Information AboutMacrocosm |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT MACROCOSM AND MICROCOSM | |
| classical studies | |
| classical greek philosophy | |
| esoteric cosmology | |
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Macrocosm/microcosm is a Greek compound of μακρο- "Macro-" and μικρο- "Micro-", which are Greek respectively for "large" and "small", and the word κόσμος ''kósmos'' which means "order" as well as "world" or "ordered world". ANCIENT THOUGHT Macrocosm/microcosm is a principle in Socratic/Platonic Philosophy . ''The Republic'', most of it of Socratic influence, is based on this fundamental principle. ''The Republic'' is a discussion originally about righteousness (justice) for man and what is it. At §368, Socrates mentions that this virtue is “spoken as a virtue of an individual, and sometimes as the virtue of the state” and that it would be easier to discern its essence if one looked at the State because it would have a larger quantity of it and then proceeding back down into the individual to see how it appears in the smaller unit. Furthermore, there is a tight interrelationship between the macrocosm and the microcosm in the human sphere. Socrates says, “Must we not acknowledge, I said, that in each of us there are the same principles and habits which there are in the state; and that from the individual they pass into the state?—how else can they come there? (1) It can be paraphrased as “How goes the part, so goes the Whole”. In their science of politics, Socrates and Plato both saw this principle at work. This principle is also very prevalent in Plato and his theory of “Forms”. It also permeated the thinking of Hermetic philosophers and Alchemists . The earliest known usage of this schema, among them, can be dated to the 3rd century CE by the Greek Olympiadorus , who stated, ''"the mythic Hermes calls man a small cosmos"'', the literal meaning of ''mikro-kosmos''. Hermes Trismegistus 's axiom ''As above, so below'' meaning that all that is in the Cosmos is mirrored in man the small universe, also reflects the macro/micro correspondence. MEDIEVAL AND MODERN THOUGHT The English physician and alchemist '' depicts the small, temporal world of man, whilst '' The Garden Of Cyrus '' represents the macrocosm, in which the ubiquitous and eternal Quincunx pattern is discerned in art, nature and the Cosmos. The great enigma of Alchemy is the mystery between the macrocosm and Microcosm . Equally an unsolved enigma of English literature is the relationship between Browne's diptych Discourses: the microcosm world of ''Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial'' and the macrocosm world of ''The Garden of Cyrus''. SEE ALSO REFERENCES #''Republic'', Plato, trans. By B. Jowett M.A., Vintage Books, NY. § 435, pg 151 BIBLIOGRAPHY
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