book closes.

The next book, of about thirty pages, treats De Musica mundana.”
The music of the spheres,” the idea of the Pythago- reans, of which Aristotle^ says “ that the noise caused by the movement of the heavenly bodies is so prodigious and continuous that, being accustomed to it from our birth, we do not notice it.” Plato, in his Republic,”^ speaks of the “ distaff of necessity . . whose spindle and point were
both of adamant,” and that on the circle of each of the ^ Hermes Trig., iii. 3. ^ De Ccelo, ii. 9. ^ x. 14.
72
DOCTOR ROBERT FLUDD.
eight “ was seated a siren, carried round, and uttering one voice variegated by diverse modulations, but that the whole of them, being eight, composed one harmony.” This theory was held by the Eosicrucians, and particularly by Fludd, who, in the part of his work on the “ Cosmos ” under review, gives some veiy curious plates illustrating his ideas. These appear to be that the whole universe is a musical chromatic instrument. Earthly music is only the faint “ tradition of the angelic state ; it remains in the mind of man as a dream of, and the sorrow for, the lost paradise.” The music of the spheres is “ produced from impact upon the paths of the planets, which stand as chords or strings, by the cross travel of the sun from note to note, as from planet to planet.” The music of the spheres is evolved, then, by the ‘‘ combination of the cross movement of the holy light playing over the lines of the planets, light flaming as the spiritual ecliptic, or the gladius of the Archangel Michael to the extremities of the solar system. Thus are music, colour, and language allied.”^
On page 90 of this treatise Fludd gives a diagram illus- trating his meaning. He represents there a sphere covered by a musical instrument with one string or cord, the sun as the centre of the illustration. A number of concentric circles represent the issue of the different notes. The earth is placed at the bottom of the plate, and the string of the instrument is hooked on to a catch flxed ‘‘ in Terra.” The last chapter of this part of the work treats “ He discordis mundanis.” These proceed from the chaotic or frigid spirit. Comets and meteors mar the true music; clouds, snow, hail, prevent it. He ends — Concludimus itaque nostram hanc Musicam mundanam hoc axiomate ; Tonat Sol Diapason suum ad generationem, et tonat terra suum ad coiTup- tionem.”
The next part of the treatise is De creaturis coeli Empyrei.” These are, first of all, Dremons, good and bad. Good, nine in these hierarchies — Seraphim, Cherubim,
^ Jennings, 197-8.
DOCTOR ROBERT FLUDD.
73
Thrones ; Dominions, Virtues, Powers ; Princes, Archangels, Angels. Bad, said by Psellus to be six in kind, though by theologians said to be nine in order. This part of Fludd’s work extends in seventeen chapters to sixty pages.
Of the “ composition” of good Daemons he holds, with Pythagoras, that they are “ lights intellectual.” He quotes Dionysius and Jamblicus to show that Dmmons are formed of the most subtile of those elements which heaven afibrds, in a divine form, with something of the splendour of the Deity. Ancient wisdom divided Daemons into three “ genera ” — praecelestes, ccelestes et rerum inferiori, ministri.” They are called by Jamblicus, ministers of the gods, but may in a sense be themselves called gods. But the term “ minister ” is more properly applied to the lesser orders.
Lucifer in rebellion and pride against God, is the subject of another chapter. He it is who in the Apocalypse, on account of his virulence and craftiness, is called the Dragon and Serpent — the very cacodaemon detained in sub- terranean and dark abode, the very spirit of wickedness. The whole nine orders are described and the names of their princes given — Beelzebub, Python, et mulier Pj^thia apud Samuelem dicitur, quae Pythonem in ventre habuit ” ; Belial, Asmodaeus, Satan, Meririm, Abaddon, Astaroth, Mammon. The places they haunt are also described on the authority of Psellus. Some are watery and sea-forms, frequent rivers and marshes, cause horrible tempests ; some walk about on the earth as in the old days of Job ; some lurk in caverns. Indeed, Fludd seems to think that the darkness of the northern reo-ions has somethin^' to do with the habitation and life of evil spirits. On the authority of Olaus Magnus, the darker parts of the earth are not only full of “ cruel habitations,” but Larvm, Leniures “ sub forma bestiarum,” Satyrs, “ Panes,” Harpies, and a great number — infinite indeed — of Daemons walk about in the tempests of night. It is by the power and wish of Lucifer that snow does not cease nor ice melt in the hyperborean lands.
74
DOCTOR ROBERT FLUDD.
There strange flames and fiery meteors are to be seen, hence the region is called Terra-del-fuogo.” The prince of the power of the air named by S. Paul is the daemon Meririm. Some live in tlie Alps, Apennines, and Pyrenees ; they delight in caverns. The Chinese and inhabitants of Alada- gascar actually worship and do sacrifice to such evil spirits.
