and the knowledge
which was miss
tendency outran, as it were, the state of knowledge,
so
Like
in
later
science
became
times,
astrology
developed
replaced
by imagination.
ing
as it is the case with Pomponazzi.
One must
into a naturalistic
eventually
determinism,
alone
This
that
forget, however,
of the "scientific"
outcome
not
in these times, not the

was,
against
astrology
the consequence
of a new conception
of nature.
of human
freedom and of the dignity of man, which both
the antagonism
nor
attitude
was rejected
in defense
Astrology
are threatened
determinism
if astrological
prevails.
204
in the catalogue
of the library of Pico della
This
commentary,
figures
incidentally,
Mirandola.
205
.
Humanismus
(2d. ed., Berlin,
Reformation,
Renaissance,
1926), p. 101,
Burdach,
on Franciscan
of the influence of Bonaventura,
whom he considers
makes much
dependent
The first is obvious,
the second questionable.
The similarities
spirituality.
von Floris
und die joachitische
Joachim
for instance,
by J. Chr. Huck,
to
they refer mostly
i.B., 1938), p. 252, are in no way
characteristic;
(Freiburg
texts or in
have
found in the Victorine
which Bonaventura
might
expressions
and Joachitic
are
which
Literatur
ideas
and
listed,
as having
said that the
Bonaventura
quotes
of nature.
The
latter expression
is
by means
or of Alanus.
of Chartres
of the School
It ought to be noted
that to
strongly reminiscent
or less current in
in a modern
like "artist"
sense, or even in the one more
interpret words
not more
in medieval
somewhat
Ars signifies
is always
the Renaissance,
parlance
risky.
Honorius,
"divine
as well
artist"
as
in Joachim.
created
the human
Burdach
soul
or ability
ris" in Aquinas,
to do something,
where
; see "ars aedificato
technique
to a specifically
"artistic"
it means
any reference
simply the plan of the builder, without
con
is more
true that the fact of art and beauty
It is, however,
extensively
capacity.
of the Renaissance
than it had been the case with the School
sidered by the philosophers
than
men.
the reflex of the impressive

development
is, of course, partly
a result of the occupation
with Antiquity,
and partly the influence
de Marsile
la philosophie
dans
See, for instance, N. Ivano ff, "La beaut?
ideas
et Renaissance,
12. The aesthetic
3 (1936),
Humanisme
H?breu",
This
partly
of the fine arts,
of Neo-Platonism.
Ficine
of Ficino
et de L?on
are
con
on the Enneades.
The r?le of Bona
chiefly in his commentaries
characteristically,
seems
as
a
to be more
source
not
than that of
of
Renaissance
important
ventura,
ideas,
a strong appeal
of "illumination"
The concept
other Schoolmen.
may well have exercized
can one, as B. Geyer
Nor
rather Augustinian.
but this is not originally
Bonaventurian,
tained,
as par
II
out (Ueberweg-Heinze,
[11th ed., 1928], p. 394), consider
"exemplarism"
of Bonaventura^
idea is found with many
since the same
characteristic
views,
ticularly
The Philosophy
P. O. Kristeller,
the Aristoteleans.
also among
other authors,
ofMarsilio
in Ficino
of expression
and the Scholas
Ficino
1943), has noted the similarities
(New York,
also Mahnke,
Unendliche
tics.?Cf.
pp. 48, 75; H. Jedin, Rom. Quart. Sehr. 39 (1931)
Sphaere,
points
284.
lana",
whom he calls
refers to Aquinas
repeatedly
Cf. A.-J. Festugi?re,
realism.
Thomistic
fundamentally
d'Hist. Doctr. Lit. du
.-A., 7 (1932), 151.
della Mirandola
Pico
his views
are
Arch.
splendor
"Studia
theologiae;
Mirandu
390
TRADITIO
there takes place a definite

It is evident that with the onset of the Renaissance
But even this aspect is not altogether
shift of emphasis towards "Humanism".
new.
of medieval
It is a misinterpretation
anthropology to believe that it
ignored the peculiarity and uniqueness of human nature and ivas ignorant of the
sees the difference between the

problems connected therewith. Groethuysen
views of Ficino or Pico on one hand, and those of the Schoolmen on the other,
mainly in the fact that the latter thought it sufficient to determine man's worth
in relation to other things and by allotting to*him a definite place in the hier
archy of being; Ficino and Pico, he claims, were not content with considering
man only as a part of the universe, but opposed him to the universe as a world in
himself, a fourth world, created after the other three.206
It has been pointed out before that the scholastics were very much conscious
of the uniqueness of the human person, and they could not otherwise since the
worth of the individual is one of the fundamental tenets of Christianity.
The
idea that man is the nodus et vinculum universi, that he not only stands in the
"center of creation", but actually holds it together and, in a certain sense, makes
it possible by mediating between the intelligible and the sensible worlds?this
idea is common to many writers since Antiquity and throughout the Middle
Person, St. Thomas says, is the highest being among the whole creation;
Ages.
and person is the psycho-physical, one individual.
The uniqueness of man is
not determined by his place in the hierarchy of being nor defined simply by
is unique, and nevertheless placed "a little
wiiat is above and below. Man
below the angels".
The particular worth of man rests more on the uniqueness
of his nature than on his place in the hierarchy of being.
The humanistic emphasis is contrasted somewhat strangely with the panpsy

chistic views which became more and more general.
It is indeed difficult to find a
reason for a particular dignity in any being if they are all manifestations
and
and the
embodiments of one and the same spiritual principle.
Panpsychism
idea of an all-animating World-Soul were, however, not acceptable to all authors
of this time. Telesio, for instance, is strongly opposed to the idea of a World
Soul and because of this is critisized by Campanella.
The latter has a great
admiration for the Cosentine
(Telesius me delectavit), but he reproaches him for
"left out" (praetermisit) the World-Soul

whose existence is proven by
philosophy (anima mundi in philosophia sensibus demonstrata).
The Platonists of the Italian Renaissance
believed, as did later Campanella,
has to be considered a proven and evident reality. They
that the World-Soul
saw no other way to interpret the order and harmony of the universe.
Their
having
expressions are much the same as are found with the writers of the twelfth cen
But this is not an original
tury. They look at man as a mystery and a wonder.
206
contends
.
Groethuysen,
that man,
Philosophische
for the medieval
Anthropologie
writers
"stellt
(Hdb. d. Phil., Munich,

1931),
an sich zu definierenden
keinen
p. 108,
Wert
how anyone,
One can hardly understand
with medieval
texts, can arrive
acquainted
at such a conclusion.?Concerning
the three worlds, Avicenna
had taught that each region is
virtus intelligibilis
divided
in three parts,
See C. Sauter,
pura, a animo motus, materia.
Avicenna's
der Aristotelischen
i. B. 1912), p. 89.
Bearbeitung
Metaphysik
(Freiburg
dar".
391
MICROCOSMUS
sentiment.
Such expressions occur repeatedly in old texts, for
Renaissance
instance inAsclepius.206a The authors of the Renaissance
repeat the old formula
Marsilio
of the nodus et vinculum, but to them man is the magnum miraculum.
tradition, conceives of
Ficino, in accordance with the Stoic and Neo-Platonic
man as the link between the sensible and the intelligible world. Man concludes
within himself, as compendium mundi, somehow the whole universe.
Ficino,
however, combines the more "static" conception of the vinculum with a "dy
namic" viewpoint; this, at least, is the interpretation Cassirer gives to a passage
in Ficino.207 It is, however, not necessary to read a particular dynamism into
Ficino's words.
They also may be not more than a restatement of "psychological
or
a paraphrasis of the Aristotelean-Thomistic
anima quodam
microcosmism"
modo
omnia.208
The philosophy of the "Platonists"

tribution to microcosmism whatever
206a
40,
Asclep.
207E.
Cassirer,
occurs
passage
et superioribus]
18.
does not contain any essentially new con

other originality may be theirs.209 The
See J. Kroll, Die Lehren des Hermes

p. 318.
Trismegistos,
der Renaissance,
und Kosmos
in der Philosophie
Individuum
in Ficino's
Platonica,
Theologia
cum utrisque
naturali
quodam
2.
III,
"Si
p.
69.
The
[sc. inferioribus
ascen
instinctu
convenit,
utraque.
app?tit
Quapropter
et cum descendit
dit ad supera, descendit
Et cum ascendit
inferiora non deserit,
ad infera.
non relinquit."
De
in the "middle"
also by Dante,
The
is mentioned
position
superiora
see J. J. Rolbiecki,
The Political
account
Philosophy
monarchia,
of
I, 3. For a detailed
1921), p. 212 ff.
Dante Alighieri (WashingtonD. C,

