CHAPTER IV.

Of the composition of the Microcosm, that is Man, from the Macrocosm, the great World.

ADAM, the first parent of the whole human kind, was produced and formed by the admirable wisdom, and workmanship of God, as to his Soul and body of the slime or dust of the earth; which slime or dust was such a mass or matter, which had conjoined and composed in itself the universal essence, nature, virtue and propriety of the whole greater world, and of all things which were therein. I say that mass, slime or dust, was a mere quintessence, extracted from every part, from the whole frame of the whole world; from which slime or mass was made such a creature, with its form excepted, being one and the same with the great world, of which it was produced. Hence that creature was called Man, who afterwards, his admirable creation and formation being revealed amongst the wise, was wont most fitly to be called the Microcosm, that is, the little, or less world.

The absolute description, and essential explication of this slime, dust or mass, extracted from the whole macrocosm, we shall find everywhere abundantly and wonderfully declared, alone by Theophrastus Paracelsus in his most excellent writings.

Seeing therefore it is manifest, that every produced and composed thing can take or assume its essence, nature and propriety from nothing else but from that whereof it is made and produced; which even that first Man, as another and later world, made of the former world, by the Ens of that slime, is made partaker of the same essence, nature and propriety, as the Macrocosm had in itself. For the whole great world existing and being compact in that quintessence of extracted slime, forthwith it followed that the whole Macrocosm was complicitly collected and transposed into man, by divine formation, the substance and nature of the Macrocosm remaining nevertheless safe and entire. For such is the condition in the universal production and generation of things, that every like, of itself produceth his like, and that without destruction of its essence and nature.

John 3. That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. — Hence that which hath its original and derivation from God, is the same that God is, — the Spirit or breath of God which is in man immediately proceeds from God: therefore God is of a truth in man by the Ens of inspiration.

That which hath its original and derivation from the world, is the same that the world is. The soul and body of man are immediately taken, extracted, and composed of the world, therefore the world is of a truth in man, by the Ens of slime.

So the first man, made of the Macrocosm, bears in himself the Macrocosm, with the essence and nature of all creatures complicated, collected, and compacted together: yet, nevertheless, he was formed as to his body of the elements and things elementated; as to his soul, of the soul of the Macrocosm, or the Spirit of Nature which contains and comprehends in himself the whole Firmament, with all its stars, and astralic virtues and operations. So it comes to pass that there is nothing without a man in the whole heaven of Nature and in all the elements, with which Man in his composition doth not participate, and is endued with its nature.

But there are two things in which the Microcosm and the Macrocosm differ, and appear to be contrary, to wit, — the form of the person, and the complication of things.

As to the form, it seemed good to divine wisdom, to convert that mass extracted from the Macrocosm, and to be converted into a man, not to put and set it into the form of the Macrocosm, which is round and circular; nor according to the animal form. But it pleased him to erect and apply it to the form of His own Image and similitude; man nevertheless, in the meantime, remaining the Microcosm.

Therefore, this difference does not touch his essence. The form doth not take away the truth of the subject, that man may not be believed to be the Microcosm. See, concerning this, the 'Foundation of Wisdom' by Paracelsus.

As to the complication or composition of all natural things into one body, or into one person, all things cannot be apparent and distinctly known together in a man; one Thing after another, as it is excited and provoked, is manifest and flourisheth in the species, other things in the meantime remaining hidden in the Macrocosm; all things are explicitly existing, living and operating in the species. But in the Microcosm all things are compact and conjoined together.

Moreover, after that Man, the Microcosm was, and held all things now in himself, out of which he was taken, behold the whole plenitude of Nature, as well corporally as spiritually, was conjoined in him, and as a most rich Treasure collected and laid up in one Centre, yet so as Man should be all Things complicitly; and yet none of them all explicitly.

Adam, Protoplastos. — And from this Protoplast, or first formed Man and begetter of all (Adam,) even in like manner are we constituted and formed: not of the same slime or mass as that was in the beginning, whereof Adam was made; but by a mass extracted from the substance of the Microcosm, which we, with Paracelsus, call the Ens of seed, which seed hath and bears in itself complicitly the whole Microcosm, that is, Man, and thence the human offspring, as to the essence, nature and propriety, in all things alike grows and comes forth to its begetter, as a most lively image, which truly could not be done if all these things did not lie hid and extant in the Ens of the seed. Hence every one of us hath the same in himself essentially delivered over to himself by the Ens of the seed from his parent, which the first Man received and had from the extracted Macrocosm by the Ens of Slime, to wit — an elemental body from the Elements, and a soul or Siderean Spirit from the Firmament.