Harvey, then, and other naturalists of the time, including Cæsalpinus and after a fashion even Descartes, followed the medieval world and Aristotle in deriving the source of motion directly from the spheres. Harvey says with Dante, “Questi nei cuor mortali è permotore.” The attraction exercised by external supreme mind (not associated with matter) and its thoughts bring the material cosmos and its parts into regular movements. The so-called Αἰθήρ, or fifth element, “στοιχεῖον ἕτερον τῶν τεσσάρων, ἀκήρατόν τε καὶ θεῖον” (De Cælo, cap. 2 and vid. Zeller II. ii. 437), under the name of the Quintessence, played a large part in the speculations of Lulli, Paracelsus and other chemical mystics. Till Copernicus transfigured the cosmos, and Galileo and Newton carried terrestrial physics into the celestial world, the heavenly bodies were regarded as animated beings, themselves set in motion by spheres, and, by propagation of their intense activity from sphere to sphere, animating all sublunary matter, wheels within wheels, even to its innermost particles. Aristotle’s view (Metaph. XI.) was as follows:—The stars and planets are in their nature eternal essences; that which moves them must itself be eternal, and prior and external to that which it causes to be moved; likewise that which is prior to essence must itself be essence; and so on for a hierarchy of eternal essences: thus Heaven if not God is a divine embodiment (Θεῖον σῶμα); and this πρῶτον τῶν σωμάτων he regarded as the essence of heaven and stars, and the cause of animal heat in living beings. Thus the transition from Aristotle to the later conception of the celestial bodies as themselves animated beings was easy; indeed the attribution of intelligence to the spheres goes back at any rate to Plato (Timæus), if not to Pythagoras; and was the foundation of astrology. In Harvey’s time there was still in Rome a basilica of the Seven Angels (the planetary essences). Much of this doctrine Harvey probably got from Cicero (Acad. I. ii. 39 and De Fin. IV. 5-12; vid. Krische), who speaks of “ardor cœli” as the whole astral sphere. If I am not mistaken Harvey somewhere advises Aubrey to study Cicero. Matthew Arnold thus regrets the old illusion:— And you, ye stars! * * * * * You too once lived— You too moved joyfully Among august companions In an older world, peopled by Gods, In a mightier order, The radiant, rejoicing, intelligent Sons of Heaven! But now you kindle Your lonely, cold shining lights, Unwilling lingerers In the heavenly wilderness, For a younger, ignoble world. And renew by necessity, Night after night your courses, * * * * * Above a race you know not, Uncaring and undelighted[33].