208
One
to the modern
instinctus
the naturalis
of understanding
according
and so still
and the other writers,
of "instinct".
Instinctus
is, with Aquinas
conceptions
a stimulus
or incite
with Ficino,
what
the word says: something
precisely
quod instinguit,
is ordained
to
ment.
to the amor naturalis
It corresponds
everything
by virtue of which
has
to beware
its natural
wards
end and
to the realization
ducive
shows
a certain
of this end.
The
for those
"inclination"
operations
which
are
con
soul, too, have such nat

to
thus tend "by nature"
of the human
faculties
ural inclinations,
and the rational
of intellect
and will
powers
wards
the superiora.
209On the
as found in the works of the Italian Renaissance
depends
whole, microcosmism
on ideas current inWestern
of man as the "middle",
The notions
since centuries.
thought
and the parallelism
of the vinculum,
the unity of the universe
of "sympathy"
guaranteeing
as having
been
and others which have been mentioned
events,
all continue
to
in the Middle-Ages?they
and much
from Antiquity
considered
The
illus
in the structure
of Renaissance
be effective as important
elements
philosophy.
seems to be one aspect which had not been
ad libitum.
could be multiplied
trations
There
of micro-
handed
attended
create.
and macrocosmic
down
but
to by the medieval
authors
is somewhat
astonishing
It
It would
speculation.
well in accordance
with
so does man.
But much
seem
that
this fact.
that
the
As
This
is man's
capacity
by Pico.
in microcosmistic
fact has not been used
is considered
this
conception
the universe
as the Schoolmen
on his own nature?potens

naturae
suae?and
ity, they did not relate this to microcosmism.
of man
as microcosm
would
have
to
been
brings forth ever new forms and events,

man's
freedom and his power even
emphasized
his duty to fashion his own life and personal
sensed this
Pico della Mirandola
apparently
in the "center",
refers to man's
he does not insist on it. He
position
although
nor immoral, his being placed
so by
nor terrestrial,
neither moral
neither
celestial
on man whether
he sinks to the level
It depends
that he may
shape and form himself.
relation,
his being
God
into a being
of the brutes or is regenerated
ex tui animi sententia
regeneran".
divina,
to creative
in Enn.
power,
by a passage
similar
to God.
"Poteris
Pico may have been

V, 4.1, where Plotinus
in superiora,
quae sunt
in his reference
influenced,
speaks
of a "mysterious
392
TRADITIO
on the harmony of the spheres, the importance

speculations on theWorld-Soul,
and significance of numbers, the musica mundana, are much the same as they
were in bygone centuries.210 Symbolistic interpretation, too, continued to be
It soon developed into highly imaginative systems with Campanella,
influential.
Another line of development
leads to a rather
Bruno, Agrippa, Paracelsus.
rationalistic form. Where the medieval symbolist saw a mysterious analogy or
Platonist discovers perfectly rational

parallelism of worlds, the Renaissance
of 1489, Pico della
relations. One illustration will suffice: In his Heptaplus,
Mirandola maintains
the existence of three parallel worlds: the intellectual in
visible world of the angels, the incorruptible world of the celestial bodies, which
rule over the corruptible, sublunar elemental world.
On the parallelism of these
For Aristotle
worlds, Pico comments thus: The rational soul is called heaven.
calls the heaven an animal moving itself. If heaven is circular, the soul also
is circular, and so forth.211
a a
a
to create, so that the latent qualities
be un
, impelling
every creature
power",
and some of his fellows or followers
furled (??ek?TTea?ai).
the influence Pico
Considering
to suspect a relation between
had on English
the Mirandolian
ideas
thought, one is tempted
of the universe
in Shaftesbury.
and the aesthetic
See also below note 214.
interpretation
210Fr.
e del Rinascimento,
a letter in
Lo spirito dell'Umanesimo
p. 592, quotes
Olgiati,
to a cithara and the individual
the universe
which Ficino
compares
things to the sounds
called
munis.
lation
on harmonious
The
forth by God playing
is nearly a locus com
strings.
comparison
We have come across the same idea before, e .g. inHonorius
The specu
(note 156).
on numbers was furthered by the acquaintance
the Cabbalah.
with
Pico
della Mi
non mediocri
very proud to be the first to study this work which he had acquired
men
of
influenced
like
Francesco
Nettesheim,
impenso.
Reuchlin,
Agrippa
Giorgio
and others.
Pico was
Veneto
His
enthusiam
for number
speculation
notwithstanding,
randola
was
He
in regard to the use and the scientific nature of mathematics.

But mathe
skeptical
non sunt
calculations.
"Mathematicae
may mean with him, in first line astrological
verae
But he has in mind,
in
scientiae"
p. 610).
by Olgiati,
also, mathematics
(quoted
our sense, since he states that this science
from the
cannot
cope with the problems
arising
rather
matics
nature
veloping.
progress
of the world
and
Pico
Perhaps,
of mathematics
in a contemptuous
The reasons
imagination.
211Pico
della Mirandola,
peatedly
as continuously
both must
be conceived
de
his mind
foreseen
could he have
the further
changed
re
the times of Newton
and Leibniz.
too, speaks
Bruno,
manner
of mathematics
whose
results he deemed mere plays of
of history,
have
which
might
since
are confused,
and anyhow
of no interest here.
A History
and
Heptaplus,
ofMagic
IV, 1. See L. Thorndike,
On the relation of circular movement
and soul see also Plato,
Experimental
Science,
IV, 509.
Pico
is not consistent
in the way he presents
his microcosmistic
Leg. X, 897.
speculations.
as the microcosm,
But one thought returns always,
that man,
does not fill any defi
namely
for his view
nite place within an hierarchical

order, since he comprises within his nature all the other or
for instance,
ders.
establishes
the following
series: God?intelligentiae,
pure sub
Pico,
or ideas?heavens,
or virtues?elements,
man does
material
stances,
qualities,
composites;
not figure in this enumeration
in all of the members
because
he participates
of the macro
cosm.
See A. Dulles,
Princeps
tion (Cambridge,
Mass.
1941),
Pico also carefully distinguishes
concordiae.
p. 82.
God's
Pico
della Mirandola
and
the Scholastic
refers to the Heptaplus.

passage
to the universe:
and man's
relation
In
The
God
Tradi
this work
contains
all
as the principle
as the medium
of all, man
of all {ibid. p. 112).
The me
things in Himself
at the same time, the old idea of man
dium suggests,
the center and the Aristotelean-Tho
mistic
notion of the anima
In particular,
omnia.
there is a correspondence
quodammodo
by
which
the human
intellect
is likened to the angels;
his reason, and the head as the organ of
393
MICROCOSMUS
The further fate ofmicrocosmism does not fall within the scope of this article.
Microcosmism
goes on holding a prominent place in all speculations on man and
his nature.
Even Calvin occasionally
refers to it;212Reuchlin and Mutianus
Rufus
in
(Konrad Mudt)
Germany, Zwingli in Switzerland, the Cambridge
Platonists and Shaftesbury in England,
suffered the influence, directly or in
of
Ficino
and
Pico.213'214
directly,
In these times, microcosmism,
especially in its cosmo- and anthropocentric
was
into
already falling
forms,
decay. As has been remarked before, this de
is partly the effect of the admixture of alien notions, not even fully
and not at all compatible with a Christian
compatible with Neo-Platonism,
man
as
of
microcosm.
The pantheistic system of Giordano Bruno,
conception
the magical
of
and the "astrobiologipal"
ideas of
interpretations
Campanella,
owe their origin to this syncretism. And while the old notion of
Paracelsus
an anima mundi and the conception of the universe as a living organism began
generation
to lose their plausibility, the time had not yet arrived when the cosmic order
could be conceived as based on impersonal, purely material, physical laws. A
reconciliation of theistic convictions with the fact of cosmic order appeared pos
sible only if the Deity became identified with the principle and "animating"
force of the universe.
Such an idea might have found some confirmation in
reason,
to the heavenly
souls
which
(of the stars) ; sense and motion,
to the animals
to the plants
and generation,
;nutrition
of the notions
of the vegetative
and sensitive
"souls"
are
localized
in the
is obviously
contained
virtually
in the one rational
which
soul of man);
is the intermediary
the "spirit"?that
something
links the soul to matter
and enables
the former to influence the latter (an idea still active,
heart, correspond
but a modification
(which
or the vehiculum
caeleste has
to light; the "spiritual
likened
e.g., in Descartes)?is
body"
its analogy
in the heavenly
and the corruptible
in the elements
(ibid. p. 115).
body,
bodies;
on the Dignity
In his famous Discourse
man's
Pico
ofMan,
and, as it
emphasizes
position
. . . stabilis
function
he is made
into a "creaturarum
aevi
were,
by which
internuntium,
et
fluxi temporis
interstitium
to the "Persians"
attribution
et quod
dicunt
Persae
copulam,
of the idea of copula
is not without
imo hymenaeum".
interest.
One would
The
like
to know the sources

