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Macrocosm and microcosm is an ancient Greek schema of seeing the same patterns reproduced in all levels of reality. It may have begun with Democritus in the fifth century B.C. or with Pythagoras and is a philosophical conception that runs through Socrates, and Plato and through to the Renaissance. With Pythagoras, the discovery of the golden ratio and its philosophical conception called the Golden mean, the Greeks saw that this golden ratio is repeated in all parts of the ordered universe both large and small. The Greeks were very concerned with a rational explanation of everything and saw this repetition of the golden mean as a pattern that was reproduced throughout reality. It is a product of the ancient Greek mentality of seeing reality as a whole and noticing patterns that are repeated throughout all the levels of reality. In short, it is the recognition that the same traits appear in entities of many different sizes, from one man to the entire human population. Socrates - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ...
Plato Plato (Greek: Πλάτων, PlátÅn) (c. ...
By region Italian Renaissance Spanish Renaissance Northern Renaissance English Renaissance French Renaissance German Renaissance Polish Renaissance The Renaissance, also known as Il Rinascimento (in Italian), was an influential cultural movement which brought about a period of scientific revolution, religious reform and artistic transformation, at the dawn of modern European history. ...
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The golden ratio, also known as the golden proportion, golden mean, golden section, golden number, divine proportion or sectio divina, is an irrational number, approximately 1. ...
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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". This article belongs in one or more categories. ...
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. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...
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. A container or barrier that is hermetic is sealed so that not even air can enter or leave. ...
For other uses, see Alchemy (disambiguation). ...
Hermes Trismegistus (Greek for Hermes the thrice-greatest, Greek: ΕÏμης ο ΤÏισμεγιστος) or Mercurius ter Maximus in Latin, is the syncretism of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian Thoth. ...
Medieval and modern thought The English physician and alchemist Robert Fludd (1574-1637) expicitly based his work Utriusque Cosmi Historia (The history of the two worlds) upon the macro/micro correspondence; as does Sir Thomas Browne in his binary Discourses of 1658: Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial 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. Robert Fludd, also known as Robertus de Fluctibus (1574, Bearsted, Kent – September 8, 1637, London) was a prominent English Rosicrucian and Paracelsian physicist, astrologer, and mystic. ...
Sir Thomas Browne (October 19, 1605 - October 19, 1682) was an English author of varied works that disclose his wide learning in diverse fields including medicine, religion, science and the esoteric. ...
Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial, or a Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns lately found in Norfolk, is a work published in 1658 by Sir Thomas Browne. ...
The Garden of Cyrus or The Quincuniall, or Lozenge, or Network Plantations of the Ancients, naturally, artificially, mystically considered is a work written by Sir Thomas Browne. ...
A quincunx is the arrangement of five units in the pattern corresponding to the five-spot on dice, playing cards, or dominoes. ...
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. For other uses, see Alchemy (disambiguation). ...
For the definition of the word microcosm, see here. ...
See also The family as a model for the organization of the state is a theory in political philosophy. ...
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Surat Shabd Yoga or Surat Shabda Yoga is a form of spiritual practice that is followed in the Sant Mat and many other related spiritual traditions. ...
The Temple of the Rose Cross, Teophilus Schweighardt Constantiens, 1618. ...
The Emerald Tablet, also known as Smaragdine Table, Tabula Smaragdina, or The Secret of Hermes, is an ancient text purporting to reveal the secret of the primordial substance and its transmutations. ...
References - Republic, Plato, trans. By B. Jowett M.A., Vintage Books, NY. § 435, pg 151
Bibliography - Theories of Macrocosms and Microcosms in the History of Philosophy, G. P. Conger, NY, l922, which includes a survey of critical discussions up to l922.
External links - Cosmos - an Illustrated Dimensional Journey from microcosmos to macrocosmos
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