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1 76 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



Spinoza's principal positions is striking, although their 

 terms are different. The indeterminate all-comprising 

 unity of Bruno is that which was afterwards called by 

 Spinoza substance ; its two aspects, material and spiritual 

 substances with Bruno, are attributes in Spinoza, 

 and finally, the innumerable finite and passing modes 

 with both are mere accidents, and therefore do not 

 determine any change in the one reality itself. In a 

 subsequent chapter other more detailed resemblances 

 will be pointed out in their bearing on the history of 

 Spinoza's development. 



Coincidence The concluding portion of this dialogue and of the 

 work is taken up with the doctrine of the Coincidence 

 of Contraries, which derives from that of the unity and 

 coincidence of all differences, and which, although it 

 was undoubtedly contained in his own system, Bruno 

 obtained directly from Nicholas of Cusa. It is an 

 indirect proof, from the side of particular things them- 

 selves, of the identity of all in the One. The first 

 signs." illustrations are geometrical. 1 The straight line and 

 the circle, or the straight line and the curve, are oppo- 

 sites ; but in their elements, or their minima, they 

 coincide, for, as Cusanus saw, there is no difference 

 between the smallest possible arc and the smallest possible 

 chord. Again, in the maximum there is no difference 

 between the infinite circle and the straight line ; the 

 greater a circle is, the more nearly it approximates to 

 straightness. ... as a line which is greater in magnitude 

 than another approximates more nearly to straightness, so 

 the greatest of all ought to be superlatively, more than all, 

 straight, so that in the end the infinite straight line is an 

 infinite circle. Thus the maximum and the minimum 

 come together in one existence, as has already been proved, 



i Lag. 285. 35. 



