microcosm

mikrokosmos Human nature or the human body as representative of the wider universe; man considered as a miniature counterpart of divine or universal nature. (defdate)
1972, Rolf Soellner, Shakespeares Patterns of Self-Knowledge, Chapter 3: Microcosm and Macrocosm: Framing The Picture of Man'', http://books.google.com/books?id=bOIb_gjFuSsC&pg=PA43&dq=%22microcosm%7Cmicrocosms%22&hl=en&ei=_DuITvuiGaPFmAW01OEn&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CFIQ6AEwCTg8v=onepage&q=%22microcosm%7Cmicrocosms%22&f=false page 43:

The Christian humanists were emphatic in their demand that a man who wishes to understand himself must realize that he is a little world that reflects on a smaller scale the larger world of the universe.(..)On the other hand, the whole idea of man as a microcosm was questioned by those who were not in sympathy with the Christian humanists.

If you see this in the Map of my Microcosme, followes it that I am knowne well enough too?

‘In a sense, the problems experienced at Bristol are like a microcosm of what is happening in the NHS - experienced surgeons battling against difficult circumstances, with inadequate resources and in a culture where the finding of scapegoats appears to be put before the finding of solutions.’

The method is relatively labour intensive (24-30 microcosms are run) and more difficult to interpret when compared with other microcosm methods (Shannon et al. 1986; Cairns & Cherry 1993).