Neo-platonism

For the Stoic inheritance see D. R. Olroyd, Some Neo-platonic and Stoic influences in mineralogy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Ambix, 21 (1974) 128 ff. An important paper in this context is also Walter Pagel and Marianne Winder, The Higher Elements and Prime Matter in Renaissance Naturalism and in Paracelsus, Ambix, 21 (1974), 93 IT. 

Olroyd, D. R., Some Neo-platonic and Stoic influences in mineralogy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Ambix, 21 (1974) 128 ff... 

Oldroyd, David R. Some neo-Platonic and Stoic influences on mineralogy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Ambix 21, no. 2-3 (Jul-Nov 1974) 128-156. 

It is not clear what contemporary chemist Balzac actually had in mind concerning this position of Stoic, Neo-Platonic, or Hermetic heritage, which has incidentally led many Christians, such as Giordano Bruno, to the heresy of pantheism. Perhaps he was referring to the physician Pierre Jean Georges Cabanis (1757-1808), as he actually did in his La Messe de I Athee (1836). 

Clarke s reference to eye-beams relies on an understanding of an active eye that emits pneuma to unite with particles projected by the object. This way of seeing also resembles the neo-platonic theory of love - a concept that popular texts, such as The Problems of Aristotle, rendered in elementary form the louer sendeth co[nt]inuall beames of the eie towards that which he loueth. And those beames are like vnto arrowes, because the louer doth dart them into the bodie (sig. Lyv). The evil eye depends on the same principles -vapours are emitted from one person s eye to penetrate the victim s eyes. 

The Hermetic writings formed the basis of the magical tradition in European science. The revival of these mystical and magical ideas received some sympathy from Christian theologians, as miracles were much easier to explain than under the Aristotelian system. The renewed interest in neo-Platonism exerted an influence on many of the later European alchemists and iatrochemists. 

The alchemists of this period who made useful contributions to the development of chemistry were not totally distracted by the attempt to make gold artificially. Most of these workers were iatrochemists, and Paracelsus has already been mentioned (Chapter 2). He too was influenced by the renewed interest in neoplatonism, and he applied the neo-Platonic doctrine of the microcosm and macrocosm to medicine. He saw the human body as a microcosm of all that existed in the universe (the macrocosm), and thus the organs of the body were the equivalents of the stars. Such mystical ideas resulted in Paracelsus concentrating... 

Norberg-Schultz, 1985. This curious affectation might be neo-platonic. Structure is being forced back under the surface of things, leaving only vestiges. 

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