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Macrocosm and microcosm
 
 
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Macrocosm and microcosm is an ancient Greek
Greek philosophy

Greek philosophy focused on the role of reason and inquiry. Many philosophers today concede that Greek philosophy has shaped the entire Western thought since its inception....
 schema of seeing the same patterns reproduced in all levels of the cosmos
Cosmos

In its most general sense, a cosmos is an orderly or harmonious system. It originates from a Greek language term ??s??? meaning "order, orderly arrangement, ornaments," and is the antithetical concept of chaos....
, from the largest scale (macrocosm or universe-level) all the way down to the smallest scale (microcosm or sub-sub-atomic or even metaphysical-level).

ay have begun with Democritus
Democritus

Democritus was an Ancient Greek philosopher born in Abdera in the north of Greece. He was the most prolific, and ultimately the most influential, of the pre-Socratic philosophers; his atomic theory may be regarded as the culmination of early Greek thought....
 in the 5th century BCE or with Pythagoras
Pythagoras

Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionians Ancient Greeks mathematician and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. He is often revered as a great mathematician, mysticism and scientist; however some have questioned the scope of his contributions to mathematics and natural philosophy....
 and is a philosophical conception that runs through Socrates
Socrates

Socrates was a Classical Greece Philosophy. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known only through the classical accounts of his students....
, and Plato
Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
 all the way to the Renaissance
Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe....
.






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Macrocosm and microcosm is an ancient Greek
Greek philosophy

Greek philosophy focused on the role of reason and inquiry. Many philosophers today concede that Greek philosophy has shaped the entire Western thought since its inception....
 schema of seeing the same patterns reproduced in all levels of the cosmos
Cosmos

In its most general sense, a cosmos is an orderly or harmonious system. It originates from a Greek language term ??s??? meaning "order, orderly arrangement, ornaments," and is the antithetical concept of chaos....
, from the largest scale (macrocosm or universe-level) all the way down to the smallest scale (microcosm or sub-sub-atomic or even metaphysical-level).

History

It may have begun with Democritus
Democritus

Democritus was an Ancient Greek philosopher born in Abdera in the north of Greece. He was the most prolific, and ultimately the most influential, of the pre-Socratic philosophers; his atomic theory may be regarded as the culmination of early Greek thought....
 in the 5th century BCE or with Pythagoras
Pythagoras

Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionians Ancient Greeks mathematician and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. He is often revered as a great mathematician, mysticism and scientist; however some have questioned the scope of his contributions to mathematics and natural philosophy....
 and is a philosophical conception that runs through Socrates
Socrates

Socrates was a Classical Greece Philosophy. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known only through the classical accounts of his students....
, and Plato
Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
 all the way to the Renaissance
Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe....
. With Pythagoras
Pythagoras

Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionians Ancient Greeks mathematician and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. He is often revered as a great mathematician, mysticism and scientist; however some have questioned the scope of his contributions to mathematics and natural philosophy....
, the discovery of the golden ratio
Golden ratio

In mathematics and the arts, two quantities are in the golden ratio if the ratio between the sum of those quantities and the larger one is the same as the ratio between the larger one and the smaller....
 and its philosophical conception called the Golden mean
Golden mean

Golden mean may refer to:*Doctrine of the Golden Mean *Golden mean , the felicitous middle between the extremes of excess and deficiency*Golden ratio, a specific mathematical ratio ...
, the Greeks observed the golden ratio in many parts of the ordered universe both large and small. Philosophically, the Greeks were concerned with a rational explanation of everything and saw the repetition of the golden mean throughout the world and all levels of reality as a step towards this unifying theory. 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.

Macrocosm/microcosm is a Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 compound of µa???- "Macro-" and µ????- "Micro-", which are Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 respectively for "large" and "small", and the word κόσμος kósmos
Cosmos

In its most general sense, a cosmos is an orderly or harmonious system. It originates from a Greek language term ??s??? meaning "order, orderly arrangement, ornaments," and is the antithetical concept of chaos....
 which means "order" as well as "world" or "ordered world".

