ii NATURE OF PERFECTION 201 



and place within the whole body, is not good, and the 

 best in the end and in the whole ? A harmony in 

 music is better the greater the variety within it of 

 length, accent, pause, and the like. 1 



The perfect may be either ( i ) " the perfect absolutely, 

 or (2) the perfect in its kind." The former again is 

 twofold, according as it is ( i ) " that which is wholly in 

 the whole and in every part, or (2) that which is wholly 

 in the whole but not in the part." Of these the one is 

 divinity, the intellect of the universe, absolute goodness 

 and truth, the other the immeasurable corporeal reflec- 

 tion of the divine. As within the universe there are 

 many things perfect in their kind, which it combines in 

 its unity, containing in itself the perfection of all, it 

 may in a second sense be called the absolutely perfect. 

 For no one world singly, nor system of worlds, nor any 

 number of systems, can be brought into comparison 

 with God, except indirectly, through the immeasurable 

 wisdom, power, and goodness. " Nothing is absolutely 

 imperfect or evil, for the highest nature exists in a 

 certain sense in the meanest and lowest, as on the 

 palette of a painter colours are thought little of which 

 presently, unfolded into the scheme of the picture, shall 

 seem to be, along with the painter himself, of chief 

 importance." 2 Moral evil, itself, as we shall find, has 

 no reality for Bruno's pantheism. Justice and goodness, 

 not existing as abstract entities, have their only ground 

 in the divine will, i.e. in the course of nature. 3 On the 

 other hand, it is not in the part, the detail, the trivial or 

 minute existence, that the divine will is most adequately 

 declared, but in the whole, its plan and its law. " What 



1 P. 311. 



2 P. 312. Cf. Florentine's Telesio, p. 85. On Perfection, and the Perfection 

 of the Universe, cf. Bruno's Acrot., Arts. 17 and 51. 



3 Cf. Spinoza. 



