Clifton College Scientific Society. 47 



works rather than of his life, and they sometimes make the 

 most discordant statements. Thus Wood {Athence Oxoni- 

 enses), after accusing him of profanity, adds, 'None hath 

 exceeded more, even to the height of blasphemy ;' while 

 Webster calls him ' one of the most Christian philosophers 

 that ever wi-it.' Fuller {Worthies of England) summarises 

 his account of Fludd's numerous folios in the single sentence, 

 ' His books, written in Latine, are great, many, and mystical. 

 . . . The truth is,' he adds, by way of apologising for 

 knowing nothing of their contents, ' here at home his books 

 ai'e beheld not so good as crystal, which (some say) are 

 prized as precious pearls beyond the seas.' 



Let us now glance rapidly at the main facts of the 

 philosophy of Mudd, and afterwards consider one or other of 

 his works in detail. 



According to Fludd, God is the beginning, the end, and 

 the summation of all things. The act of Creation is the 

 separation of the active principle {Voluntas Divina), repre- 

 sented by light, from the passive -principle (Noluntas Divitia), 

 represented by darkness. By the interaction of these prin- 

 ciples everything is produced. The universe is composed of 

 four worlds : the archetypal world, in which the Deity 

 specially manifests Himself; the angelic, inhabited by angels, 

 who are the direct communicators of the Divine will ; the 

 stellar, containing the planets and all the heavenly bodies ; 

 and, lastly, the earth, and the creatures which inhabit it. 

 These four worlds may be reduced to three — viz., the arche- 

 typal world, the macrocosm, and the microcosm ; or, God, 

 the world, man. The archetypal world is formed of three 

 manifestations of the Deity, represented by the Three Persons 

 of the Trinity. God, in this threefold character, presents 

 the image of a circle (which has ever been the symbol of 

 perfection), ' Cujus centrum est in omnibus, circumferentia 

 extra omnibus.' The greater world, or macrocosm {fiaKpos 

 KoafMos) is an emanation from God, and is divided into three 

 regions, corresj)onding to the Three Persons of the Trinity — 

 viz. the empyreal region, occupied by angels; the ethereal 

 region, or heaven of fixed stars; and the elementary region, 

 occupied by the earth. The lesser world, or microcosm {fxiKpos 

 Koo-fios) is man, because he presents a counterpart of all the 

 parts of the macrocosm. The head corresponds to the em- 

 pyreal heaven, the breast to the ethereal heaven, and the 

 stomach to the elementary region. The different parts of the 

 macrocosm have representatives in the microcosm, and these 

 correspond by the law of sympathy, and necessarily are 



