154 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



From his Platonist masters Bruno had learned that 

 the Highest or First Principle was unknowable to man, 

 being beyond the reach of his senses and of his under- 

 standing alike : a complete systematisation of knowledge 

 was therefore impossible. A philosophy of nature had 

 to seek only for physical (i.e. real or "immanent") 

 causes or principles ; these might depend, indeed, upon 

 the highest and first principle or cause, but the depend- 

 ence was not so close that the knowledge of the former 

 gave us knowledge of the latter : no single system of 

 knowledge could embrace both. Knowing the universe, 

 we yet knew nothing of the essence or substance of its 

 first cause, any more than that of the sculptor Apelles 

 could be inferred from the statue he had made. The 

 things of nature, although effects of the divine opera- 

 tion, became the remotest accidents, when regarded as 

 means to the knowledge of the divine supernatural 

 Essence. " We have still less ground for knowing it 

 than for knowing Apelles from his finished statues, 

 for all of these we may see, and examine, part by part, 

 but not the great and infinite effect of the divine 

 potency." 1 The First Principle is, therefore, the 

 concern of the moralist and of the theologian, as 

 revealed to them by the gods, or declared to them 

 through the inspired knowledge of diviner men and of 

 the prophets. On the other hand, in the universe we 

 have the infinite image of God, and it is, therefore, 

 possible through it to obtain an approximate knowledge 

 of Him : " the magnificent stars and shining bodies, 

 which are so many inhabited worlds, and animate beings 

 or deities, worlds similar to that which contains 

 ourselves, must depend, since they are composite and 

 capable of dissolution, upon a principle and cause ; and 



1 Lag. 229. 