to which Pico
refers.
is Plutarchus.
his only source
Perhaps,
212
sur le livre Job, Serm. 29, c. 10 (Opera, edd. G. Baum,
Sermons
E. Cumitz,and
Calvin,
G. Renso,
est le principal
30. c. 481):
"Or est-il ainsi que l'homme
Brunsvigiae
1887, Voi.
a voulu
ce qu'il
et la plus excellente
entre toutes
les cr?atures.
Dieu
ouvrage
d?ployer
et au ciel et sur la terre, et en tous animaux,

mis qu'en
tellement
petites
portions
comme un petit monde."
est appell?
l'homme
213
W. Dilthey,
und Analyse
des Menschen
im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert,
Ges.
Auffassung
as Dilthey
to characterize,
It is, however,
correct
the phi
II, 46.
hardly
does,
Werke,
n'avait
que
losophy of these
Plato nie form".
as a "religious
universalistic
Platonists
to stay absolutely
intends
Ficino,
especially,
and other writers
his enthusiasm
for Plotinus
Italian
theism
within
in a particular
the doctrine
Neo
of the
to a
carries him, perhaps,
Church,
though
are not any more
with orthodoxy.
point where his views
compatible
quite
214
was
della Mirandola.
in friendly relations
with Pico's
Zwingli
nephew Gianfrancesco
in his De Providentia.
noticeable
See Dilthey,
Das
Mirandolean
ideas are particularly
nat?rliche
im 17. Jahrhundert,
ibid. p. 155 ff., esp. p. 159.
System der Geisteswissenschaften
But
Dilthey
gives
is mistaken
and meaning
in considering
to creation.
unity
the Cambridge
Platonists,
Univ.
(Columb.
bridge Platonists
cerning
as an original
seen
have
We
see T. T.
Diss.
de Boer,
idea
that
The
of Pico
this
Theory
that man
the statement
idea
is much
of Knowledge
older.
Con
of the Cam
1931).
394
TRADITIO
certain statements of Cusanus.215 But Cusanus had the power to synthesize

and keep together apparently divergent principles. He conceived of the world
as a coexistentia oppositorum, and his system, intended to reproduce the structure
of the world, could not but show the same characteristics.
Philosophies which manage, by the genius of their creators, to integrate into

a balanced whole divergent and even discordant elements run the risk to be dis
rupted sooner or later. In fact, none of these systems escaped this fate. They
are apt to be misinterpreted, and then bring forth products of degeneration,
losing more and more their vitality until they become suffocated under a mass of
Or they become the prey of lesser minds, unable to maintain

empty quibbles.
the grandiose synthesis of the original, and then split off into onesided deriva
tives which cannot persist because they quickly develop into extremes, incom
patible either with the facts or with the demands of logic. The first fate befell
in the hands of his successors.
the system of St. Thomas
The Thomistic syn
thesis was inmany points far ahead, not only of its creator's times, but of several
centuries to come. Only in recent years it has been possible to think anew on
the lines of pure Thomism.
The second fate can be illustrated by the history
of Hegelianism.
However one may look at Hegel's system, it indubitably bears
It managed to comprise and to unite within its structure
the imprint of genius.
It is, so far, the last great attempt to build up an all
very divergent trends.
comprising system, giving room to the facts of nature and history, and to the
But already the first generation of
great speculative ideas of the past as well.
Hegelians proved unable to maintain the equilibrium among the divergent ele
ments and gave birth to a "right" and a "left" school; the theory of dialectic
on one hand, and the theory of state-omnipotence, on the other.
In other respects too, this disintegration of the Hegelian
system may be ob
materialism
served.216
cannot stand the comparison with the

if the philosophy of Cusanus
Even
Thomistic synthesis as regards comprehensiveness and perfection of integration,
of Brixen represent the last effort of the
the views of the Cardinal-Archbishop
medieval mind to cope with the totality of its problems.
In this, the system
sometimes comes dangerously near to ideas fundamentally incompatible with
No wonder that out of this soil grew philosophies
its own presuppositions.
whose spirit was very far from the one animating the De docta ignorantia. Cu
sanus had found inacceptable the idea of a World-Soul
as distinct from God
Also, he had stressed the quodlibet in quolibet and thus prepared,
The idea of Deus forma omnium, of God's
unwillingly, the way for pantheism.
himself.
215
See
idea that the universe

to one another
The
is full of forces hostile
is
p. 381.
Nor
is the other that these antagonistic
forces are kept in balance
and har
or mediate
order by an immediate
monious
act.
divine
The
passage
quoted
previously
serve as illustration.
de Insulis, p. 345, may
from Alanus
similar statements
could be
Many
above
not a new one.
added.
easily
216
It is hardly
necessary
to mention
expressly
Fr.
Brentano's
interesting
little work,
Die vierPhasen der Philosophie (originally published in 1894, reedited by 0. Kraus, Leip
zig,
1926).
See
E.
Gilson,
"Franz
Mediev. Studies, 1 (1939) 1 ff.
Brentano's
Interpretation
of Medieval
Philosophy",
395
MICROCOSMUS
one may say so?animating

will moving, of His mind?if
directly the universe,
This
became transformed in the hand of later authors into pure pantheism.
an
or
more
had
imminent
than
been
development
always
possibility,
only that,
in Neo-Plat onism, however much "Christianized".
It culminated for a first
time in the philosophy of Giordano Bruno.217
It is not necessary to expound in detail Bruno's ideas because any kind of pan
This is even more so with panen
theism implies some sort of microcosmism.
theism. The principle, anima tota in quolibet parte had been applied also to the
one
World-Soul.
It is valid for both pantheism and panentheism.
Whether
or
and
with
considers
the
various
of
and
modes
parts
speaks
Spinoza
attributes,
or expressions of the Deity, in any case
aspects of the world as manifestations
the part "mirrors" and contains the whole.
The Deity of pantheism cannot,
as
be
of
various
conceived
the
parts and elements of reality
obviously,
consisting
sum of the latter would become equal
in such a manner that the mathematical
to the godhead.
God and the universe must be thought of as an indivisible
whole.
Of greater interest, it would seem, is the trend which gradually transformed

and
microcosmism
Both Campanella
into pure materialism
and naturalism.
can be considered as representative of the forces which culminated in
Paracelsus
this development.218 Microcosmism
continued to flourish for a long time, but it
to
new
succumbed
the spirit of the
natural sciences. The very notion of the
as
held by the ancient, medieval, and Renaissance mind, disappeared.
cosmos,
The principle of harmonious order and proportionality, which still proves power
ful in the thoughts of Kepler,
lost its meaning with the physicists and philos
ophers of the seventeenth century. Newton still speaks in such terms, but their
significance has become totally different.219
217
"Jene
neu-platonische
zum Pantheismus
scheide
doch
Panentheismus
. . . schwankt
nicht selten an der schmalen Grenz
Spekulation
hin und her und schillert
oder
unsicher
stark in den Pantheismus
hin?ber".
d. Phil. d. MA.
(Beitr. z. Gesch
World-Soul
with
infinite space
texts.
Orphic
u. Geistesgesch.
Das
Buch der 2I?.Meister
pseudo-hermetische
Baeumker,
Bruno
identifies
the
eventually
1927, vol. 25, 1-2), p. 197.
and also with aifrqp, which
idea he apparently
derived
from
Vier telj sehr. f. Literaturwiss.
Deutsche
"Giordano
Bruno",
Bruno's
ideas can be gathered
best, in a succint presentation,
Cl.
L. Olschki,
2 (1924), 44 f.
... est ars vivens
from his theses for the disputation
at Paris
et quaedam
in 1586: "natura
. . . iudi
. . . tria licet
: legem in mente
intellectualis
animae
divina,
potestas
contemplari
.
. . mundus
cium in mente
animae mundi
decretum
sed divinae
exsequente
legis norm?m
. . . animal
est a mente
sicut et nos animam
habens."
dependens,
perfectissimam,
propriam
218It
to report on many
and transformations
of micro
is impossible
other continuations
or on wTiters who essentially
cosmism
of medieval
retain at least the terminology
micro
See
One
cosmism.
of these
of Cherbury.
is, e.g. Herbert
On
Ges. WW.
Jahrhundert,
II, 259.
und Kosmos.
im 17.
Denkens
Individuum
219A.
and Plato",
Journ. f.
"Galileo
Koyr?,
of the old conception
dissolution
of the cosmos,
keine
keinen
Gewissheit
Boden
Philosophia,
permissible
eines Makrokosmos
mehr
See W.
Carolus
Dilthey,
Bovillus,
Die
Autonomie
see E.
des
Cassirer,
theHist,
the
4, (1943), 703. With
of Ideas,
becomes
microcosmism
"Wo
impossible.
hat der Gedanke
des Mikrokosmos
besteht,
H. Plessner,
"Philosophische
Anthropologie",
2 (1937), 98.?Although
with the past,
itmay be
this study is chiefly concerned
to yield
to the temptation
to consider,
of micro
the possibility
incidentally,
und
keine Wahrheit
mehr":
396
TRADITIO
The new science, however, did not overthrow the past when itmade its first
Centuries passed before science made an effective inroad into the
appearance.
Even today, notwithstanding the claims of certain scien
field of speculation.
It may be that the
tists and philosophers of science, the victory is not won.
tide will turn once more.
At the beginning, the scientists showed little inclination to debate on questions
which had no direct bearing on their immediate problems. Also, there remained
vast fields of empirical knowledge on which science knew nothing to say. Life
When
and mind were still considered beyond the grasp of quantifying methods.
those which as yet
Galileo wanted to measure all things and to make measurable
could not be measured, he hardly thought of "scientific" psychology or sociology
as a possible future development.

