The Contest of Wisdom with Folly

He extracted all of this from Chapter 15 of that same book of ours, at the end of which you can find that experiment concerning wine of which he makes mention. But now he approaches the description of my worldly Harmony under a plurality of names, and not that of Fludd.

Col. 109 & 110.

They compare the whole world to a harmonic monochord, in which the spirit or soul of the world, or rather God himself, placed outside the world, might produce all consonances and make the higher pitches in the creatures that are closer to him, just as he who plays a flute produces higher pitches through the holes that are closer to his mouth, and lower ones through those further away, so that the lowest and most ignoble pitch, approaching more toward the silence and darkness and horror of matter, can represent the earth on account of the excessive density of the air and the assistance of the spirit. For they wish Light to act upon the matter of the world in the way that the human spirit acts upon the air. They say the string is the matter of the world, and the instrument is the monochord, the Macrocosm, in which the scale of musical intervals is arranged, the first of which is G, then A, etc., as is had in the Musical scale. They extend the monochord from the summit of the Empyrean heaven down to the base of the earth, of which if the half part is pressed, a diapason octave is emitted.

He says they extend the monochord from the summit of the Empyrean heaven down to the base. And who are those (my Marin)? Does the single Robert have a plurality in his belly? For I am certain that you never received this from anyone except Robert alone. Why, therefore, do you feign and put forth false Latin in this place by saying extendunt they extend instead of extendit he extends? For I will boldly say this, that you received this division of the monochord from Robert alone and no one else. Why, therefore (oh hypocrite), do you feign and, against your own conscience, are led in all this article against Robert? But I will gird myself for his consequence, which is of this kind.

In the earth they placed coldness, thickness, and weight, which relate to the cold and matter of the lowest region extended up to the Moon as 4 to 3, which is the sesquitertial proportion, because in this region only a fourth part of light and heat is present, so that from water, air, and fire, a diatessaron musical fourth is made, in which the earth is like G in music, or like unity in Arithmetic, or a point in Geometry; for it is the base of the material pyramid, which they wish to touch the Empyrean.

2.

But tell me Marin, who are those who wish the base of the material pyramid to reach up to the Empyrean? Have you ever heard of such a formal and material pyramid from anyone except Robert alone? Why, therefore, did you not write he wishes, but rather they wish? Does this not argue your extraordinary envy toward Robert?

Col. 1556.
Col. 1. 44.

But elsewhere, in the vigor of your calumny, you attribute these pyramids to Fludd, asserting (though rather inconsiderately) in Col. 1556 that the formal and material pyramids of Fludd lack all reason.

Col. 1750.

And elsewhere, you say that you challenge Fludd with all his floods and formal and material pyramids. And elsewhere you do not blush to assert that Fludd has more than sufficiently revealed his ignorance with his upright and inverted pyramids. Now, however, you assign these to a plurality, and the cause of this is ready, namely, because you have nothing with which you can either refute Fludd's pyramidal demonstrations or truly contradict them in any matter. But to the point, he continues thus.

Just as they imagine a formal pyramid of light from the Empyrean to the center of the earth, which is as it were an emanation and representation of divine light: from this it happens that water occupies the place of one tone, as does air, but fire, as the summit of the air, occupies only the place of a semitone: intervals follow up to the Sun, namely the interval of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, and the middle part of the solar heaven enjoying a semitone, which with the tones of the Moon, Mercury, and Venus makes a diapente musical fifth, from which also