Premodern thinkers conceived the cosmos as a living male-female animal

Evidence

The organic unity of the cosmos derived from its conception as a living animal. A vast organism, everywhere quick and vital, its body, soul, and spirit were held tightly together. As Della Porta put it, “The whole world is knit and bound within itself: for the world is a living creature, everywhere both male and female, and the parts of it do couple together … by reason of their mutual love.” — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 449

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The female earth was central to premodern organic cosmology — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 61; Premodern Europeans personified nature as a female being of many guises — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 70; Premodern nature was a female imagined alternately as nurturing mother and wild disorder — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 77 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoplatonic cosmology retained a female world-soul as the source of natural motion #corroborates (0.85) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 458
• Copernicus’s cosmology displaced the female earth for a masculine sun #qualifies (0.78) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 539