206 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



and rivers vary their positions, by a certain ebbing and 

 flowing order of Nature. As matter wanders, flowing 

 in and out, now here, now there, so the forms travel 

 through matter. For there is not any form which, 

 once occupying a portion of matter, retains it always, 

 nor any matter which, once obtaining a certain form, 

 maintains it for ever. Hence it is that, matter always 

 taking up one form or another, and having equal 

 capacity for all, consequently by virtue of its eternity 

 it must sometimes fall in with that which is able to 

 bind it to itself for ever ; if this were to happen, all 

 things would be so constituted that there would be no 

 alteration or difference in them." l 



The Ether. The universe to Bruno is transfused with spirit, 

 soul or life, " the soul of the universe," which animates 

 its every part. "The seat or place of God is the 

 universe, everywhere the whole immeasurable heaven, 

 empty space, of which He is the fulness." The material 

 aspect, or, as Bruno sometimes seems to say, the body 

 of this spirit is the ether, a subtle fluid distinguished 

 from the air we breathe by the absence of moisture. 

 The ether is a purely passive, non-resisting medium, 

 permeating the universe, without quality, and unimpres- 

 sionable by force or action ; thus it is penetrated by 

 the heat of any radiating body without diminishing its 

 force. It took the place, for Bruno, of the mythical 

 Fifth Essence, which had so long fed the dreams of 

 philosophers " Divine yet corporeal, material yet with- 

 out matter, a form without privation, conjoining act 

 with potency, neither heavy nor light, suffering neither 

 generation, nor corruption, nor alteration, neither increase 

 nor decrease ; beyond which no sensible existence is, 



1 Ib. p. 220. If the flow of change were arrested at any one point in Nature, it 

 would ultimately be arrested throughout the whole. 



