The dark star

Quare ex particulis hic mundus constat, ac ille


Ex totis, vivis per se, distantibus a se,


Singula nonnulli credunt quoque sidera posse


Dici orbes, terramque appellant sidus opacum,


Cui minimus divum praesit: quia nubibus infra


Imperium teneat, producatque omnia solus,


Corpora, quae aequor habet, tellusque infimus aër:

Umbrarum dominus, simulacraque viva gubernans, 

Cui data sit rerum cura et moderamen earum:

Quae quia non durant, sed tempore corrumpuntur


Exiguo, prope nil possunt, umbraeque vocari.


Hic reor est Pluton, a quo tenebrosa teneri

Regna canunt vates: namque infra nubila nox est,


Supra autem lux clara nitet, splendorque perennis:


Huic igitur, tanquam minimo, Deus ille deorum

Rex genitorque dedit vilissima regna, aliosque


Ut quisque est melior, melioribus addidit astris,


Imperiumque suum natis divisit habendum.

Marcellus Palingenius Stellatus,  Zodiacus vitae (1536), Liber VII

By reason of the fact that this world consists of parts, and that world(*) of wholes, living through themselves, separate from each other, some believe that each star may be said to be a world, and they call the Earth the dark star, over which reigns the least of the gods,(†) for he wields power underneath the clouds, where he alone generates all things, the lord of shadows, governing the living simulacra that are the bodies which exist in sea, on land, and in lower air. To him is given the care and management of these things which, since they do not last, but waste away in a short time, scarcely deserve to be called even shadows. I deem him to be the same Pluto who, so the ancient bards sing, rules the dark kingdom, for underneath the clouds it is night, whereas up above pure light and eternal splendour shine. To him, therefore, as the least of them all, the God of gods, King and Creator, gave the basest realms. The other gods, in order of which was the better, He joined to better stars, dividing the rule of his kingdom among his sons.

* The preceding lines lay out a Platonic hierarchy of Being in descending order, from the higher world of the noumenal to the lower world of the phenomenal, from light to darkness, from indivisible wholes to sundry parts.

† Quoted by Burton in The Anatomy of Melancholy (1.1.2.2): 'The air is not so full of flies in summer as it is at all times of invisible devils: this Paracelsus stiffly maintains, and that they have every one their several chaos; others will have infinite worlds, and each world his peculiar spirits, gods, angels, and devils to govern and punish it. Singula nonnulli credunt . . .  Cui minimus divum praesit.'

Words and things

I wish you to write a book on the power of words, and the processes by which human feelings form affinities with them—in short, I wish you to philosophize Horn Tooke’s system, and to solve the great Questions—whether there be reason to hold, that an action bearing all the semblance of pre-designing Consciousness may yet be simply organic, & whether a series of such actions are possible—and close on the heels of this question would follow the old “Is Logic the Essence of Thinking?” in other words—Is thinking impossible without arbitrary signs? &—how far is the word “arbitrary” a misnomer? Are not words &c parts & germinations of the Plant? And what is the Law of their Growth?—In something of this order I would endeavour to destroy the old antithesis of Words & Things, elevating, as it were, words into Things, & living Things too. 

 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, letter to William Godwin, September 1800