Editing Homunculus (section)

== History ==

=== Alchemy ===

[[file:Paracelsus219.jpg|upright|thumb|Paracelsus is credited with the first mention of the homunculus in ''De homunculis'' (c.&nbsp;1529–1532), and ''De natura rerum'' (1537).]]

During medieval and early modern times, it was thought that homunculus, an artificial humanlike being, could be created through alchemy.<ref name="Britannica"/> The homunculus first appears by name in [[alchemical]] writings attributed to [[Paracelsus]] (1493–1541). ''De natura rerum'' (1537) outlines his method for creating homunculi:

{{blockquote|That the sperm of a man be putrefied by itself in a sealed [[Cucurbitaceae|cucurbit]] for forty days with the highest degree of putrefaction in a horse's womb ["venter equinus", meaning "warm, fermenting horse dung"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Newman |first=William Royall |title=Promethean ambitions: alchemy and the quest to perfect nature |date=2005|page=215 |publisher=Univ. of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-57524-7 |edition=Paperback |location=Chicago, Ill.}}</ref>], or at least so long that it comes to life and moves itself, and stirs, which is easily observed. After this time, it will look somewhat like a man, but transparent, without a body. If, after this, it be fed wisely with the Arcanum of human blood, and be nourished for up to forty weeks, and be kept in the even heat of the horse's womb, a living human child grows therefrom, with all its members like another child, which is born of a woman, but much smaller.<ref name="Grafton1999">{{cite book|last = Grafton|first = Anthony|title = Natural Particulars: Nature and the Disciplines in Renaissance Europe|publisher = MIT Press|year = 1999}}</ref>{{rp|328–329}} }}

The fully grown homunculus was supposedly greatly skilled in "art" and can create giants, dwarves, and other marvels, as "Through art they are born, and therefore art is embodied and inborn in them, and they need learn it from no one."<ref>{{Citation |last=Newman |first=William R. |title=Alchemy, Domination, and Gender William R. Newman |date=1998-09-24 |url=https://academic.oup.com/book/34758/chapter/296954678 |work=A House Built on Sand |pages=216–226 |editor-last=Koertge |editor-first=Noretta |access-date=2023-07-28 |edition=1 |publisher=Oxford University PressNew York |language=en |doi=10.1093/0195117255.003.0014 |isbn=978-0-19-511725-7|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Comparisons have been made with several similar concepts in the writings of earlier alchemists. Although the actual word "homunculus" was never used, [[Carl Jung]] believed that the concept first appeared in the ''Visions of Zosimos'', written in the third century AD. In the visions, [[Zosimos of Panopolis|Zosimos]] encounters a priest who changes into "the opposite of himself, into a mutilated ''anthroparion''".<ref name="Jung1967">{{cite book|last = Jung|first = Carl|title = Alchemical Studies|year = 1967 }}</ref>{{rp| 60}} The Greek word "anthroparion" is similar to "homunculus" &ndash; a diminutive form of "person". Zosimos subsequently encounters other anthroparia in his dream but there is no mention of the creation of [[artificial life]]. In his commentary, Jung equates the homunculus with the [[Philosopher's Stone]], and the "inner person" in parallel with [[Christ]].<ref name="Jung1967" />{{rp|102}}

In [[Alchemy and chemistry in Islam|Islamic alchemy]], ''[[takwin]]'' ({{langx|ar|تكوين}}) was a goal of certain Muslim alchemists, and is frequently found in writings of the [[Jābir ibn Hayyān|Jabirian corpus]]. In the alchemical context, ''takwin'' refers to the artificial creation of life, spanning the full range of the [[chain of being]], from minerals to prophets, imitating the function of the [[demiurge]]. One set of instructions for creating animal life found within the Jabirian ''Kitab al-Tajmi'' involves finding a vessel shaped like the animal and combining the animal's bodily fluids within it, then placing the vessel at the center of a model of a [[celestial spheres|celestial sphere]] as heat is applied to it. Some of the alchemists believed that these methods originated somewhere in India or Southeast Asia.<ref>{{cite book|title=Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology|author=[[Joseph Needham]]|pages=486–487|year=1980|isbn=9780521085731|publisher=Cambridge University Press}}</ref>

The homunculus continued to appear in alchemical writings after Paracelsus' time. The ''[[Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz]]'' (1616) for example, concludes with the creation of a male and female form identified as ''Homunculi duo''. The allegorical text suggests to the reader that the ultimate goal of alchemy is not [[chrysopoeia]], but it is instead the artificial generation of humans. Here, the creation of homunculi symbolically represents spiritual regeneration and [[Christian soteriology]].<ref name="Grafton1999" />{{rp|321–338}}

