228 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



as minimum is qualified by sensible, it is implied that 

 the minimum is not absolutely such, but is a composite. 

 The minimum of taste, touch, etc., must possess certain 

 qualities, by which it has relation to sense, and these 

 can derive only from some form of composition. In 

 their primary form the minima of nature must be 

 without difference ; therefore that some are sensible, 

 others not, must be due to some addition in the 

 former. 1 



Thus each species of existence, as light, moisture, 

 vital force, 2 has its own minimum, and the minimum is 

 relative in this sense also, that there are different kinds 

 of existence not resolvable one into another : the abso- 

 lute minimum would be God, who is also the absolute 

 maximum. The relative minimum, accordingly, is 

 determined either by the thought and design of the 

 observer, or by the species of existence to which the 

 subject belongs ; nature has set limits, both lower and 

 upper, within which the individual of any species must 

 stay, or cease to belong to that species. Accordingly, 

 what one regards as great and composite, another may 

 take as first and minimum : the unit of one science may 

 be analysed in another into further elements. " Pyth- 

 agoras in his philosophy started with the monad and 

 numbers ; Plato with atoms, lines and surfaces ; Empe- 

 docles with the four elements ; the physicians with the 

 four humours, and so on ; but the Pythagorean monad is 

 prior to the placed monad (the atom), Plato's matter of 

 bodies to the qualified bodies of Empedocles, the four 

 simple bodies of Empedocles to the four first combina- 

 tions of these, the four humours. So to the universe 

 the whole solar system, the sun and all its planets, may 

 be a simple unit." 3 



1 De Min. bk. i. ch. 9. 2 Ib. Schol. (p. 170). 3 Ch. 10. 