When he spoke of "things," he obviously had
inmind physical bodies and the phenomena observable in them.
Anthropology, therefore, continued to apply more or less non-empirical prin
that works, for instance, on
It is understandable
ciples to the study of man.
medicine present to the modern reader a curious mixture of sometimes quite
acute observation and analysis with "superstitious" beliefs in all kinds of occult
forces, magic, and astrology. Many wonder, when turning the pages of such an
old volume, how a man obviously clever in many a respect and capable of ac
curate observation, could at the same time indulge in so "stupendous supersti
of the
tions". This not uncommon reaction results from a misunderstanding
situation which existed at the time of the author. One should,

It is
generally speaking, be careful in the use of the name of "superstition".
are
a
case
maintained
beliefs
in
where
unfounded
although
truly appropriate only
they are known, or can be known, to be contrary to ascertained facts. But a
belief which would be undubitably
superstitious today, does not deserve this
a
of
when
system developed in the fifteenth or six
forming part
qualification
intellectual
civiliza
It would be plain superstition if a person ofWestern
teenth century.
tion were to kill an adversary and to drink his blood for the sake of acquiring the
strength and capacity of his victim; but a primitive inhabitant, perhaps of New
is not at all superstitious if he believes such things. Nor is primitive
Guinea,
is the
If it is true that the acceptance
of a macrocosm
in contemporary
thought.
the view of
meaningful,
then, of course,
qua non for microcosmism
becoming
is
of this physics
The universe
to any such idea.
"classic"
hostile
physics was utterly
or less
there are more
indetermined
insofar as it does not make
any difference whether
cosmism
sine
conditio
individual
bodies
contained
of nature",
any part
whole
being altered.
Notwithstanding
may be conceived
that this is otherwise
It seems
not with the physical

naturally,
but with their cosmological
porary physicists,
that notions
like the "entropy
of the universe
cerned
here,
of the "laws
validity
without
the nature of the
the universal
therein.
as absent
of the universe
are con
We
physics.
made
of statements
by contem
seem
it would
In this regard
with modern
correctness
implications.
towards
a maximum"
or the concept
inter
as well as other such concepts,
of a "world-tensor",
point at a new "macrocosmistic"
same can be said of Sir Arthur Eddington's
idea that the presuppositions
The
pretation.
see The Philosophy
of physics
the number
of ultimate
allow to calculate
of Phys
particles,
in fact consists of a determined
ical Science
If the universe
(New York,
1939), p. 170.
number
ance,
seems
of particles
and if every cosmic
event,
is truly cosmic
in nature,
the conception
to suggest
itself.
tending
however
limited
of a macrocosm
in its immediate
not
unlike
appear
the one of old
397
MICROCOSMUS
To preserve, however, ideas belonging

religion "superstitious" for the primitive.
in the context of primitivism together with others pertaining to a higher type of
Superstition means, according to the
religiosity is justly called superstition.
very sense of the word, belief in remnants of obsolete and disproved ideas which
have become superseded by the advance of knowledge.
However alien to the modern scientific mind their expressions may sound, the
The fame which
physicians of old must have been able to do satisfactory work.
Paracelsus
Theophrastus
enjoyed, and even more the jealousy of his colleagues
resulted obviously from his professional success.
Some modern authors believe
that there is more in Paracelsian medicine than mere empiricism and imagina
tion. They think that one might learn something from Paracelsus.
At least,
one has to admit that the "holistic" approach as advocated by many contem
porary physiologists and physicians is somewhat reminiscent of the speculations
and Campanella.
of both Paracelsus
and Campanella make much of microcosmism,

Paracelsus
although each in
his own manner.
The idea of an all-pervading harmonious order is common to
both. This order not only allows to establish parallelism between the most dis
tant levels of being, but also constitutes and determines the place which any
kind of being, down?at

least in principle?to
the individual, holds within the
In Campanella,
this all-comprising order is conceived on the basis
universe.
is alive, and aliveness means
of panpsychism.
to him existence
Everything
after the mode of the animals, particularly of man.
Every being thus becomes
an animal.
Inanimate things and plants are animals lacking one or the other
characteristic.220 The animating principle, however, is not the Deity, as in

Bruno, but a created spiritual being.221 Not only is the universe alive and ani
220
con la sua tesi dell'animazione

in armonia
fa delle piante
"Campanella,
universale,
animali
immobili":
to his edition
C. Ottaviano,
Introduction
of T. Campanella,
ed. Ottaviano
Studi
magno
(Rome
Epilogo
(Fisiologia
Italiana),
1939, R. Acad.
d'Italia,
e Documenti,
voi. 10), p. 97.
221The
serve as examples
of reasoning.
of Campanella's
may
way
passages
following
degli
esser
che
persuaso
insieme abboriscono
"Ciascuno
dovrebbe
. . . ciascuna
e tutte
turale
tutte
le cose
sentono
in particolare
tra loro, che
e in commune
impeto na
. . .
e repubblica
ad empirlo per serbar alla loro communit?
integra
e che godano
tutte
affermare
che il mondo
sia un animai
tutto senziente
dunque
senso delle cose e della magia,
commune
T. Campanella
della
vita".
Del
I, 9 (ed.
il vacuo
con
corrono
parziale
Bisogna
le parti
di maniera
cosa ? stimare
non sente perch? non ha
"Stolta
che ilmondo
Bari,
1927, p. 26).
chiuso
in materia
all' animale
stromenti
convengono
occhi, mani.
Questi
spirito
. . mani
.
... Al mondo
sono i raggi e virtuti
diffuse ad operar."
attive
grossa
(Ibid.
I,
Others
felt that the stolta cosa had to be remedied.
e.g., Gio
13, p. 34.)
obviously
Thus,
see L. Thorndike,
de omnibus
vanni
da Fontana
in his Liber
rebus naturalibus
A
(1440),
A. Bruers,
gambe,
a correspondence
and Experimental
Fontana
establishes
Science,
IV, 150.
: to the skull corresponds
the primum
parts of the head and the parts of the universe
to the right eye, the sun, to the left, the moon,
to the brain, the sphere of fixed stars,
mobile,
of fanciful enlargements
and so forth.
the impression
of Philonian
His words make
ideas.
in the sixteenth
The
alive
from
old ideas were still very much
century, as one may
gather
History
between
ofMagic
Franciscus
whose
Venetus
Georgius
ideas were considered
(F. G. Zorzi),
important
De
enough
harm?nia
to deserve
mundi
a special
totius cantica
controversy
(V?net.
1525),
by Mersenne.
See the lengthy report in Jac. Br?ckner, Historia critica philosophiae (Lipsiae, 1743), IV
pt.
I, pp.
347 ff., esp.
380, 382, 384.
398
TRADITIO
mated, but every single being shares in this vital principle and by it enters into
communication with others. By being capable of operation and, so to speak,
perception, the single thing ceases to exist in isolation, to float in the void; it
achieves contact with all the others, and thus all beings form in their totality
is therefore identical
the one harmonious universe.
The life of the macrocosm
The anima mundi is tota in quolibet parte. But
with the life of the microcosm.
the anima mundi is created.222
With the idea of general animation and universal intercommunication, there is
combined the other that any thing able to operate deliberately, instead of obey
ing blindly the "impetus" of its nature, may achieve domination over the rest of
the universe.
Thus, the belief inmagic is the logical outcome of panpsychism.
comprises on one hand divination, on the other hand the active direction
Magic
course
of events. The oneness of all things is proven by the fact of knowl
of the
The macrocosm, so far as
edge. Where we know we are also able to operate.
can
it is in his reach,
be influenced by man's will.223
was, of course, not alone with his ideas. Francesco Patrizzi,
Campanella
for instance, claims that everything is animated and that existence without life
is impossible. He criticizes Aristotle for having considered only the stellar
world as animated and thus made a "monstrosity" out of the universe.224
is
is primarily interested in explaining the universe; Paracelsus
Campanella
All his speculations revolve around, and origin from,
primarily a physician.
he considers, affects neither the body alone,
the problem of disease.
Disease,
nor themind alone, but the whole composite human being. When man becomes
the victim of disease, he becomes subjected to nature, becomes wholly nature
222"Se
a l'uomo
non
a reggerlo, ma troviamo
lo spirito corporeo
che abbia mente
che ilmondo
pi? nobile di ogni ente e figlio del sommo bene,
un anima eccellentissima
abbia
oltre che nature partocolari
senzienti,
...
. . . quest anima
commune
la cura di tutto
la natura
che viene
angelo
senso delle cose e
Del
da Dio
T. Campanella,
infusa nel mondo".
creata,
assai pi?
immortale,
e bello,
tanto buono
d'ogni
maggiore
e arte universale
basta
convenire
uses expressions
II, 32 (ed. cit., p. 161).
however,
Campanella
Sometimes,
close to pantheism,
and the soul are
thus when he says that God
dangerously
he does not forget the transcendence
But generally
of God,
in all things.
just as he, all his
never ceases
monk.
to feel himself a Dominican
Whenever
vicissitudes
notwithstanding,
della
which
magia,
come
before his name.

