CHAPTER XV.

THE CHARGES AGAINST FLUDD BY GASSENDI, AND fludd’s reply in his ‘‘CLAVIS.”
1630 — Gassendi — Fludd charged with holding the Bible as an Alchemical Work — The “Stone Catholic” — Soul of the World — Breath of Angels — 1633 — The“Clavis” — The Title — The Opponents dealt with — Alchemy really the division of the true from the false — in the Laboratory of Nature — ever going on — “Tabernacle” of God in the Sun — Fludd and Evolution — •“ Chemists ” succeed “Alchemists” — Fludd and Kepler — Kepler’s “ Harmonices,” 1619 — Fludd criticises twenty-six passages — The Answer, and the “ Mono- chordum ” — Kepler’s Discoveries — Contrast — Cosmic Harmonies interest both — Music to us a Divine Refrain.
already stated, Gassendi published his charges again.st Fludd in the year 1630. These are six in number. He charges Fludd with holding that the whole of scripture refers to alchemy and alchemical principles. The sense of the Bible is just the history of alchemy, and the secrets of the Cabalistic art are the foundation of it. It is of no con- sequence what form of religion is professed, whether it be Roman, Lutheran, or any other. That only is Catholic which relates to the “ Stone Catholic.” By that philosophic art, devils are commanded, good spirits evoked, and the innumerable secrets of nature laid bare. This is the first charge. The second is that the Deity being light pervading and giving life to all things, He enters not in anything unless a mask of the object is adopted as the medium in which he fixes.” This aura, the infinite, ethereal Spirit, is the spring of “ moving spirits.” God is identical with this supreme Spirit. The sun is the “ material nucleus, the
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lucid, conflux spot,” stored with vigour, sensitiveness, and intelligence.” From this “ blaze of power,” life vibrates from the centre to the circumference. God thus appears to be identical with matter. Thirdly, the soul of the world “ is the general investment ” of “ divine movement.” The purer part is of the breath of the angels. The anima mundi is the flaming spiritual region, in which all things live.” Though daemons are portions of life, yet, being buried or lost, are chained in inapprehensive matter.” “ All particular ' sentiences,’ whether of the brutes or man, are nothing other than parts of the whole lucid spirit. Of the same soul (in essence) is the Archangel Michael or Mitra- tron. Also, all the angels in their sevenfold regions, both of the bad and of the good, of the dexter and of the sinister sides of creation.” In the fourth place, what seems more wonderful, is that this same soul of the world is the Messiah Saviour, Christ, the corner stone of the universal “ petra,” upon which the Church and the whole salvation of men is founded. This is the true beatitude — the “ philoso- pher’s stone” or “foundation” — which, shining in “ glorifled agony,” is said to be the very “ blood ” of Christ, which He shed, and by which we are redeemed — not human blood, but a divine and mystic thing. Fifthly, the “just man” is the alchymist, who, having found the real “ stone,” becomes immortal. “To die is simply the falling asunder and dis- integration of the mechanism of the senses,” which, by contraction, have formed the prison of the soul. From the bars of the prison windows, through the eyes, the suffering, languishing spirit looks for the releaser — death. Those who have passed from death to life are the “ Fratres Crucis Rosese,” who know all things, are able for all things, and have that same mind in them which was in Christ Jesus. In the sixth place, creation is not the production of some- thing out of nothing. Matter, which the wise call darkness, may properly be called “ nothing.” Thus God is said to make something out of nothing, meaning that he worked with material from darkness, “ the blank side, or the other
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side of light, turned away.” Moses, when he described the creation of the world, referred to a divine alchemy.^
In the year 1633, Flndd published his “ Clavis Philoso- phife et Alchyniise Fluddanse ” — his final answer to Mersenne, Lanovius, and Gassendi. On the title is the print from the same block which is found on the “Summum Bonum,” the bees and rose, with the motto, “ Dat Rosa Mel Apibus.” The motto on the title-page is Super Omnia Vincet Veritas.” The treatise (in folio) extends to 87 pages. It is divided into four parts or members. The first three deal with Mersenne, Lanovius, and Gassendi respectively. The fourth member is divided into two portions, the first of these into six subsidiary parts. The second division, again, treats of the divine and mystic alchemy by which God operates through His divine word in the macrocosm and microcosm. A note by the printer to the reader follows, in which reference is again made to the charge of caco-magism in connection with the weapon salve.