The English physician and alchemist Robert Fludd
Robert Fludd

Robert Fludd, also known as Robertus de Fluctibus was a prominent England Paracelsus physician, astrologer, and mysticism. He was not a member of the Rosicrucians, as often alleged, but he defended their thoughts in the Apologia Compendiaria of 1616....
 (1574-1637) expicitly based his work Utriusque Cosmi Historia (The history of the two worlds) upon the macro/micro correspondence; as did Sir Thomas Browne in his binary Discourses of 1658: Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial
Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial

Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial, or a Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns lately found in Norfolk, is a work by Sir Thomas Browne, published in 1658 as the first part of a two-part work that concludes with The Garden of Cyrus....
 depicts the small, temporal world of man, whilst The Garden of Cyrus
The Garden of Cyrus

The Garden of Cyrus or The Quincunciall, or Lozenge, or Network Plantations of the Ancients, naturally, artificially, mystically considered is a Discourse written by Sir Thomas Browne....
 represents the macrocosm, in which the ubiquitous and eternal quincunx
Quincunx

A quincunx is the arrangement of five units in the pattern corresponding to the five-spot on dice, playing cards, or dominoes. The Quincunx was originally a coin issued by the Roman Republic c.211-200 BC, whose value was five twelfths of an as , the Roman standard bronze coin....
 pattern is discerned in art, nature and the Cosmos.

The great enigma of alchemy
Alchemy

Alchemy , a part of the Occult Tradition, is both a philosophy and a practice with an aim of achieving ultimate wisdom as well as immortality, involving the improvement of the alchemist as well as the making of several substances described as possessing unusual properties....
 is the mystery between the macrocosm and microcosm
Microcosm

Microcosm can refer to:* Macrocosm and microcosm, a philosophical idea* Microcosm , a museum near Geneva, Switzerland* Microcosm , a shoot 'em up by Psygnosis...
. 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. Today, the concept of microcosm has been taken over by sociology
Sociology

Sociology is a branch of the social sciences that uses systematic methods of Empiricism and critical theory to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social structure and activity, sometimes with the goal of applying such knowledge to the pursuit of social welfare....
 to mean a small group of individuals whose behavior is typical of a larger social body encompassing it. A microcosm can be seen as a special kind of epitome
Epitome

An epitome is a summary or miniature form; an instance that represents a larger reality, also used as a synonym for embodiment.Many documents from the Ancient Greek and Ancient Rome worlds survive now only "in epitome," referring to the practice of some later authors who wrote distilled versions of larger works now lost....
. Conversely, a macrocosm is a social body made of smaller compounds.

See also

  • Family as a model for the state
    Family as a model for the state

    The family as a model for the organization of the state is a theory of political philosophy. It either explains the structure of certain kinds of state in terms of the structure of the family , or it attempts to justify certain types of state by appeal to the structure of the family....
  • Golden Mean
    Golden mean

    Golden mean may refer to:*Doctrine of the Golden Mean *Golden mean , the felicitous middle between the extremes of excess and deficiency*Golden ratio, a specific mathematical ratio ...
  • Surat Shabda Yoga
    Surat Shabd Yoga

    Surat Shabd Yoga or Surat Shabda Yoga is a form of Spirituality that is followed in the Sant Mat and many other related spiritual traditions....
  • Rose Cross and Alchemy
    Rosicrucian

    The term Rosicrucian describes a secret society of mystics, allegedly formed in late mediaeval Germany, holding a doctrine "built on esoteric truths of the ancient past", which, "concealed from the average man, provide insight into nature, the physical universe and the spiritual realm....
  • Emerald Tablet
    Emerald Tablet

    The Emerald Tablet, also known as Smaragdine Table, Tabula Smaragdina, or The Secret of Hermes, is a text purporting to reveal the secret of the primordial substance and its Alchemys....
  • Arcology
    Arcology

    Arcology, from the words "architecture" and "ecology," is a set of architectural design principles aimed toward the design of enormous habitats of extremely high human population density....


Bibliography

  • Theories of Macrocosms and Microcosms in the History of Philosophy, G. P. Conger, NY, 1922, which includes a survey of critical discussions up to 1922.


External links

  • - from Digital Nature Agency
  • , in Dictionary of the History of Ideas