he refers to himself, he is careful to put "Fra"
223
under
the
similia
similibus
One might
say that the principle,
changes
cognoscuntur
that the knowing
of Campanella
into paria paribus
the notion
hands
cognoscuntur.
Also,
or that intellectus
in actu, appears
in actu est intelligibile
the known,
"becomes"
principle
and exaggerated.
distorted
224Fr.
de universo
(vol. Ill of Nova
1591).
Patrizius,
Ferrara,
Panpsychia
philosophia,
und Kosmos
Individuum
in der Philosophie
Similar
der Renaissance,
See E. Cassirer,
p. 157.
are
A. O.
who calls
found in Cardanus,
(De subtilitate, V), metals
plantae
sepultae.
with apparent
Mass.
(The Great Chain
of Being,
1936, p. 60) quotes,
Cambridge,
on certain verses by George Herbert,
of G. H. Palmer
of the seven
the comments
approval,
.
th'earth
the poet
fish and
flesh . . mines,
and
teenth century;
says that "Frogs marry
to
But
seems
refers
the
relation
Palmer
"the
that
and
minerals
grow".
fancy
plants",
On older notions
of this kind, see J. C. Plumpe,
"Vi
closer to ideas like those of Cardano.
ideas
Lo ve joy
vum
saxum,
vivi
lapides",
see J.
ideas,
panpsychistic
naturae
(Washington
operibus
1 (1943),
De
1 ff. W. Gilbert,
Traditio,
.
The Letter of St. Thomas
McAllister,
D. C,
1939), p. 138, n. 49.
magnete,
Aquinas
also
De
holds
occultis
399
MICROCOSMUS
himself.225 Paracelsus defines man as an "excerpt of the whole machina mundi",226

a microcosm ; not in his shape and corporeal substance but in his powers and
virtues227 he is like the big world.
In human nature there are, therefore, all the
celestial movements,
terrestrial nature, the properties of water and air, the
nature of all fruits and minerals, and also of all constellations.
Man unites
within his being the properties of the whole world.228 Accordingly, the events
and vicissitudes of human life are part of the changes going on in themacrocosm.
life is somehow related to the macrocosmic
Every aspect and event in a man's
occurrences.
This follows from the conception of the macrocosm as a unit, the
principles of which pervade everything and which is governed by perfect pro

portionality and harmony.
Any change, happening anywhere, must therefore
entail a change of the whole and of every part of it, since the part exists only by
virtue of the whole and since themanner inwhich the part exists is determined by
the state of the whole.
One cannot understand any partial change without
This fully explains the
taking account of the change going on in the whole.
insistence on astrology, the emphatical declaration that there is an appropriate
time for cure and that the hour has medical significance. One should think that
correspondingly a microcosmic event influences, in however insensible a degree,
the macrocosm.
But Paracelsus
denies this expressly. He
tion of this apparent inconsistency.229
. He occupies a particular
a ?is the microcosm
Man
of the universe.
He is endowed with a particular dignity
which is just this name, microcosm.230 Paracelsus' views are
gives no explana
place in the order

the expression of
closer to the origi
ideas of the Campanella,

conception than are the panpsychistic
Patrizzi,
Simone della Porta, and others.
Many writers of the first two centuries of the "modern age" still used the
categories and terms they learned from their predecessors, though the latter
were frequently treated with little respect.
Sometimes, indeed, the traditional
views become so much distorted and falsified that such passages read like?in
nal
his
225
Paracelsus
Obviously,
rational
faculties, might
views
become
that the non-natural

it as impossible
But they are impeded
diseased.
the subservient
becomes
"natural"
function abnormally.
powers
nature".
Paracelsus'
ideas on the
"totally
in line with traditional
doctrines.
perfectly
226Astronomia
227
The word,
tude.
228Astronomia
ibid.
heiten,
IX,
229
Paragranum;
events
rocosmic
magna;
virtue,
magna;
308.
under
Hence,
rational
40.
Opp. ed. Sudhoff, XII,
or Tugend,
has to be taken in the original
Opp.
XII,
168.
Opp. VIII,
there are numerous
pp.
73, 164, 166; Die
On
the determination
references.
The
B?cher
that
part of man,
in their operations
these
are,
sense
of capacity
is per
man
apparently,
von den unsichtbaren
of microcosmic
macrocosm
conditions
faculties
is,
if
or apti
Krank
by mac
changes
se and quoad nos
ibid.
paramirum,
"Man
is learned
and not from man".
from the big world,
Opus
of the hour, one has to remember
that the use of the
the importance
Concerning
a
since old times, e.g. in the corpus Hippocraticum,
, had been emphasized
right time,
on diet;
see also Tim. 98c, 5.
2io
von den unsichtbaren
Die B?cher
"jj)er edel nam microcosmus":
Opp?
Krankheiten;
308.
IX,
prior.
p. 45.
400
TRADITIO
of the original.231 But notwithstanding its

tentional or unintentional?travesties
survival, microcosmism was soon removed from the main currents of thought.
It plays a certain r?le inmedicine, but it ceases to be an outstanding feature of
becomes more complete the more
reflexion. This disappearance
philosophical
philosophy falls under the domination of science. The medieval ontology in its
various forms had been able to supply a foundation for every branch of knowledge
The fundamental idea of an all-pervading order al
and practical endeavor.
lowed to link, at least in principle, ethics to metaphysics, physics to psychology.
was but a partial aspect of this attempt at an encompassing
Microcosmism
synthesis.232
compares the picture medieval mentality presents with the one

in our own days, nothing is, perhaps, more distinctive than the
unity there and the discordance here. Today there is an increasing divergence
not only of speculation and empirical investigation, but also, within the former,
of cosmology and ontology on one hand, and philosophical anthropology and
ethics on the other. However superciliously the "modern" and scientific mind
may look down on the naive and fantastic conceptions which so perfectly satis
If one
observable
fied even the greatest intellects of the past, however much we may smile at the
assurance with which many untenable propositions were put forth, one can hardly
help feeling some envy if one puts side to side the wholeness, comprehensiveness,
and unity of the medieval Weltanschauung with today's conflict, turmoil, and
cleavage of what one nevertheless feels to be intrinsically one.
To appreciate the grandeur of the medieval conception of the world, one must
know it, and one must beware of reading into the expressions used by the writers
of this age meanings of which they did not think. Certain modern admirers
of "progress" have believed that the "Age of Science" and, especially, the dis
coveries of the astronomers on one hand, and the theory of evolution on the other,
have taught man to be humble, whereas before he conceived of himself as "the
The words are quoted correctly; their meaning ismissed
center of the world".
thinker was much more so
totally. Far from being less humble, the medieval
For the place in the "center" was anything
than any of his modern successors.
but a domineering position.
231
of Nettesheim,
Agrippa
intelligit omnia alia Deus,"
se ipsum
for instance,
the proposition,
"Intelligendo
applies
se ipsum cog
and unhesitatingly
declares:
"quicumque
in se ipso omnia".
no verit, cognoscit
and macrocosm
between microThe
correspondence
as one-to-one
with
identical
becomes
is conceived
any
self-knowledge
correspondence;
man
can possibly
Man
the microcosm,
whatsoever
is to Agrippa
attain.
kind of knowledge
to man
world: De occulta philosophia,