Fludd takes up the texts of his three opponents piece by piece, answering each. The charges have been already referred to. After answering them, Fludd declares how God by His word or wisdom, the corner stone, and Christ by the divine alchemy, made or built the world or macro- cosm, and in that world settled all things in proper form. First of all he explains what he meant by this divine alchemy. It is the purification of nature, the separation of the true from the gross, by a method of purgation. Others, indeed, teach that it is by a transformation, not by a separation, that the divine change was made. Alchemy is the division of the pure and true from the impure and false, clear light from darkness, sin and vice from goodness and virtue. Thus are the true gold and silver separated from the vile things of this world. Alchemy is a part of natural philosophy. The human body, in its sickness and ignorance, is well typified by metal in its crude state. All art is the “ simia,” the ape or imitation of nature. The ^ See Jennings’ Rosicrueians, 2nd ed., 337-342.
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labour of the alchemist is a type of the work of the divine spirit. The effect of the sun and the force of the winds in like manner typify spiritual grace and motion. In the next chapter, Fludd shows how the operation alchemical has been going on in the laboratory of nature since the very beginning. All labour and alteration is wrought by the word and wisdom of God — the precious stone, which is Christ. A long series of passages from holy scripture are given. “ I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation.” This is Christ. Wisdom is the breath of the power of God, and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty. Here, therefore, Fludd exclaims, ‘‘ is the true theo- philosophic stone, by means of which all animal, vegetable, and mineral existence is blessed and multiplied. Amongst the rest, man, super-excellent, in whose soul is the fixed gold, and by the stone divine he is exalted, purified, and raised to eternal life.” Thus does the mystic alchemy penetrate and work in the macrocosm to the perfection of its fabric. “ The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.” The spirit is the divine and supernatural agent. It is that aa*ent which, quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, pierced even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow. The waters were divided, those above pure, and those below heavier, and this, S. Peter says, was done by the word of God. The chemistry of nature shows that the tabernacle of the divine spirit is in the sun. His word runneth very swiftly. He giveth snow like wool, ice like morsels. Again, He sendeth forth His wind and melteth them, and the waters flow. Thus is the divine alchemy seen. It is secret, indeed, but real. The brethren of the Rosy Cross, therefore, mean something very different from what Mersenne, Lanovius^ and Gassendi would suggest. Not the gold sought after by the vulgar herd, or such silver, nor the common fire, are meant by them. By progress in virtue, by sublimation, by
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tears, by the inhaling of the divine breath of God, thus will the soul be sublimated, rendered subtile, able clearly to contemplate God, be conformed to a likeness with the angels ; thus apparently dead, lifeless stones become living and philosophic stones. Such are the opinion and methods of the brethren ; such is the alchemy and process referred to in their confession. Why, then, are the Rosicrucians persecuted by the world ? Because wisdom is, according to her name, to the unlearned unpleasant. She is not manifest to many, and is rather like a heavy stone pressing down the ignorant. After referring to some other objections by Mersenne, Fludd concludes : — “ Quare nec odio, nec malevo- lentia, in te commoveor, set potius fraterna pietate com- pulsus mentem tibi saniorem in corpore sano ex corde precor.”
Fludd had got hold of a great truth when he spoke of the formation of the world as taking place through the evolutions in a great laboratory. The idea that all created things had been called into existence by a sudden fiat of the Eternal, and that all things exist now as they then were called into sudden and perfect existence, is now ex- ploded. The researches of the chemists (who succeeded the older alchemists) into the secrets of nature, prove the certainty of this view. Labouring under great difiiculties and misrepresentations, we can now see that Fludd had attained a point in knowledge higher than his opponents. The earth had developed. This, indeed, was wrought by the Divine Word in the divine wisdom. The Corner Stone, Christ, ivas the true Philosopher s Stone, and had its effect in both macrocosm and microcosm.
