2i 4 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



very best, signs of divinity which arise in the ordinary 

 course of nature ; among which are those of which we 

 speak, for they also are not apart from this order, 

 although their order is hidden from us." 



To account for the many appearances which seemed 

 to conflict with his new view of the universe, Bruno 

 had recourse to several slight experiments and analogies 

 of daily observation such as a schoolmaster might 

 employ at the present day before his class, 1 but by 

 which even a man of Kepler's intelligence refused then 

 to be convinced ; at least he would not openly profess 

 his conviction. Among other fruitful suggestions 

 which Bruno makes is that the sun may perhaps turn 

 on its own axis, and again that it may contain vapour 

 and earth. 2 He had a curious theory that the heat of 

 the sun is only directed outward from the surface^ not 

 inwards ; that this is the general course of radiation ; 

 and that it leaves an inner surface of the sun cold, 

 on which solar animals live ; finally that meteors are 

 " animals " expelled from the sun ! So always the 

 fruitful idea is accompanied by the absurd. 



From the principle of the identity of nature it 

 follows that bodies which are remote from us are the 

 same in kind with those that are with us and near us ; 

 nothing may be denied of the former which is affirmed 

 of the latter, and 'vice versa. There can be no doubt, 

 therefore, of their similar composition and similar 

 parts. Thus if here on the earth we nowhere see fire 

 subsisting without earth, nowhere earth without water 

 or fire, while their composites are both contained in 

 and penetrated by air and void, then the same is 

 necessarily the case in the upper world also ; neither 

 sense nor reason compels us to assert or suspect other- 



1 E.g. De Imm. bk. iv. ch. C. 2 Ib. ch. 7. 



