204 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



instead of bending so long over the books of Aristotle 

 and his commentators, the nebulosa volumina, but turned 

 their eyes to the book and light of nature, they would 

 have formed a far different conception of the constitu- 

 tion of the heavens than that of the eight, nine, ten, or 

 more spheres and innumerable epicycles of the Ptolemaic 

 system. Bruno showed how as we rise from the surface 

 of the earth our horizon becomes wider, while in detail 

 less vivid, and he supposed himself to continue the 

 ascension upwards to the surface of the moon. 1 A few 

 miles away tree and mountain would not be distinguish- 

 able from the rest of the earth, but we should perceive 

 only a wide circle of light with dark spots, the appear- 

 ance of sea and of land respectively. As the distance 

 increased the form of the earth would become more 

 visible while it lost all appearance of opacity, and the 

 whole would seem continuous light. As we neared the 

 moon, the earth would come to appear exactly as the 

 moon does to us from the earth. The moon also 

 revolves round its own axis, and from it, as with us, 

 the universe will appear to revolve round it as centre. 

 It had been said that the appearance of the heavenly 

 bodies had always been and continued to be the same, 

 but Bruno points to the fact that although a mountain, 

 when seen from at hand, changes its face from day to 

 day, and from season to season, yet from a distance it 

 seems always the same. 2 It is owing to the distance 

 that the face of the moon appears to us never to change, 

 although it is certainly subject to as many alterations as 

 the earth itself ; and to the dwellers on the moon the 

 earth will appear equally changeless. The light and 

 shadow seen on the surface of the moon are due to the 

 variety of sea and land in it, the one reflecting light, 



1 Bk. iii. ch. 2. 2 Ch. 4. p. 341 ff. 



