A RELIC OF ASTROLOGY. 85 



macrocosm has two luminaries, the sun and moon; man has also 

 two luminaries, the right eye representing the sun, and the left eye 

 the moon. The macrocosm has mountains and hills, man has bones 

 and skin. The macrocosm has heavens and stars, man has a head 

 and ears. The macrocosm has twelve signs of the zodiac; man has 

 them also from the lobe of the ear to the feet, which are called the 

 fishes." Tliis writing dates approximately from the fourth or fifth 

 century. 



The expressions macrocosm and microcosm are frequently met 

 with in astronomical, medical, and theosophical writings of the middle 

 ages; they are found in the works of Paracelsus, Robert Fludd, 

 John Baptist van Helmont, and of Nicolas Culpeper. Shakespeare 

 used one of them ; Menenius says to Sicinius, " If you see this in 

 the map of my microcosm, follow it that I am known well enough 

 too?" (Coriolanus, ii, 1). The phrase "map of my microcosm" 

 obviously refers to the picture of the nude man surrounded by the 

 zodiacal signs. 



This " wicked stupefaction of the mind," astrology, has been 

 kept alive during the past two hundred years largely through the 

 wide popularity of almanacs. From their earliest appearance these 

 useful aids to everyday life have mingled truth with error; and 

 through the prevailing association of astrology with the diseases of 

 man and the means of curing them, they become the vehicles for 

 advertising quack medicines. This feature of almanacs is said to 

 have originated with Francis Moore, whose Vox Stellarum was 

 founded in 1698; but I have found an advertisement of a medical 

 nostrum in the Merlini Anglici Ephemeris of 1671; the "Elixir 

 Proprietatis " is advertised as an " effectual medicine for griping of 

 the guts, putrid Feavers," and other distressing maladies. 



The pictorial representation of the influence of the zodiac on 

 man's anatomy occurs as early as the year 1496, in Gregor Reisch's 

 Margarita PhilosopMca, a famous encyclopaedia that went through 

 many editions. This engraving is amusingly described by Robert 

 Southey in- The Doctor: " There Homo stands, naked but not 

 ashamed, upon the two Pisces, one foot upon each; the fish being 

 neither in the air, nor water, nor upon the earth, but self -suspended, 

 as it appears, in the void. Aries has alighted with two feet on 

 Homo's head, and has sent a shaft through the forehead into his 

 brain. Taurus has quietly seated himself across his neck. The 

 Gemini are riding astride, a little below his right shoulder. The 

 whole trunk is laid open, as if part of the old accursed punishment 

 for high treason had been performed upon him. The Lion occupies 

 the thorax as his proper domain and the Crab is in possession of the 

 abdomen. Sagittarius, volant in the void, has just let fly an arrow. 



