Weights and Levers

While reading The School of Night, I also was struck by the amount of scientific and theoretical material that was presented. I did my best to try and follow some of these concepts, but mostly ended up getting lost in that never-ending stream of links that makes Wikipedia so enchanting. One thing I did find was Nicholas Hilliard's portrait miniature of Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, which Turner describes in the context of the theme of levers and weights, wherein a great weight on one side can be sustained by a featherweight on the other.

It is difficult to see, but written under the feather is the motto 'tanti' meaning "so much" and "so little", according to Turner.

 This seemingly obscure reference is elucidated a few paragraphs down from the description, where the actual principle of the lever, "whereby a lesser weight balances a greater across a fulcrum by means of a proportionate difference in the length of the beam ends, can be extended and abstracted in a very suggestive way". This abstraction is...well I might as well just copy the rest of the paragraph instead of butchering the explanation:

"In theory, for instance, an infinite weight could be properly balanced by an infinitesimal one if the scales are properly biassed: the world against a feather. The weightless thoughts of man can effectively control the massive universe itself, if correct principles of rational transformation–proper levers, pulleys, lenses, clocks, quadrants–can be found. The microcosm can not only reflect, but control, the macrocosm."(Turner)

I found this paragraph particularly important because it finally leads into the concept behind the mnemonic technology that can allow man's memory to encompass the entire universe. Is The School of Night is asserting that man can rule the universe with his thoughts?  If you think not, perhaps consider this idea:

"if we can inhabit that nothingness, colonize it with plantations, so to speak, we shall gain magical control over the world. Even the difference between man and God becomes trivial if the lever which weighs them is properly adjusted"(Turner)

These guys mean business.