1 86 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



elements. As to us on the earth, the earth appears to be 

 the centre of the universe, so to the inhabitants of the 

 moon, the moon will appear to be such. Matter rising 

 from the earth to the moon would appear to the inhabit- 

 ants of the latter to fall. These distinctions were relative 

 to the finite worlds, but might not be referred to the 

 whole universe. As the earth is one world, the moon 

 another, so each has its own centre, each its own up and 

 down : nor can these differences be assigned absolutely 

 to the whole and its parts together, but only relatively 

 3- The _, to the position and condition of the latter. 1 In his third 



whole and 



its parts, argument Aristotle sought to prove that infinite body 

 in general was impossible. 2 If the whole is infinite its 

 simple elements must be so also. These must be either 

 of an infinite number of kinds, different from one 

 another, or of a finite number of kinds, or all of the same 

 kind. But the first of the alternatives is impossible on 

 the a priori ground that each element must have a special 

 kind of movement corresponding to it, and the kinds of 

 movement are actually few in number ; the second and 

 third, because the movement of the elements should then 

 be infinite, whereas in the actual universe motion is 

 limited both in centre and circumference. The argu- 

 ments, however, do not apply to Bruno's theory of the 

 universe. Motion is always from one definite point to 

 another ; we do not set out from Italy in order to go 

 on ad infinitum, but to go to some definite point. He 

 does not, as Epicurus did, regard all minima as in infinite 

 motion downwards through the universe ; there is no 

 down, no centre, no up, all is simply and generally in 

 flux. It is not the elements that are innumerable in 

 kind, but the composite bodies, the stars, which are 

 constituted by them ; and of these the parts move about 



1 De Imm. i. i. 264 j cf. Inf. 392. 15. 2 Bk. ii. ch. 4 (267 ff.)- 



