Idea Ripper // ArchiveCards: 1555 [Live] | Updated: 2026-10-14
Card #c306IR // #c306Verbatim excerpt
Which is called the Earth: and a Soul has been given to them from those sempiternal fires which you call Stars and Constellations; these being spherical and globular bodies, animated with divine Souls, pursue their circling orbits with marvellous celerity.

— Source: Somnium Scipionis (Cicero (Vol. V, with L.O. essay))

[Use when]

When you need pre-modern cosmos-as-alive without romantic fluff.

[Why it matters]

Astronomy as psychology of fire-souls — orbits are living duty, not dead mechanics.

More from Somnium Scipionis

#c303For nothing on earth is more acceptable to that supreme Deity who reigns over the whole Universe, than those assemblages and combinations…When civic order needs a cosmological warrant without a church. #c304Both by thee and all pious persons, the Soul should be retained in the keeping of the body: not without His command, by whom that Soul is…When a tradition forbids self-exit as betrayal of post, not as property crime. #c305The universe consists of nine circles or rather Spheres, all connected together, one of which is celestial and the furthest off, embracing…When modeling nested control planes (outer ring governs).