1 82 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



frivolous or futile contemplation, but one most weighty 

 and worthy of the perfect man, which we pursue, when 

 we seek the splendour, the fusion, and the inter- 

 communication of divinity and of nature not in an 

 Egyptian, Syrian, Greek or Roman individual, not in 

 food, drink, or any ignoble matter, with the gaping 

 many, but in the august palace of the all-powerful, in 

 the immeasurable space of the Ether, in the infinite 

 potency of twofold nature, all-becoming and all-creat- 

 ing. So from the eternal vast and immeasurable effect 

 in visible things, we comprehend the eternal and the 

 immeasurable majesty and goodness. Let us then turn 

 our eyes to the omniform image of the omniform God, 

 and gaze upon the living and mighty reflection of Him." 

 The three characteristics of the universe as a mirror 

 of God which Bruno sought to drive home to the minds 

 of men were its infinite extent, the infinite number of its 

 parts, and its uniformity, or the similarity of its consti- 

 tuent elements throughout its whole extent. His illus- 

 trations and his arguments would in many cases cause a 

 smile if they were put forward seriously at the present 

 day, but no absurdities can outbalance his enthusiasm, 

 the readiness and thoroughness of his polemic against 

 Aristotle and the old cosmology, and the fertility of 

 imagination by which he is able to look, and to make 

 others look, at things from his new, and therefore, at 

 first, confusing point of view. 



Bruno's arguments rest partly on inferences from 



sense-knowledge, partly on the principle of sufficient 



The uni- reason. Thus the infinity of extent is evidenced, first, 



finite. by the teaching of sense, in the constant change which 



our circle of vision undergoes as we move from one place 



to another. There always appears to be an ultimate 



limit, but no sooner do we move than the limit is seen to 