In the eighth to the eleventh chapters the cpiestion is put, “ Anima quid ?” and discussed. In answer to the question, Augustine, Damascene, Isodore, Bernard, and other saints and philosophers are quoted and their expli- cation stated. The soul or life principle is explained, in a fivefold sense, to be light divine, a spiritual substance, rational intellect, intellectual spirit, and part of the “ Mens divina.” ‘‘ It is an intellectual spirit, always living, always in motion, and in respect of its diverse operations in the body, it hath divers appellations assigned unto it ; for it is called Life, in regard of its vivificative and vegetative property ; it is called a Spirit, as it is conversant about contemplation, and it is a spiritual substance, and breatheth in the body ; it is called Sense, as it is imploied about the act of sensation ; it is termed Animus, when it operateth in knowledge and wisdom ; and it is termed Mens, in regard to its divine understanding ; and Memory, as it doth remember.”^
The tenth chapter treats of the “ Anima Mundi.” That the world has a soul, Fludd tells us, was the opinion of all the Platonists, of Virgil, of Boethius. As the microcosmos (man) has a soul, so must the macrocosmos have a soul also. This “ supreme intelligence ” is of an angelicall nature ” ; Donum Dei Catholicum ” — “ God is all, and in all, and above all, and that in Him are all things, and in His spirit and word all things consist. God is in everything that existeth, seeing that from Him, b}^ Him, and in Him are all things.” “ He is male and female,” as Svnesius saith ; or, as Mercurius Trismegistus will
' o
have it, “ He is
most abundant in ^ Mosaic. Phil., 150.
each
sex
He
IS
DOCTOR ROBERT ILUDD.
75
puissance and act ; and, finally, He is form, and He is matter.” It is evident that Fludd leans here to what is termed a “ pantheistic” explanation of God in nature. In the work before us he undoubtedly holds, as mentioned before, that all things were “ complicitly and ideally” in God before they were made. The doctrine of Averrhoes, “ that there is in reality but one soul, which is the totality of all individual souls,” was refuted by Albertus Magnus, yet he “ accepted a kind of Platonic emanation of all thino’s from the Godhead.” Erioena held that the universe, having no existence independent of God’s existence, is therefore God, but not the wdiole of God. He is more than the universe, yet the divine nature is truly and properly in all things.^ There is no doubt that Plato’s system tended to regard all beings “ as in some way but one being.” Though unguarded in some of his expressions, Fludd does not embrace the opinion of Cato, “ wheresoever we move, wheresoever we go, whatsoever we see, that is Jupiter.” ^ Fludd would rather have been content to say, with Virgil, “ all things are full of Jupiter.”
The next section of Fludd’s “Historia” refers to the starry heaven, and is entitled, “ He Creaturis coeli ^etherei.” These are spirit, light, stars, and planets. The third chapter treats, “ De earum origine, loco, et diversitate.” This heaven, where the heavenly bodies are, is between ‘‘ the formall or empereall heaven ” and the earth. It was typified by the ‘‘ second part of the Tabernacle, which w'as burnished over with gold, and illuminated with a candlestick of seven lights which doth decypher out the .starry heaven, and has seven erratick lights or planets.”
The sun, Fludd considers, is the centre and fountain of all life, all heat proceeds from it, and there has God placed his tabernacle. It must have a centre, and there God dwells. Divine power issues forth from the sun. Thus “ the heavens declare the glory of God.” The sun is full of essential divinity, and took its origin when the light, which ^ Hunt, Pantheism, 159, 139. “ Hunt, Pantheism, 48.
76
DOCTOR ROBERT FLUDD.
was expansed over all the heavens in place of the sun, was in the fourth day of creation. Congregated into the body of the sun, all the herbs and plants do feel and confess that the sun is the chief cause of life and increase. In the conclusion, Fludd attempts to confute the error ” of Coper- nicus and Gilbert, asserting the diurnal revolution of the earth. Copernicus, in his book, De Revolutionibus,” incontestably established the heliocentric theory, the Pytha- gorean system of astronomy, which held the sun, not the earth, to be the central orb. This showed the infinite distance of the fixed stars, and that the earth was but a point in the heavens. The Ptolemaic or geocentric system, which placed the earth in the central place in the universe, gave man a place of superiority, and was stifldy upheld by the church against the discoveries of Copernicus. The theory of the latter “ seemed to diminish the claims of the earth in the Divine regard. If each of the countless myriads of stars was a sun surrounded by revolving globes peopled with responsible beings like ourselves, if we had fallen so easily and had been redeemed at such a stupendous price as the death of the Son of God, how was it with them ?” ^ It is true that Fludd regarded the sun as the source of continued life and the tabernacle of God, but he did not realise, nor could he, the immensity of space, the magnificent expanse of the universe as known to us — the result of the discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo, and the use of the tele- scope. Holding that all science was comprehended in the Bible, Fludd may be excused if at his time he failed to realise the gi’eater magnificence of discoveries which were then only commencing to revolutionise ancient science and older methods of investigation. Gilbert, whom Fludd calls his colleague, was the most famous and successful of the physicians of Elizabeth’s and James I. reign. He spent eighteen years in preparation and experiment before issuing his work, ‘‘ De Magneti,” which treats “ of the magnet (or loadstone) and magnetical bodies, and of that Great Magnet,
^ Draper, Science and Religion, 168-9.
DOCTOR ROBERT FLUDD.
77
the Earth ” — a book mentioned by Lord Bacon with applause.^
The sixth book, ‘‘ De Macrocosmi,” treats, “ De creaturis coeli elementaris ” — the lower heaven. These creatures are mostly inanimate — metals and minerals, comets, meteors, plants, vegetables, and animate animals.
The seventh and last book of the first part of the “ Historia ” is “ De corporibus imperfecte mixtis ” — clouds, ligditning's and thunder, winds and springs. Thus ends the “ Tractatus Primus.”
^ Chalmers’ Biog. Die., xv. 497-8.