132 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



reans that Plato was supposed to have derived his cos- 

 mology. It is, however, with the system of Plotinus 

 that Bruno's earlier theory has the closest affinity : he 

 passed far beyond that system, as the following chapters 

 may show, but many of the ideas that had come down 

 from the master remained throughout part of the basis 

 of Bruno's thought : such are, for example, the idea of 

 the Universal Intelligence, distinct from the One, the 

 Highest and Unknowable Being, or God, as the soul 

 of the world and the source of the forms of material 

 things ; l the rationes or.ideas which are contained in it 

 mould and form all things from the seed onwards : the 

 seed is a miniature world containing implicitly, i.e. in 

 its ratio, form or soul, the perfect thing. 2 The con- 

 ception again of the lower, sensible world, as an 

 imitation of the higher, the intelligible, is derived from 

 Plotinus, as is that of the seven grades or steps of 

 emanation from the First Principle to the material 

 world, which correspond to the seven grades by which 

 the human mind rises from the knowledge of sensible 

 things to that of the Highest, the Good. 3 The order 

 of knowledge corresponds step for step with the order of 

 emanation of creation. Most significant of all for the 

 development of Bruno's philosophy was Plotinus' con- 

 ception of an " intelligible matter," which is common 

 to all the different beings and species, in the intelligible 

 world, just as brute matter is that which is common to 

 all kinds of corporeal objects. 4 Again from Plotinus 

 derives the distinction that the matter underlying the 

 intelligible world is all things and all together : having 

 in it (implicitly) all forms, there is nothing into which 

 it may change : whereas the matter of the sensible 



1 Causa, Lag. 231. 2 Op. Lat. i. 2. 196. 3 Ib. ii. i. 48. 



4 Plotinus, Enneads, ii. 4. 4 ; cf. Bruno's Causa, Lag. 267. 



