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Dictionary of the History of Ideas

Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas
  
  
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6. Henceforth, the cosmos definitively entered the
historical scene. Newton's system was the last to have
placed the “Harmony of the World” outside of time,
installed and maintained by God, and transfigured by
him on the “Last Day.” Now, among Newton's disci
ples there was a slipping away; for the majority of
minds curious about astronomy the fate of the universe
was being progressively consummated in time.

As we have already indicated, starting from the
middle of the eighteenth century there occurred a
return of the imagination in favor of a cyclical concep-
tion of that destiny (such as Vico had just installed in
human history). The “Eternal Return” may be a way
of saving Parmenidean changelessness, but such was
not the case with the men of that century, for it was
the life cycle that mattered to them; we shall come
back to this matter. Euler's calculations (Mémoire,
1746) on the progressive recession of the orbits of the
planets provided an astronomical excuse for reviving
an obscure desire. The idea spread that the planets of
each system would return to the sun, and the latter
to the “Sun of Suns,” which periodically would absorb
them, and then would disperse new worlds into space.
Thus Unity alternated with Diversity. This obsession
was exceptionally strong in the troubled time of the
turn of the eighteenth into the nineteenth century, and
inspired such visionaries as Delisle de Sales, Restif de
la Bretonne, and Fabre d'Olivet; it was also to give
birth to its masterpiece, the Eureka (1848) of Edgar
Allan Poe. In this work, the cyclical idea retained only
a minimal relation to obscure pulsations, and assumed
a maximum of aesthetic satisfaction. Poe's idea of the
cosmos as a poem inspired him with a pure intellectual
joy resembling Kant's. What constituted Poe's delight
was the law of Reciprocal Adaptation in virtue of
which cause and effect flow into each other and be-
come indiscernible. The Circle of Perfection was re-
established on an intellectual plane. “Beauty is truth,
truth beauty,” and that is all there is to know. Diversity
was integrated with Unity in the form of the greatest
possible totality of relationships in continuous growth
until they are resolved. Matter was integrated with
energy and the latter with pure Spirit. Finally the
yearning to return to the Source was sublimated here
into a mystical unity.