Microcosm from anaximandros to paracelsus biography

"Macrocosm" and "microcosm" are philosophical terms referring, respectively, to the world as a whole and to some part, usually man, as a model or epitome of it.

According to one version of this ancient analogy, man and the universe are constructed according to the same harmonic proportions, each sympathetically attuned to the other, each a cosmos ordered according to reason. By an imaginative leap, the universe itself was thought to be, like man, living and conscious, a divine creature whose nature is reflected in human existence.

Microcosm from anaximandros to paracelsus biography in pdf

Animism and panpsychism also regard the world as alive throughout, but the microcosm idea is distinct in emphasizing the unity or kinship of all life and thought in the world. If man is the microcosm of the universe, then not only is everything animated by some soul or other, but there is one world soul by which everything is animated.

Thus, the followers of Pythagoras and Empedocles held, according to Sextus Empiricus, that "