1 62 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



it " contracts " or limits itself to realise a given indi- 

 vidual ; and on the other side the potency of matter, 

 which is indeterminate, and capable of any form whatso- 

 ever, is <c determined " to one particular kind ; so that 

 the one is cause of the definition and determination of 

 the other. Thus particular bodies are modes (de- 

 terminations) of spirit and also of matter. As the 

 universal form, spirit is all- present throughout the 

 universe, not however materially or in extension, 

 but spiritually, i.e. intensively. Bruno's favourite 

 illustration is that of a voice or utterance " imagine a 

 voice which is wholly in the whole of a room, and in 

 every part of it ; everywhere it is heard wholly, as these 

 words which I speak are understood wholly by all, and 

 would be even if there were a thousand present ; and if 

 my voice could reach to all the world, it would be all 

 in all." l So the soul is individual, not as a point is, but, 

 analogously to a voice, or utterance, filling the universe. 

 It is clear from these passages that the finite soul has no 

 more reality in this phase of Bruno's pantheism than in 

 Spinoza's ; not only is the world-soul one as unique, but 

 it is also one as indivisible there are no parts of it : 

 it is wholly in each of the parts of the universe in each 

 of its realisations. The finite individual, as this par- 

 ticular soul in this particular body, is accordingly a mere 

 accident, and passes away as all accidents do ; its 

 existence is due chiefly to matter, by the varying " dis- 

 positions " of which the universal form is " determined " 

 to this or that particular form ; matter is in general the 

 source of all particularity, all number and measure. 

 The difficulty underlying this attribution of diversity 

 to a matter which is supposed to be, apart from the 

 form, undetermined and undifferentiated, has been re- 



1 Lag. 242. 7. 



