ii CEASELESS CHANGE 205 



the other absorbing. On the moon, as on the earth, 

 Nature is in continuous change : for example, the relative 

 positions of sea and land are ever altering ; but the 

 magnitude of the distance renders these invisible, and 

 more especially the minuteness and gradual nature of 

 the changes themselves. The lunar spectator will be 

 presented with eclipses of the earth, and, according to 

 the position of sea and land, i.e. of light and shadow, 

 with phases of the earth. 1 In the same way Bruno 

 applied his principle of similarity to show that from 

 distant stars the earth would appear of uniform magni- 

 tude and unvarying position, while in the neighbourhood 

 of other suns it and all the other planets would dis- 

 appear. As matter is the same in kind throughout the 

 universe, so it is subject everywhere to the same Jaw of 

 unceasing change : " The sun in its rising never seeks 

 twice the same point, all things by stress of the con- 

 tinuous flux are renewed, nor ever seek again the 

 haunts they have left, nor is there any part of the earth 

 which does not pass through every region, and a like 

 force now carries each part in one direction or another, 

 now drives it away ; and if by chance any one revisit 

 the centre, it is no longer in the same form, nor in the 

 same connection (or dine)." 2 Not even the whole can 

 ever be twice the same, since the order and arrangement 

 of its parts are continuously changing. Even in things 

 that seem ever to present the same face there is a latent 

 alteration which time will bring to light. There would 

 otherwise be nothing to prevent the whole of Nature 

 being fixed, petrified, as it were, to all eternity. Yet 

 the substance of things the atom is unchanging. 3 

 " All things are in flow ; the parts of the earth, seas, 



1 So Bruno explained the phases of the moon. 

 2 Bk. vi. ch. 17. p. 210. 3 Ch. 18. p. 218. 



