amber and bitumen. As the bladder too produces urine, thus likewise mountains pour forth rivers. And as the body produces excrement of a sulphureous odour, and crepitus which may also be inflamed, so the earth produces sulphur, subterranean fires, thunder, and lightning. And as in the veins of an animal blood is generated, and together with it sweat which is ejected out of the body, so in the veins of the earth, metals, and fossils, and a rainy vapour are generated.”[1] And in cap. 7, p. 162, after having shown that there is in the earth the sense of touching, that it respires, and is subject in certain parts to languors, and internal vicissitudes of the viscera, and that subterranean heat proceeds from the soul of the earth, he adds, “That a certain image of the zodiac is resplendent in this soul, and therefore of the whole firmament, and is the bond of the sympathy of things celestial and terrestrial.”[2]
Bishop Berkeley also was by no means hostile to this opinion, that the world is one great animal, as is evident from the following extract from his Siris, (p. 131).
“Blind fate and blind chance are at bottom much the same thing, and one no more intelligible than the other. Such is the mutual relation, connection, motion, and sympathy of the parts of this world, that they seem, as it were, animated and held together by one soul: and such is their harmony, order, and regular course, as shows the soul to be governed and directed by a mind. It was an opinion of remote antiquity that the world was an animal. If we may trust the Hermaic writings, the Ægyptians thought all things did partake of life. This opinion was also so general and current among the Greeks, that Plutarch asserts all others held the world to be an animal, and governed by providence, except Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus. And although an animal containing all bodies within itself, could not be touched or sensibly affected from without; yet it is plain they attributed to it an inward sense and feeling, as well as appetites and aversions; and that from all the various tones, actions, and passions of the universe, they supposed one symphony, one animal act and life to result.
“Iamblichus declares the world to be one animal, in which the parts, however distant each from other, are nevertheless related and connected by one common nature. And he teaches, what is
- ↑ Videbam pleraque omnia, quæ ex corpore animantis provenientia, testantur auimam in illo inesse, provenire etiam ex telluris corpore. Ut enim corpus in cutis superficie pilos, sic terra plantas arboresque profert; inque iis ibi pediculi, hic erucæ, cicadæ, variaque insecta et monstra marina nascuntur: et ut corpus lachrymas, blenuam, auriumque recrements, est ubi et gummi ex faciei pustulis, sic tellus electrum, bitumen: utque vesica urinam, sic montes flumina fundunt; et ut corpus excrementum sulphurei odoris, crepitusque, qui etiam inflammari possunt, sic terra sulphur, ignes subterraneos, tonitrua, fulgura: utque in venis animantis generatur sanguis, et cum eo sudor, extra corpus ejectus; sic in venis terræ, metalla et fossilia, vaporque pluvias.”
- ↑ “Relucet igitur in anima telluris imago quædam circuli zodiaci sensibilis, totiusque adeo firmamenti, vinculum sympathiæ rerum cælestium et terrestrium.”
