ii DECAY OF WORLDS 221 



and valleys. It is on teleological grounds that Bruno 

 accounts for this sphericity. Composite things are 

 preserved through the harmony and union of their 

 parts, while decay arises from dissolution. But such 

 harmony and union are best secured by the spherical 

 form : towards this form, then, every soul aspires in 

 the moulding of its body. The most perfect animals, 

 the stars, having fewer limitations, have the greater 

 advantages ; being almost independent, free, self- 

 sufficient, they are most closely united in themselves, 

 i.e. tend most nearly to the purely spherical form. 1 



However perfect they are, the stars are yet of mortal 

 stuff. " You may say if you will that the worlds change 

 and decay in old age, or that the earth seems to grow 

 grey with years, and that all the great animals of the 

 universe perish like the small, for they change, decay, 

 dissolve. Matter, weary of old forms, eagerly snatches 

 after new,' for it desires to become all things, and to 

 resemble, as far as may be, all being." The efflux and 

 influx of atomic matter into the great bodies is con- 

 tinuous, and this is the only kind of motion which is 

 unceasing. 2 <c As the conflux of native matter is greater, 

 so the bodies grow more and more, and increase up to 

 a certain limit, on touching which they grow weary and 

 become subject to a contrary order ; as about the seed 

 atoms are gathered and added continuously until the 

 body and its limbs reach their maturity, when the same 

 parts are cast out from the centre, and the breaking up 

 of the composite is presented to our eyes." Hence 



1 De Imm. bk. iv. ch. 18. 



2 Cf. Infinite, Lag. 351. 30, on the gradual changes of the earth's surface, which 

 Bruno infers are present, although imperceptible, in other stars also. Cf. ib. 33Z. 15, 

 and De Imm., bks. iv. and vi. j Acrot. Arts. 48 and 74. In Inf. 353. 30, rocks, 

 lakes, rivers, springs, etc., are compared to the different members or organs of the 

 human body : the accidents or disturbances of them, clouds, rain, snow, etc., to 

 the diseases of the human body. 



