microcosmn.

a1475 (?a1430) J. Lydgate tr. G. Deguileville Pilgrimage Life Man (Vitell.) 12370 Merveylle nat..That thow be let in thy vyage..Syth ‘Mycrocosme’, men the calle; And microcosme ys a word Wych clerkys calle ‘the lasse world’.

c1600 Return: 1st Pt. i. i, in Three Parnassus Plays (1949) 149 What an vnmanerlie microcosme was this swine faced clowne?

1603 H. Crosse Vertues Common-wealth sig. C2^v This little microcosmie is vpheld by Temperance.

1604 King James VI & I Counterblaste to Tobacco sig. B3 The diuers parts of our Microcosme or little world within our selues.

1625 J. Hart Anat. Urines i. i. 2 God..at last made man, that microcosme, or little world, as it were an epitome or abridgment of this great vniuersall world.

1663 B. Gerbier Counsel to Builders 34 The Dimensions the Creator hath been pleased to give to the Microcosme Man.

1727 D. Defoe Syst. Magick i. ii. 47 Among these, some studied the Microcosm of human Bodies, and searcht both Distemper and Medicin.

a1777 S. Foote Devil upon Two Sticks (1778) i. 2 Woman..is a microcosm, and rightly to rule her requires as great talents, as to govern a state.

1839 H. Hallam Introd. Lit. Europe III. iii. 154 The doctrine of a constant analogy between universal nature, or the macrocosm, and that of man, or the microcosm.

1854 J. S. Bigg Night & Soul viii. 103 Each man a microcosm of the whole, Of all that is, or can be, here below, Or in the great hereafter.

1870 Amer. Naturalist 4 347 When mankind observe the true equilibrium of order, the race is justly represented and designated a microcosm.

1875 Catholic World Oct. 5 There are no two human microcosms in which the elements of the confusion introduced into them by the original infidelity exist in the same proportion.

1910 Encycl. Brit. I. 520/1 The conception of man, the microcosm, containing in himself all the parts of the universe or macrocosm, is also Babylonian.

1925 G. K. Chesterton Everlasting Man i. i. 34 Man is the microcosm; man is the measure of all things.

a1933 J. Galsworthy End of Chapter (1934) iii. xxv. 773 One's alone from birth to death, except for that fine old companion the Universe—of which one is the microcosm.

1991 E. S. Connell Alchymist's Jrnl. (1992) 203 Therefore Man rightly has been named Microcosm, formed upon the image of a Creator, and the abrége of His work.

1601 T. Powell Passionate Poet sig. E2 Art out of sound inuention, Contriu'd to abrogate her owne suspension, Applying colour of the deepest graine, That euer did this Microcosme sustaine.

1611 S. Page in T. Coryate Crudities sig. F8^v It better sate With his proiection and intendments wise, To turne his Microcosme all into eyes.

1629 W. D. in W. Mure True Crucifixe Pref. Verses sig. *3 When yee see a Microcosme to swim, at every stroake the Crucifixe doe limme In your Braines Table.

1635 Lieut. Hammond Relation Surv. W. Counties in Camden Misc. (1936) XVI. iii. 80 After the refreshment heere of my weary'd Microcosme in the Royall Bath..Away I iourney'd through the same Shires.

a1680 S. Butler Genuine Remains (1759) II. 83 He puts both Ends of his Microcosm in Motion, by making Legs at one End, and combing his Peruque at the other.

1705 E. Ward Fair Shell but Rotten Kernel i. 22 When his watchful Eye the Danger found, That did his crooked Microcosm surround, Sunk with Despair, he shook his thoughtful Head,..And to the Traytor's Sanctuary fled.

1769 T. Smollett Hist. & Adventures Atom I. 89 The terrors of Fika-ka had already cost him two pair of trunk hose, which were defiled by sudden sallies or irruptions from the postern of his microcosm.

1845 Jrnl. Statist. Soc. 8 241 That intention..shakes his single state of man, i.e., convulses his [sc. Macbeth's] little microcosm so much, that ‘function is smothered in surmise’, i.e., his natural functions are impeded.

1928 M. Connolly Mr. Blue ii. 23 It did not discourage Blue to tell him that to the millions of human microcosms that crawled up and down at the foot of his skyscraper the building was a tall structure and nothing more.]

1606 B. Jonson Hymenaei 109 Here out of a Microcosme, or Globe (figuring Man)..issued forth the first Masque.

1590 in P. F. Tytler Hist. Scotl. (1864) IV. 179 This microcosme of Britain, separate from the continent world.

?1624 T. Scott Vox Dei 48 As thus it is, in the microcosme of priuate estates, so it is, in the megacosme of publique wealths also.

1650 T. Vaughan Anthroposophia Theomagica 25 What offices..the two great Luminaries [sc. the Sun and the Moon] perform for..the great world in Generall, These two little Luminaries perform the like for the..Microcosm in particular.

1713 J. Gay Wife of Bath iv. i. 36 My Head, Madam, is a meer Microcosm,—or, if you please, like the Concave of the Heavens, lined with Planets, and powder'd with the Constellations.

1753 T. Smollett Ferdinand Count Fathom II. xxxix. 26 There are several small communities in the goal, consisting of people who are attracted by the manners and dispositions of each other: for this place, Sir, is quite a microcosm.

1791 J. Bentham Panopticon i. Postscr. 79 That scene of clock-work regularity which it would be so easy to establish in so compact a microcosm.