II, 36.
Mikrokosmos-Gedanke?in
der Fassung,
e a?a
eine solche
eis a
hatte?gestattete
the second
232"Der
gegeben
zur Ethik
nicht
nur,
fang die Kosmologie

verbunden".
Ethik
sance, p.
Renaissance
other
118.
views
It
with
sondern
ihm die Renaissance-Philosophie

von der Physik
ykvos, einen ?bergang
zu ihm heraus:
denn in ihr hat sich von An
forderte
die
geradezu
sondern
auch mit der
der Physiologie
und Psychologie,
in der Philosophie
E. Cassirer,
der Renais
Individuum
und Kosmos
a mistake
of the Italian
to credit only the microcosmism
is, however,
and also
such a unifying
Much
older forms of microcosmism,
power.
in medieval
nicht
nur mit
ontology
and
cosmology,
proved
capable
of the same
synthesizing
force.
401
microcosmus
"The
opposite.
farthest
actual
of the geocentric
the
system was, for the medieval
tendency
mind,
precisely
of honor;
the center of the world was not a position
it was rather the place
removed
from the Empyrean,
of creation
to which
the bottom
the dregs and baser
For
sink."233
elements
Ages never forgot that man, be he however much higher than all
fact not even denied by the evolutionists?,
is still the
other beings on earth?a
lowest being in the realm of spirits, paulo minoratus ab angelis.
can be resurrected. To suggest
Neither ancient nor medieval microcosmism
any attempt on such lines would be utterly silly. But the study of these ideas
has, in spite of their apparent obsoleteness, a certain interest not only to the an
The Middle
The place which microcosmism held within

tiquarian curiosity of the historian.
the framework of ancient and medieval mentality is unfilled today. Perhaps,
it is possible to re-think this truly great conception in a new manner, and tomake
it suitable for becoming incorporated inmodern mentality.
Were this feasible,
itwould be one step towards the unity of thought which the contemporary world
needs more than anything.
VI.
Conclusion:
The
"Symptomatic
Significance"
of Microcosmism
study of human nature operates much with the notion of "psycho

It is supposed that there exist more or less stable combinations
logical types".
of traits, of which it suffices to determine a few for being entitled to assume with
reasonable reliability the presence of certain others. The traits on which the
division is based are considered as "typical"; they may be primary factors, that
is, such from which others spring, with a certain necessity, as secondary de
Modern
velopments or effects of the first; or the traits used for characterization of a type
that is encountered together with others, per
may be merely "symptomatic",
more
A "symptom" very often is not a
but
obvious.
fundamental
less
haps
a
one by which primary factors can
but
in
factor
complex phenomenon
primary
Thus the rash in scarlet fever or the raise of temperature are
be ascertained.
not of a primary nature, but they indicate the presence of an infectious disease
of a definite kind.
Similarly, a marked degree of "Perseveration", on the in
ability to shift attention quickly from one object to another, need not be a pri
mary factor, and nonetheless may prove helpful in determining a psychological
type, provided it occurs in regular association with several other traits fashioning
the total behavior of an individual.
The same viewpoint may be used, analogice, in the study of general mentality
and its various forms as they appear in the documents of past ages. Perhaps,
a sufficiently extended study of such "cases" might enable us even tomake a diag
But the analogy must not be stressed. Rather,

The notions of primary and secondary
itmust be used with the greatest caution.
the
to
historical
very notion of a general mentality
traits, applied
epochs,
and other notions of a relied nature, are too vague and too questionable to be han
lest one fall too
dled with security. One must beware of hasty hypostatizations
a
error
in
of
the
group-mind, Volksgeist, spirit
inventing
quasi-substantial
easily
nosis of the present mentality.
233A. O. Lo ve
joy, The Great
Chain
of Being,
p.
101 f.
402
TRADITIO
These unwar
of the age, or of the race, and suchlike imaginary entities more.
ranted hypostatizations,
resting mostly on very superficial analogies, have
created more confusion and harm than proved useful for our understanding of
the history of civilization.
Also, one ought not to claim primacy for any trait,
however prominent in a definite historical period, because of the manyfold and
interrelations of ideas. The
complexity of geistesgeschichtliche
complicated
facts does not permit such simplification. The "symptomatic" approach alone
seems
legitimate.
But even this cautious and limited enterprise encounters great difficulties.
Or is it,
Is a "symptom" we observe truly one of the "general mentality"?
a
scien
a
of
class
of
certain
characteristic
documents?literary,
perhaps, only
a
That
these
has
kind
fate
artistic?which
things
preserved?
tific, political,
escaped destruction may even be the effect of the "general mentality", not of the
age we study, but of the next which followed and cared to preserve only those
Suppose that time, means, and energy had been
things of which it approved.
at
of
time
the
Baroque, really to refashion all Gothic building accord
sufficient,
to
taste
of
this
the
age, our idea of the "Gothic mentality" would be rather
ing
and
in
many
incomplete
points, probably, erroneous. Do we really know the
"Greek mind" when we study Plato and Tucydides, Sophocles and Aristophanes,
Is the medieval mind reliably mirrored in the writings of
Strabo and Polybius?
Or must we rather
and Aquinas?
Anselm, Abaelard, Bernard, Bonaventura,
turn to the chronicles of a Robert of Torigny and Suger of St. Denis to learn
is more characteristic of this mind, the dis
about the medieval mind? What
cussions on the distin?tio re?lis, or the controversies concerning the "Two
Swords", or the constitution of the guilds, the freedoms of the towns, or the
rules of chivalry?
But even keeping all these doubts inmind, it still seems permissible to look
at the available facts as "symptoms" of a mentality which had at least some
fact we may consider,

Only, one must not go too far. Whichever
generality.
it is in some sense a symptom, although not necessarily a characteristic one,
just as fever is no doubt a symptom, but one common to a large number of
The "symptomatic" approach presents at least the advantage that it
diseases.
discards the question of primary and secondary traits. Not more is asserted
than that a certain cultural phenomenon occurs, that it is particularly in the fore
ground, stressed, appreciated, and so on, during a definite historical epoch.
Such a discovery gains in importance if one can make sure that the same phe
nomenon also occurs at other times which may or may not be similar in other
respects to the one considered first.
Limiting our inquiry in this manner, we
any symptomatic significance and if so,
A distinction, however, seems necessary.
phenomenon appears for the first time at a
to be effective or, eventually, becomes so
revival need not be the same. Romantic
very different from the interest which
may ask whether microcosmism has

of wliat it is e\^entually indicative.
It is not the same whether a cultural
certain period or whether it continues
The conditions of origin and

again.
interest in chivalry is, for instance,
to preserve and
led Sir Thomas Mallory
403
MICROCOSMUS
The conditions of origin are, furthermore,

rewrite the saga of the Holy Grail.
often hardly discernible. What
appears as an original growth may well be
transplanted from other regions. But neither must one push back the origin of
all ideas into a far-off and largely hypothetical antiquity.
The inventiveness
and creative power of the human mind did not cease the moment its way be
comes visible in the light of history. On the other hand, it is very probable that
the time when a cultural fact becomes observable is not the one at which it
The very last source is, generally, unknown and
actually made its appearance.
will remain so. We are in a better position in regard to ages on which more in
When an idea which once before had enjoyed popular
formation is available.
least with the scholarly and intellectual world?is
taken up anew and
ity?at
estimated as fitting into the framework of thought and culture, we may feel
entitled to ask what other age is, or was, receptive for the same idea. A com
parative study, then, may teach us what kinds of ages feel attracted by what
kinds of ideas.
To be sure, no idea of old is ever revived exactly in the same shape it originally
It ismodified according to the needs and attitudes of the present.
possessed.
This
Sometimes this modification goes so far that nothing remains but a name.
fact may pass unnoticed, and those who use the name may believe that they still
think on traditional lines. Mention has been made of the change of content of
the term "cosmos" in the seventeenth, as compared with the fourteenth or even
Of the modern
fifteenth century, not to speak of Antiquity or theMiddle Ages.
idea of the cosmos there is hardly any trace in the /cc^os-idea of Pythagoras and
But as long as the notion of themicrocosm was alive it functioned
his successors.
as an important link in the interpretation of reality and remained fundamentally

