The influence of Archetypical Ideas on the Scientific Theories of Kepler
The physicist Pauli, recipient of the Nobel
Prize in1945, discusses the polemic between the 17th century
scientist Kepler and the alchemist Robert Fludd. He demonstrates the
irreconcilability of scientific and alchemical premises in the late
Renaissance, shown particularly in the discrepancies of the symbols used by
these two authors. Translated by Priscilla Silz.
5.
The next step in Kepler’s hierarchical
arrangement of the cosmos, which we have already traced from the trinitarian
Godhead and the ideas in the Mind of God through their spherical model down to
the physical world, the sun, and the heavenly bodies revolving about it, lead
us now to the individual souls.
We have already said that for Kepler the earth
is a living thing like man. As living bodies have hair, so does the earth have
grass and trees, the cicadas being its dandruff; as living creatures secrete
urine in a bladder, so do the mountains make springs; sulfur and volcanic
products correspond with excrement, metals and rainwater to blood and sweat;
the sea water is the earth’s nourishment. As a living being the earth has a
soul, the anima terrae, with qualities that can be regarded as to a
large extent analogous to those of human soul, the anima hominis. We can
therefore understand by individual soul the anima terrae and the souls
of the planets as well as the human souls. At the same time the anima terrae
is also a formative power (facultas formatrix) in the earth’s interior
and expresses, for example, the five regular bodies in precious stones and
fossils. In this Kepler follows views also held by Paracelsus. The latter had
employed the concept of the “Archaeus” as a formative principle of nature
which, as signator, also creates signaturae. As a matter of fact
Kepler admitted in his dispute with Fludd that the latter could also call the anima
terrae “Archaeus” if he preferred that. It is important that in a Kepler’s
view the anima terrae is responsible for the weather and also for a
meteoric phenomena. Too much rain, for instance, is an illness of the earth.
Now Kepler’s characteristic basic idea
concerning the individual soul is that is, as an image of God however imperfect,
partly a point and partly a circle: “anima est punctum qualitativum”. This
theory goes back to neo-Platonic and neo-Pythagorean philosophers of late
antiquity, in whose works similar ideas can be found.
Which functions of the soul can are attributed
to the central point and which to the peripheral circle is somewhat doubtful
matter. In general the contemplative and imaginative functions are assigned to
the point, the active and motor effects on the body to the circle. The later,
however, is also supposed to correspond to the faculty of ratiocinatio,
reflection and logical conclusion. The process of the issuing forth of the soul
from the central point to the periphery of the circle is often compared by
Kepler to the emanating of flame. He also emphasizes expressly the analogy of
this movement to the rays of light streaming from the sum as a centre, thus
also establishing a connection with the radii that issue from the central point
to see this process of emanation of the soul from the point to the circle as
analogous to the extraversion of modern psychology, from the point of view of
which creation, in Kepler’s system of ideas, would be the divine model whereas
the being of God would have to be regarded as the model of introversion.
The following passage from Harmonices mundi
should make Kepler’s view clear:
Firstly, the soul has the
structure of a point in actuality (at least by reason of its conjunction with
its body), and the figure of a circle in potentiality. Now, since it is energy,
it pours itself forth from that puncti-form abode into circle. Whether it is
obliged to perceive external things that surround it in spherical fashion or
whether it must govern the body (the body, too, lies round about it), the soul
itself is hidden within, rooted in its fixed point whence it goes out into the
rest of the body by a semblance of itself. But how should it go out if not in a
straight line (for that is truly a “going out”) How should it have any other
way of going out, being itself both light and flame, than as the other lights
go out from their sources, that is, in straight lines. It goes out, then, to
the exterior of the body according to the same laws by which surrounding lights
of the firmament come in towards the soul that resides in point.
With this conception of the soul both as a
point and a circle are connected Kepler’s special views on astrology, to the
discussion of which he specifically devoted the treatise Tertius
interveniens. Here Kepler intervenes as a third party in the dispute
between H. Roslinus, representing the point of view of traditional astrology,
and P. Feselius, who disparages all astrology as superstition, in order to
oppose to both authors his own essentially divergent point of view. On the
first leaf of the book, immediately
after the title, appears the commentary: “A warning to sundry Theologos,
Medicos, and Philosophos, in particular to D. Philipus Feselius, that they
should not, in their just repudiation of star-gazing superstition, throw out
the child with the bath and thus unknowingly act in contradiction to their
profession”. Kepler also formulates his ideas on astrology in his earlier
treatise on the new star, arguing there against Pico della Mirandola, and, in
conclusive fashion, reverts once more to the subject in his chief work, Harmonices
mundi.
In what follows
we shall first attempt – setting aside the question of the objective
validity of astrological statements – to characterize Kepler’s integration of
his own astrology, so different from the usual kind, into the whole system of
his ideas on natural science, which are what interests us here.
According to Kepler, the individual soul, which
he calls vis formatrix or matrtix formativa, possesses the
fundamental ability to react with help of the istinctus to certain
harmonious proportions which correspond to specific rational divisions of the
circle. In music this intellectual power reveals itself in the perception of
euphony (consonance) in certain musical intervals, an effect that Kepler thus
does not explain in a purely mechanical way. Now the soul is said to have a
similar specific reactability to the harmonious proportions of the angels which
the rays of stellar light, striking the earth form with each other. It
is with these, in Kepler’s opinion, that astrology should concern itself. According
to him, then, the stars exert no special remote influence, since their true
distances are of no importance to astrology and only their light rays can be
regarded as effective. The soul knows about the harmonious proportions through
the instinctus without conscious reflection (sine ratiocinatione)
because the soul, by virtue of its circular form, is an image of God in Whom
these proportions and the geometric truths following there-from exists from all
eternity. Now since the soul, in consequence of its circular form, has
knowledge of these, it is impressed by the external forms of configurations of
rays and retain a memory of them from its very birth. I cite Kepler’s words on
this:
I speak here as do the
astrologers. If I should express my own opinion it would be that there
is no evil star in the heavens, and this, among others, chiefly for the
following reasons: it is the nature of man as such, dwelling as it does here on
earth, that lends to the planetary radiations their effect on itself; just as
the sense of hearing, endowed with the faculty of discerning chords, lends to
music such power that it incites him who hears it to dance. I have said much on
this point in my reply to the objection of Doctor Roslin to the book On the
New Star and in other places, also in Book IV of the Harmonices, passim,
especially Chapter 7.
For, the punctum naturale
(the natural soul in every human being or also in the terrestrial globe itself)
has as much power as a real circulum. In puncto inest circulus in
potentia propter plagas unde adveniunt radii se mutuo in hoc puncto secants.
The natural soul of man is not
larger than a single point; and upon these points the shape and character of
the whole heaven, be it hundred times as large as it is, are imprinted tentialiter.
The nature of the soul behaves
like a point; for this reason it can also be transformed into the points of the
confluxus radiorum.
The soul, according to Kepler, contains the
idea of the zodiac within itself by virtue of its inherent circular form; but
it is the planets, and not the fixed stars, which (through the intermediary of
light) are the effective vehicles of astrological influence. The “distribution
of the twelve signs among the seven planets” is for him fable; yet the doctrina
directionum, he thinks, is based on good reason since it emphasize tha
harmonious combination of two rays of light that is called an “aspect”.
…
(“The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche”. C. G. Jung: SYNCHRONICITY – An Acausal Connecting Principle; W. Pauli: The Influence of Archetypical Ideas on Scientific Theories of Kepler; BOLLINGEN FOUNDATION – PANTHEON BOOKS 1955)
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