Microcosm and Macrocosm

Microcosm and Macrocosm. The belief of the ancients that the world or cosmos was animated, or had a soul (see ANIMA MUNDI), led to the notion that the parts and members of organic beings must have their counterparts in the members of the cosmos. Thus, in a hymn ascribed to Orpheus, the sun and moon are looked upon as the eyes of the animating godhead, the earth and its mountains as his body, the ether as his intellect, the sky as his wings. The natural philosophers of the 16th century—Paracelsus at their head—took up this notion anew in a somewhat modified shape, and considered the world as a human organism on the large scale, and man as a world, or cosmos, in miniature; hence they called man a microcosm (Gr., 'little world') and the universe itself the macrocosm ('great world'). With this was associated the belief that the vital movements of the microcosm exactly corresponded to those of the macrocosm, and represented them as it were in copy. From this it was an easy transition to the further assumption, that the movements of the stars exercise an influence on the temperament and fortunes of men (see ASTROLOGY). Heylin gave the title Microcosmus to a work on cosmography in 1621, and Lotze entitled his great work definitive of man's position in the universe Mikrokosmus (1856-64).