Where did the motto “mind moves the mass” come from?
If you go to Google and type in “mens agitat molem,” you will find several answers to your question. Here is the quotation in context from Virgil’s “Aeneid”, Book VI, line 715 or thereabouts [the counting was tedious]. ‘Principio caelum ac terras camposque liquentis lucentemque globum Lunae Titaniaque astra spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus mens agitat molem et magno se corpore miscet.’ A translation by E. Fairfax Taylor goes: “First, Heaven and Earth and Ocean’s liquid plains, The Moon’s bright globe and planets of the pole, One mind, infused through every part, sustains; One universal, animating soul. Quickens, unites and mingles with the whole.” So, in Virgil’s day, it is the ‘universal mind’ that animates everything and pervades each earthly soul. In our times, many persons would identify the ‘universal mind’ with God–or, perhaps, for the theologically inclined, with Sophia, the personification of Wisdom. The speaker is the father of Aeneas, Anchises, and they are view
