ir THE ACROTISMUS 225 



and these of the individuals (or indivisibles) or minima." l 

 In its main outlines, accordingly, Bruno's atomic theory 

 was already formed in his mind when he wrote his 

 earlier philosophical works, and even some of his 

 peculiar applications of it had already suggested them- 

 selves. It is hardly possible, therefore, to find any 

 very marked development in this regard between the 

 London and the Frankfort periods. There is elabora- 

 tion and completion rather than development in any 

 definite direction ; 2 and, as we have seen, the writing 

 of the larger works, containing the developed system, 

 was projected in London, and even carried out to a 

 certain extent before Bruno left England. 3 In the 

 Acrotismus, which occupies a middle place between the 

 two periods, the doctrine is equally in evidence, in 

 reference both to the atoms and to the continuous ether 

 in which they move. " There is a limit to the division of 

 nature an indivisible something ; the division of nature 

 arrives at ultimate minimal parts, unapproachable by 

 human instruments. Of these minimal bodies every 

 sensible body is composed, and such a body, resolved 

 into its minima, can retain no semblance of complexity ; 

 for these are the first bodies out of which all others are 

 made, and which are, in the truest sense, the matter of 

 all things that have corporeal existence. Resolved into 

 these parts, stone has no look of stone, flesh of flesh, 

 bone of bone ; in their elements, bone, stone, and flesh 

 do not differ, but only when formed out of these, com- 

 pounded, compacted, and arranged in diverse manners, 

 do flesh, stone, and bone and other things become 

 different one from another." 4 And Bruno describes 

 how, between the heavenly bodies, there is a substance, 



1 Lag. 455. 37. 2 Contrast Tocco, Of ere Latine di G.B., part 5. 



3 Florentine's Preface to Op. Lat. vol. i. p. xxviii. 4 Acrot. Cam. Art. 42, p. 154. 



Q 



