224 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



we call corporeal or material." 1 Thus every body or 

 organism, for all bodies are organisms to Bruno, is itself 

 constituted by other living beings, the atoms living 

 atoms being alike the origin and the end of all. So 

 Leibniz wrote : " Every living body has a presiding 

 entelechy, which is the soul in the animal ; but the 

 members of this living body are full of other living 

 beings plants, animals, each of which, again, has its 

 entelechy or presiding soul." 2 In the Infinite Bruno 

 refers to the continuous changes of all composite bodies 

 as arising from the ceaseless flux of atoms out of and 

 into each body, even the greater " animals," the stars 

 and planets, sending out particles, which wander 

 through the universe from one to another. 3 Again, 

 when discussing the four elements, he ascribes to water 

 the power of holding together the atoms of earth, or 

 u the dry." " If from the earth all water were to be 

 removed, so that there remained purely dry matter, 

 this remainder would necessarily be an incoherent, rare, 

 loose substance, easy to be dispersed through the air, 

 in the form of innumerable discontinuous bodies ; for 

 while the air or ether makes a continuum, that which 

 makes a coherent continuum is water or moisture." 4 

 These indivisible " prime bodies," of which the worlds 

 are originally composed, are spoken of as flying 

 throughout space from world to world, in infinite 

 movement, entering now into this, now into that 

 " composition." 5 Finally, in the Spaccio, we are re- 

 minded that u every trifle, however worthless, is of 

 value in the order of the whole, the universe, for great 

 things are composed of little, little things of the least, 



1 Lag. 164. 18. 2 Monadology, 70. Cf. also 64, 66, 67-69. 



3 Lag. 332. 



4 Lag. 357. 10 ; cf. 334. 24, 359. 13, 393. 5, and Her. Fur. 738. 17. 

 5 Lag. 367. 12, 375. 37. 