The foregoing sections tried to show that all the later varieties
unchanged.
of this notion were contained, in nuce, already in the conceptions of early Greek
philosophy and that the whole history ofmicrocosmism throughout ancient and
times is but the gradual unfolding of ideas which existed in a rudi
medieval
its first appearance as an element in a
form
when this notion made
mentary
philosophical system.
It is the con
There is one basic idea underlying the various interpretations.
viction that all ordered wholes, which have somewhat of an existence of their
There is but
own, are essentially constructed on the same pattern.
ciple of order which is discovered in the universe, in human nature,
and even in the products of the human mind exhibiting proportion,
a
and order. The
,
, and
are, qua
one prin
in society,
harmony,
, identical.
A mentality which finds microcosmism to its liking and sees in it an adequate

expression of its tendencies, ought to be, itwould seem, one to which the aspects
of wholeness, order, proportion, and harmony appear as particularly important.
This importance may be felt either because wholeness and order are conceived
of the actual situation or because they are missing and felt

to be highly desirable.
Thus, according to particular conditions, these ideas
one
and at another, by the
at
be
may
time, by the "conservatives"
harbored,
of
notions
The
fundamental
wholeness, order, propor
"progressive" parties.
as the determinants
404
TRADITIO
tion, and harmony are perhaps related to a still more fundamental view, one
which emphasizes diversity in sameness more than sameness in diversity. These
two attitudes can be best illustrated by a comparison of the medieval and the
modern view-points. Medieval
thinkers were struck by the dissimilarity of
was
their
to safeguard the unity of the widely
and
therefore
problem
things,
different and separated layers of reality. The modern mind loves to emphasize
similarities between the inanimate and the living beings, between material and
mental processes, between facts of nature and facts of society. To the medieval
conception discontinuity is a main feature of reality. The modern mind is fo
cused mainly on continuity. Some continuity had to be recognized, of course, also
by the Schoolmen.
They solved the problem by applying the principle of
and
the
notion
of an intermediary being, or rather by the idea that
analogy
by
the highest being in one order somehow participates in the nature of the next
higher level. But they maintained nevertheless that reality is divided in sep
arate levels of existence between which no true transition can be imagined.234
The modern conception, to the contrary, rests chiefly on the fundamental idea
of gradual transition and successive approach of a final stage. This view, ac
aa? a or the World
cordingly, has no use for any kind of "link", like the
But a system which conceives of reality as a hierarchy of levels needs
Soul.
such a
link.
234Even
comes rather close to

who in his mathematical
reflections
sometimes
Cusanus,
as the moderns
does not think of continuity
do.
"Inter
genera unum
conceptions,
ut in medio
contrahentia
talis est inferioris et superioris
connexio
universum
coincidunt,
modern
ac
inter species
diversas
talis combinationis
ordo existit ut suprema
species
generis unius
cum infima immediate
ut sit unum continuum
universum".
superioris,
perfectum
1 (Opp. edd. E. Hoffmann
De docta ignor. III,
and R. Klibansky,
1931, I, 120);
Leipzig,
3 (ibid. p. 126).
The
is not one of gradual
fundamental
also III,
conception
transition,
both in the lower and the higher
but of "opposites"
held together by a
participating
co?ncid?t
This
idea is, of course, very old.
It is stated e.g. by Nemesius,
De nat. horn. c. 5
. This
e
e
cannot be brought
there be
(P.G. 40, 616): opposites
together unless
see
view prevailed
68.
the
Middle
CG.
e.g. Aquinas,
Ages;
throughout
II,
I am afraid that I cannot agree with Professor
in regard to medieval
who speaks
Lovejoy
are insensible
that between
natural
and quasi
ideas of the "posulate
things the transitions
levels.
seems to imply, transition

at least if, as the author
and
sense (The Great Chain
in the modern
The
of Being, p. 61).
to be the uppermost,
in a continuous
series, one which
just happens
continuous",
understood
are to be
continuity
link is not one mem
but which qua mem

an exceptional
of other members;
is in no way distinct
it is rather one holding
place,
as it were,
or linking the
the gap between
the genera, and thus uniting
astride
standing,
one ought to emphasize
the difference between
levels of being.
otherwise
separate
Perhaps,
ber
ber
of modern
times and the qualitative
view-point
principle
in previous
An illustration
from
ages.
may be gathered
and not as "explained"
There
appearance
by physics.
from red to yellow;
but yellow
transition
is not a higher degree
of
the fundamentally
quantitative
suchlike
speculations
it in its phenomenal
color, taking
underlying
is, of course, a gradual

it is something
altogether
cannot be derived
which
from red by any
new, something
of gradual
In physics
such a derivation
increase.
is possible
because,
there, color
deals only with wave-lengths,
and these, being mere quantities,
does not exist; physics
in
crease by imperceptible
The
supremum
gradual
steps.
infimi is at the same time the in
red;
kind
it unites within
generis, because
fimum superioris
but this union of the two does not, to the medieval
the type commonly
considered
to-day.
its being two heterogeneous

principles;
constitute
of
any true transition
mind,
405
MICROCOSMUS
one conceives of the world as order in diversity, the microcosmistic

When
Not as if all philosophical systems stressing
view presents definite advantages.
so
must
and
on,
necessarily arrive at some kind of micro
order, proportion,
the system of Aquinas
retains the fundamental
cosmism. Unquestionably,
But the notion of the microcosm
features of the medieval world conception.
plays in this system a very subordinate r?le. The terms minor mundus, micro
cosmus, become with Aquinas practically mere metaphors or poetical illustra
tions.
A problem of such extent and complication cannot be adequately discussed,

A thorough analysis of the "symp
not even sufficiently clarified, on a few pages.
tomatic significance" of microcosmism would entail, for instance, a study of the
Of this,microcosmism
is indubitably
complex phenomenon called Renaissance.
a symptom. But what actually characterizes a Renaissance
is a question not
inHumanism, but
Some see the characteristic of Renaissance
easily answered.
a
term.
Others
is
rather
itself
Humanism
ambiguous
emphasize the develop
ment of science, but this feature is obviously not in the foreground in the Caro
Still others consider the turn
lingian, nor in the twelfth-century Renaissance.
as
to
secularism
the
essential
trait. And there are those
ing from ecclesiasticism
and
unbelief
admit
their
L.
dislike
of,
in, all kinds ofRenais
Thorndike,
who, like
name
of
however
much
the
sance.235 Perhaps,
"Renaissance",
used, is not so
235Jakob
of the Renaissance",
in his famous work on "The Culture
probably
Burckhardt,
Recent
of the historical
he studied.
the full complexity
not yet realize
phenomenon
Not even a partial
like "Human
of this fact.
have become
historians
very conscious
aspect
like the one coined by Burck
characterized
ism" can be adequately
by so simple a formula
a misconception
and it entails
does not say enough,
of the individual"
hardt.
"Emergence
did
see e.g., W. Strich,

of this formula,
"Renaissance
u. Geistesgesch.
1 (1923) 591;
f. Literaturwiss.
Vierteljschr.
Histor.
Zeit
der Geistesgeschichte",
Problematik
kultur-sozialischen
A.
16 (1931),
Views
sehr. 142 (1930), 242; G. F. Jacob,
History,
"Changing
.Nelson,
as a Criterion
Journ. Engl. German.
"Individualism
214;
out in an article
had pointed
316. Many
32 (1933),
Philol.
years
before, E. Troeltsch
und
On
ideas.
of medieval
und
("Renaissance
Renaissance
ist nicht
the insufficiency
Deutsche
Reformation",
v. Martin,
"Zur
zu vereinheitlichen".
Gedanken
The
eminent
on one hand
if avoiding
however,
falls, on the other, prey to certain preju
of the centuries
the Renais
preceding
scholar,
the over-simplifications
against which he warns,
of ideas characteristic
the world
dices
concerning
sance.
of what
Much
fact much
writers
older
110 [1913], 528), that "der Geist

der
und vor allem nicht mit den modernen
Histor.
Zeitschr,
Reformation",
zu formulieren
allzu einheitlich
and
he believes
only
of the Renaissance
restated,
to be new
although
is in
Renaissance
specific of the Italian
in a different manner,
by the
indubitably
In spite of the
Troeltsch's
p. 531).
remarks,
works which
there are still many
by many,
and
(see particularly
and heeded
by Troeltsch,
as a thoroughly
the Renaissance
homogeneous
present
The
is often overlooked.
and ideas
individuals
image
warning
beauty,
in many
sounded
"progress"?an
But
studies.
idea
alien
in the Italian
to create
still powerful
enough
is permissible?conscious
expression
and
to these
enormous
of
The
variety
epoch.
sense of
of an age of undisturbed
of life and reality, prevails
enjoyment
times?,
disturbance,
of itself.
an age which was slow to die

an age which was not yet?if
such an
time is not only one of a new form of
there met
Rennaissance,
and
This
life emerging; it is this too, but it it also an age of crisis,with all the disequilibration which
of this kind.
cultural
periods
accompanies
If it is correct to label as "Renaissances"
and
the cultural
changes
resulting
other
from it in other
epochs,
countries,
besides
it would
the Italian
appear
Renaissance
as a methodo
406
TRADITIO
It implies a definite interpretation