1826 B. Disraeli Vivian Grey I. i. ii. 11 The microcosm of a public school.

1926 Mind 35 451 The..psychological method..which has allowed and alone can allow us to penetrate further into that wonderful microcosm, our mind.

1975 S. Rushdie Grimus 130 The street was his microcosm and afforded him all his delights and pains.

1611 T. Coryate Crudities sig. I It [sc. a mountain] is couered with a very Microcosme of clowdes.

1641 A. Mervyn Speech at Impeachm. Richard Bolton 7 Let then that Microcosme of Letters Patents..rise up in judgment.

1611 J. Donne Anat. World sig. B^v She to whom this world must it selfe refer, As Suburbs, or the Microcosme of her.

1640 J. Howell Δενδρολογια 41 This may be termd the land of fortune, and a microcosme of her selfe, which by the gentle influence of the starres, abounds with that affluence of all things.

1808 R. Ackermann (title) The Microcosm of London, or London in Miniature.

1860 All Year Round 21 Apr. 36 He intended his wardrobe-shop to be a satirical microcosm of Petty France.

1872 J. Morley Voltaire vii. 336 A microcosm of the whole battle.

1877 F. G. Heath Fern World 105 That microcosm of the Fern World, the case, or pot.

1928 Observer 15 July 11/3 The National Eisteddfod is a microcosm of Wales.

1943 Mind 52 20 Man is a microcosm of Natura, and his self-reference involves him therefore only in partial impotence.

1978 J. Morris Oxford (rev. ed.) ii. ix. 87 Oxford is a microcosm of England, and in no way more revealingly than in her social structure.

1992 New Statesman & Society 4 Dec. 47/2 Harrow's crisis is..a perfect microcosm of the disintegration of the Conservative Party nationally.

?1740 (title) To be seen by four, five, or more, at one shilling each; in a large room, at the Mitre near Charing-cross, opposite Craig's-court. The microcosm: or the world in miniature, lately made by Mr Henry Bridges [of Waltham Abbey].

1748 Gloucester Jrnl. 23 Aug. in A. Boden Three Choirs (1992) iii. 22 We hear that Mr Bridges designs being here at the Music-Meeting on the 13th of next Month, to exhibit, to the Gentleman, Ladies, etc., his Curious Machine, call'd the Microcosm.

1752 C. Macklin Covent Garden Theatre in Augustan Reprint Soc. (1965) 4 Here, Panopticons, Microcosms, Bears, Badgers..Enthusiasts, and Fire Eaters..Tax the Public by Virtue of the strangeness..of their Nature.

1756 N.-Y. Gaz. 2 Feb. 3/1 That elaborate Piece of Mechanism, the Microcosm, now at Philadelphia, will speedily be here, and for a short Time exhibited to publick View.

1756 B. Lynde Diary 27 May in B. Lynde & B. Lynde Diaries (1880) 182 P. M. went to see microcosms.

a1817 R. L. Edgeworth Mem. (1820) I. 110 By accident I was invited [in 1765] to see the Microcosm, a mechanical exhibition, which was then frequented by every body at Chester.

1888 Catholic World Mar. 762 I said that the place is peaceful, but this does not always hold good; some years ago they got up election riots, a Cincinnati affair in microcosm.

1946 Amer. Jrnl. Sociol. 52 93/2 Puerto Rico is the Caribbean in microcosm; its cycle of change is perhaps a paradigm of folk contacts generally.

1962 A. Nisbett Technique Sound Studio iii. 56 The same problem arises in microcosm.

1989 Independent 16 Dec. 36 A selection of them [sc. hors d'oeuvres] is a restaurant kitchen in microcosm: the skill of a pastry chef to produce the delicate shells, the saucier for those golden dabs of Hollandaise [etc.].

1993 New Republic 8 Mar. 39/1 What we are being shown in microcosm is a crisis of political decision-making taking place on a much wider scale.

1887 S. A. Forbes in Bull. Sci. Assoc. Peoria, Illinois 77 (title) The lake as a microcosm.

1929 Jrnl. Ecol. 17 179 A permanent body of fresh water is so sharply defined a microcosm that is peculiarly suitable for this kind of study.

1935 Jrnl. Ecol. 23 495 Among students of animal communities, S. A. Forbes (1887), in his classic paper ‘The lake as a microcosm’, concludes that a group or association of animals or plants is like a single organism, in that it brings to bear upon the outer world only the surplus of forces remaining after all conflicts interior to itself have been adjusted.

1934 Science 5 Jan. 16/1 Every other day the microcosms underwent a cleaning process with a salt solution.

1937 Ecology 18 175 A mixed population in the test-tube as first made of the two species of yeast, and then the two infusoria, Paramecium caudatum and Paramecium aurelia, presenting equal requirements regarding the kind of food and mode of its consumption or, in other terms, occupying identical ‘ecological niches’ in the microcosm under investigation.

1962 Limnol. & Oceanogr. 7 336/1 The microcosms received light through the north-facing windows of the laboratory.

1973 P. A. Colinvaux Introd. Ecol. xxx. 424 Much perseverance by others has led to the production of a few laboratory microcosms in which the numbers of predator and prey will oscillate without such interference as the manipulation of ‘immigrants’.

1992 Time 6 Jan. 68/3 Eight Biosphereans..plan to spend two years in an enclosed 1.3-hectare (3.15-acre) microcosm of earth.

1996 Ecology 77 670/1 Microcosms as biological models have played a central role in the development of contemporary ecological thought.