In 1775, Count Johann Ferdinand von&nbsp;Kufstein, together with Abbé Geloni, an Italian cleric, is reputed to have created ten homunculi with the ability to foresee the future, which von&nbsp;Kufstein kept in glass containers at his [[Masonic lodge]] in [[Vienna]]. Dr.&nbsp;Emil Besetzny's Masonic handbook, ''Die Sphinx'', devoted an entire chapter to the ''wahrsagenden Geister'' (scrying ghosts). These are reputed to have been seen by several people, including local dignitaries.<ref>Besetzny, Emil. (1873). ''Die Sphinx'', pp.&nbsp;111–157. Vienna.</ref><ref name="Hartmann1896">{{cite book|last=Hartmann|first=Franz |author-link=Franz Hartmann|title=The Life of Philippus Theophrastus Bombast of Hohenheim: Known by the Name of Paracelsus, and the Substance of His Teachings|url=https://archive.org/details/lifephilippusth00hartgoog|page=[https://archive.org/details/lifephilippusth00hartgoog/page/n326 306]|year=1896|publisher=Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner|location=London}}</ref>{{rp|306}}

===Folklore===
References to the homunculus do not appear prior to sixteenth-century alchemical writings{{Citation needed|date=February 2016}} but alchemists may have been influenced by earlier folk traditions. The [[mandrake|mandragora]], known in German as ''Alreona'', ''Alraun'' or ''Alraune'' is one example; [[Jean-Baptiste Pitois]]'s ''The History and Practice of Magic'' makes a direct comparison to the mandragora in one excerpt:

{{blockquote|Would you like to make a Mandragora, as powerful as the homunculus (little man in a bottle) so praised by [[Paracelsus]]? Then find a root of the plant called [[Bryonia alba|bryony]]. Take it out of the ground on a Monday (the day of the moon), a little time after the [[March equinox|vernal equinox]]. Cut off the ends of the root and bury it at night in some country churchyard in a dead man's grave. For 30 days, water it with cow's milk in which three bats have been drowned. When the 31st day arrives, take out the root in the middle of the night and dry it in an oven heated with branches of [[verbena]]; then wrap it up in a piece of a dead man's [[shroud|winding-sheet]] and carry it with you everywhere.<ref>pp. 402–403, by Paul Christian. 1963</ref>}}

The homunculus has also been compared to the [[golem]] of [[Jewish folklore]]. Though the specifics outlining the creation of the golem and homunculus are very different, the concepts both metaphorically relate man to the divine, in his construction of life in his own image.<ref>{{cite journal|last = Campbell|first = Mary Baine|title = Artificial Men: Alchemy, Transubstantiation, and the Homunculus|journal = Republics of Letters: A Journal for the Study of Knowledge, Politics, and the Arts|volume = 1|issue = 2|url = http://rofl.stanford.edu/node/61|access-date = 2013-01-17|archive-date = 2019-10-22|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20191022092741/https://tools.stanford.edu/vhost-frozen/|url-status = dead}}</ref>

===Preformationism===
{{main|Preformationism}}
[[File:Preformation.GIF|thumb|upright|A tiny person inside a [[sperm cell]] as drawn by [[Nicolaas Hartsoeker]] in 1695]]
Preformationism is the formerly popular theory that animals developed from miniature versions of themselves. [[Sperm cell]]s were believed to contain complete preformed individuals called "[[animalcules]]". Development was therefore a matter of enlarging this into a fully formed being. The term homunculus was later used in the discussion of conception and birth.

[[Nicolas Hartsoeker]] postulated the existence of animalcules in the semen of humans and other animals. This was the beginning of spermists' theory, which held that the sperm was in fact a "little man" that was placed inside a woman for growth into a child, an effective explanation for many of the mysteries of conception. It was later pointed out that if the sperm was a homunculus, identical in all but size to an adult, then the homunculus may have sperm of its own. This led to a ''[[reductio ad absurdum]]'' with a chain of homunculi "[[Turtles all the way down|all the way down]]", an idea also known as the [[Homunculus argument|homunculus fallacy]]. This was not necessarily considered by spermists a fatal objection, however, as it neatly explained the [[Genesis creation narrative]]'s claim that it was "in [[Adam]]" that all had sinned: the whole of humanity was already contained in his loins during the [[original sin]]. The spermists' theory also failed to explain why children tend to resemble their mothers as well as their fathers, though some spermists suggested that the growing homunculus assimilated maternal characteristics from the womb.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |title=Epigenesis and Preformationism |date=October 11, 2005 |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epigenesis/}}</ref>