It is too suggestive.
fortunate after all.
to
all
is
not
suitable
periods of so-called Renaissance.
equally
which, maybe,
more visible, if "rebirth"
become
such
between
The similarities
periods may
diacritical
feature.
the
is not made, from the very outset,
It starts with assembling the most
Symptomatic analysis is unprejudiced.
to
To be sure, one or the other out
attained.
be
complete list of "symptoms"
even
must
serve, as a directive of research.
standing symptom may serve, and
It is possible?although
But for all this importance, it need not be fundamental.
the "symptomatic
to assert this positively would amount to temerity?that
and, particularly, an extended and deepened analysis of micro
approach"
cosmism will be able to throw some light on those ages which felt this idea to be
congenial to their general spirit.
It should be noted, even though this line of thought cannot be followed further,
that microcosmism may appear also in ages which, at first sight have little in
This fact is, so to speak, the counter
common with those termed Renaissance.
part of the other, referred to before, that the conception of a well-ordered universe
This idea has been particu
is not necessarily conducive to microcosmism.
school, at least in Germany.236 The ques
larly attractive for the Romantic
It is closely related
tion why this was the case deserves a special investigation.
to the further question of the reasons for the preference sho\vn by these writers?
a certain type of mysticism, like the one of
poets as well as philosophers?for
Jacob Boehme.
is one of the great ideas by which man attempts to under
Microcosmism
Insofar one may speak
stand himself and his relation to the totality of being.
if the latter term is taken
of a relation between microcosmism and "Humanism",
logical fault
tural events
on Renaissance
the studies
to limit, as is usually
done,
in Italy during
centuries.
the fifteenth and sixteenth
a comparative
of the various Renaissances
analysis
sary to make
inWestern
Europe
in the ninth
and
the twelfth
centuries,
studies with
these
and to combine
Renaissance,
even in Old
in Byzantium,
perhaps
velopments
the Islamic
world.
within
Ottoman
I have
remarked
p.
above,
to use Grabmann's
334,
that
Rome?the
the Revival
to the cul
exclusively
neces
It then becomes
as they allegedly
existed
also of the so-called
eventually
with similar de
others dealing
age
of Aristo
of Plotinus?,
telianism
also
maybe
"die
Aristo
teles
a
of the thirteenth
is not considered
century
expression,
an exception.
A. Dempf
writes:
"Wenn
In this regard, one author makes
man nicht die den gesamten Universit?tsbetrieb
schon von 1260 an bestimmende
Aristoteles
... so
Renaissance
anerkennt
Renaissance
als die eigentliche
gibt es keine
Philosophische
vom Mittelalter
zur Neuzeit"
kontinuierliche
("Geisteswissenschaft
Geistesentwicklung
Reception",
Renaissance.
der Renaissance-philosophie",
der Erforschung
liche Aufgaben
u. Geistesgesch.
7 [1929], 636).
Liter-aturwiss.
of these and other
I am quite aware of the incompleteness
taining to the topic of Renaissance.
the problem
is envisioned
here only
cosmism
is under
discussion.
These
They
Deutsche
Vierteljschr.
remarks
in this article,
per
in any sense as solutions.
Also,
as it arises inevitably
when micro
are not offered
insofar
incidentally,
remarks are mere
suggestions,
nature
thetical
236
in a letter to his betrothed,
writes:
Novalis,
von Dir."
ist eine Abbreviatur
das Universum
f.
"Du
bist
of an obviously
eine Elongatur
hypo
des Universums,
407
MICROCOSMUS
in itswidest sense.237 Whenever and wherever these two lines of human endeavor
for understanding reality meet, man tries to unite under one aspect both his
view of himself as set over against the universe, and his view of himself as part
of the universe. Whenever this happens, microcosmism in one or the other form
is apt to reappear.
The most intense interest in the question, quid est homo? is
an
answer as long as human nature is considered in isolation.
to
unable
provide
answer
can
The
be found, on the level of philosophical inquiry, only by integrat
with "Cosmism".
in the
The most stupendous advances
ing "Humanism"
knowiedge of the physical universe cannot satisfy the longings of the human mind
If the "position ofman in the cosmos" is
because man is part of the universe.
to be determined, both terms must be considered in their interrelation.238 To
have achieved this synthesis ; to have envisioned the problem in itswidest extent
and in the fulness of its content; to have attempted an answer to these questions,
however inacceptable this answer may appear to the modern mind, is the ever
to Paracelsus, meditated
lasting merit of those thinkers who, fromAnaximandros
on
the microcosmus.
The Catholic University of America.

237The
Humanism
form of the attitude

from a curious
of the Italian
characteristic
transformation
Renaissance,
of the earlier
of the latter.
The
as
years
it is usually
described,
of this movement.
emergence,
is in fact a late
It results
out of the notion
partly
of the micro
of the "great"
who by his greatness
is absolved
cosm, of the idea of "superman",
individual,
the average
from the laws binding
person, has been briefly described
by H. Leube,
Reforma
in England
tion und Humanismus
1930).
(Leipzig,
238
im Kosmos
Die
des Menschen
Max
1928).
(Darmstadt,
Scheler,
Stellung

ALLERS, Microcosmus From Anaximandro To Paracelsus

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MICROCOSMUS: From Anaximandros to Paracelsus

Author(s): RUDOLF ALLERS

The ideas expressed by

particularly appealed, and of the ideas with which it entered into

and rather modern philosophies have, at times, made

not very satisfactory,

The only passage

for instance Bernardus Silvestris, wrote: Megacosmus)

on early and medieval

scale ". E.g.:

. L. Stein has suggested that this passage

Ciceronis expositor, as Abaelard calls him. Chalcidius'

De usu part. Ill, 10:

one may mention

integrates within himself the constituents of reality. Although inferior to

so that man is conceived not

a) Man is compared to the universe of which he is the reproduction or redupli

If man is conceived, on the other hand, as a complete

the idea of Plato.

The person of the monarch becomes invested

If the idea of an all-pervading and throughout identical order is consistently

and replaced by the principle of continuity, the way is opened for

cording to where the emphasis is placed, one obtains either a hylozoistic or a

The human monad

study is not occupied with tracing the latest offsprings ofmicrocosmism.

temporary mentality any traces indicative of a revival ofmicrocosmistic specula

such a shifting not only permissible

v. realis, then the Anselmian

forms of interpretation coexist, at least after speculation had advanced somewhat

construction, but as "corresponding to", being "symbolic of" the universe, in

object the data have to be transposed, by enlargement or reconstruction, into

"better world", or be for ever beyond the capacities of man.

it appears to be or, rather, actually is on the level of factuality. Besides

It is just this discrepancy

by the use of the metaphorical

mentals of being itself. One might add, in amplification of Dunbar's

nation given by Dante in his letter to Can Grande

; referring to the exodus of the

"If we consider merely

Perhaps itwas Philo of Alexandria who first applied symbolistic interpretation

of Alexandria who first explicitly stated and applied the symbolic in

indications of symbolic interpretation could be found. But Clement and, after

The emphasis on a non-literal meaning of the Scriptures rests partly on the

of greater influence was no doubt the declaration

It is not needless to remark that this multiplicity of interpretations does not,

in St. Gregory, which might

give rise to some

This idea makes it possible to apply the method of symbolistic interpretation

microcosmism, besides other forms, for instance in Paracelsus or Agrippa.

are conceivable within the scope of this theory.

speak of "psychological" microcosmism.

figure of speech (metaphorical microcosmism).

The deepest intuition underlying some philosophical system is often dependent

relation tomicrocosmism, but it is frequently associated with the latter.

stand that it escaped critical analysis because of its impressivity.

It is, therefore, a mistake to speak ofmicrocosmism as

thinkers of the Renaissance.

(macrocosmus), animated by one Spirit and molded by one Law, in

and reason more

The writings of the

or Epicurus, play a very subordinate r?le.

loses its impressiveness

and there was a general