Great world and little world

Meaning

The alchemist praises Nature as mother and ruler of the great world, created for the human being, the little world. These German expressions ground the editorial access terms macrocosm and microcosm. The correspondence does not erase distinctions of agency. The same speech assigns elemental and bodily formation to Nature but says that God works beyond her in giving the immortal rational soul. The human little world concentrates lower degrees of existence, growth, and sensation while exceeding Nature's operation in that particular respect. The language is spoken by the answering alchemist; it is not an unmarked continuation of Nature's own speech.