216 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



body of a horse will turn into wasps, the provident bee 

 rises from the body of an ox ! " 1 As each thing is in 

 its inner nature identical with every other, so it may, 

 and in the natural course does, become every other, as 

 we have learned from the Italian works. Nevertheless, 

 the outward appearances of things do not cease to be 

 different from one another. " That is more latent in 

 one subject which is more unfolded in the remainder.'* 

 " The subject of all is one (monas\ and all things are in 

 truth one, although in individuals they seem to be 

 many." 



Movements The movements of the earth and of other free- 

 theh^soui- moving bodies are always attributed by Bruno to an 

 principle. internal principle or soul." Movement from without 

 could only take place through direct contact, and 

 the liquid air or ether is too light to move these 

 heavy bodies. 2 " It is taking things by the wrong end 

 to say that the loadstone attracts the iron, the amber 

 the straw, the sun the sunflower. In the iron there is a 

 kind of sense, awakened by a spiritual (i.e. a subtly 

 material) virtue diffused from the loadstone, . . . and 

 generally everything that desires and has intelligence 

 moves towards the thing desired, converts itself into it 

 as far as possible, beginning with the wish to be in the 

 same place." By the same principle are explained the 

 phenomena of gravity, which is defined as impulse 

 towards the place of preservation, such as the earth is 

 to the stone that has formed part of it ; its opposite, 

 " levity" is impulse away from the contrary or the 

 injurious. " Gravity and levity are nothing but the 

 impulse of parts to their place, where they may either 

 move or be at rest, or to a place through which it is 

 necessary for them to go (in the circular movement of 



1 Op. Lat. i. 2. p. 147. 2 Ceaa, Lag. 183. 30. 



