ii THE "MINIMUM" INDESTRUCTIBLE 231 



of substance. That which time, movement, fate bring 

 to us is nought ; for while they are, they are not. 

 " Let us then," cries Bruno, " supply the mind with 

 material, in the contemplation of the minimum, through 

 which it may exalt itself to the maximum" x Since the 

 real minimum, whether atom or soul, is immortal and 

 indestructible, we know, as Pythagoras saw, that there 

 is no death, but only transition ; death is a dissolution 

 which can occur only to the composite, for the com- 

 posite is never substance, but is always adventitious. 

 Otherwise we should be changing our substance every 

 moment with the continuous influx of atoms into our 

 bodies. Only by the individual substance of the soul 

 are we that which we are ; about it as a centre, which 

 is everywhere in its whole being (ubique totum), the dis- 

 gregation and aggregation of atoms takes place. 

 According to a law of the soul-world, all bodies and 

 forces tend to the spherical form ; God, as monad of 

 monads, is the perfect or infinite sphere, of which the 

 centre is at once nowhere and everywhere ; and in Him 

 (as in all minima, simple substances, monads) all oppo- 

 sites coincide, the many and the few, finite and infinite ; 

 therefore that which is minimum is also maximum, or 

 anything between these, each is all things, the greatest 

 and the whole. 2 Therefore, if contemplation is to 

 follow in the footsteps of nature, it must begin, con- 

 tinue, and end with the minimum? In other words, the 

 minimum in each sphere of being contains implicitly in 

 itself the whole reality of that sphere. The minimum is 

 its substance, not merely the ultimate of analysis, but 

 the actual source, the dynamic origin of reality, as God 

 is implicitly the whole universe and also the source of 

 the universe as it actually exists. It is because the 



1 Op. Lat. i. 3. p. 208. 2 P. 147. i. 3 P. 149. 3. 