The discussion between Fludd and Kepler was of another nature. Kepler’s “ Harmonices Mundi, Lib. V.,” was issued in 1619, and in it he attacked Fludd’s system of natural philosophy as displayed in the “ Historia Utriusque Cosmi.” Twenty-six passages are taken up and criticised by Fludd in his “ Veritatis Proscenium seu Demonstratio Analytica,” issued in 1621. At the end of this treatise,
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which extends to fifty-four pages, Fludd gives an epitome of his physical harmony of the universe, and adds a com- parative harmony of his “ Mundana ” with that of Kepler, wherein they agree and wherein they differ. The treatise was answered by Kepler, and he again re-answered by Fludd in his “ Monochordum Mundi Symphoniacum,” issued from Frankfort in 1623. The Monochordum ” is issued as part of the “ Anatomim Amphithreatrum,” and shares its pagination, 238-331. Prefixed is an address to Kepler, “the most famous and the most excellent.” The great discovery by Kepler was, of course, the fact that “ the orbit of a planet is not a circle but an ellipse, the sun being in one of the foci, and the areas swept over by a line drawn from the planet to the sun are proportional to the times. These constitute what are now known as the first and second laws of Kepler. Eight years subsequently he was rewarded by the discovery of a third law, defining the relation between the mean distances of the planets from the sun and the times of their revolutions ; ‘ the squares of the periodic times are proportional to the cubes of the dis- tances.’ This he revealed in his ‘ Epitome of the Coper nican System,’ published in 1618.” ^
In some respects the minds of Kepler and Fludd were cast in the same mould. “ Kepler had a particular passion for finding analogies and harmonies in nature, after the manner of the Pythagoreans and Platonists ; and to this disposition we owe such valuable discoveries as are more than sufficient to excuse his conceits.” ^ He adopted, of course, the heliocentric theory. On the other hand, Fludd seems to have had a deeper impression of the nearness of the Divine Architect in “ nature’s marvels.” This led him to fail to realise the vastness of the universe, and the extra- ordinary discoveries which were then being made in the science of astronomy. Fludd’s mind was essentially theological and devout. Every act in nature and in life
^ Draper, Conflict of Religion and Science, pp. 230-1,
2 Chalmers’ Biog. Die., xix. 334,
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was to him the result of divine and immediate law, ad- ministered by multitudes of existences. He denied the diurnal revolutions of the earth, and considers the light of the stars to be derived from the one ' heavenly candle ’ of the sun.” Fludd’s idea is that God works directly ; that He is “ all in all.” By Ethnick Philosophy ” he “ means that God only works in the world by second causes, which . at last he declares to have been the doctrine of Aristotle and his followers, but not that of Plato, Empedocles, and Heraclitus.” ^
It has been well said that “ it was music and philosophy which really interested Kepler, rather than the patient and careful observation of nature, which occupied his friend Tycho.” ^ Fludd gives various diagrams displaying his ideas of the cosmic harmony. The ancient Greeks held “ that the planets, in their revolutions round the earth, uttered certain sounds, differing according to their respective ‘ magnitude, celerity, and local distance.’ Thus Saturn, the farthest planet, was said to give the gravest note ; while the moon, which is the nearest, gave the sharpest. ‘ These sounds of the seven planets, and the sphere of the fixed stars, together with that above us, are the nine muses, and their joint symphony is called Mnemosyne.’ Pliny (Book iii., c. 22) says — ‘ Saturn moveth by the Doric tone. Mercury by Pthongus, Jupiter by Phrygian, and the rest likewise.’ The Pythagorean harmony consisted of three concords, called Diapente, Diatessaron, and Diapason.” ^ With some modifications, this appears to have been the opinion of Fludd. Kepler, again, was more occupied in proving that “ the universe was composed by the five regular solids.” ^ But his rule did not properly apply to the proportions of the cosmos. The relative proportions of the circles, he imagines, “ have no agreement with the orbits of the planets whose names they bear, but every circle, either in
its diameter or circumference, represents a cosmic measure.”^
^ Hunt’s Essay on Pantheism, 241.
- Canon of all Arts, 266. ^ Canon of all Arts, 260.
^ Canon of all Arts, 264. Canon of all Arts, 265.
1^2 DOCTOR ROBERT FLUDP,
Fludd agreed with the poet who say3~
There’s not the smallest orb that thou behold’st,
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims :
Such harmony is in immortal souls ;
But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.”
Music, as we know and enjoy it, is but the dim refrain of that sacred harmony which moves all things, and which is itself but the outer voice of the eternal hymn sung before the throne of God.
Hie autem monochordum mundanum cumfuisproportiombus, confc cianciis &: mcervaliis cxadiuscompofmimu, GujusmotorcnicxcramunduraclTc