238 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



one the many. Yet reason and nature may more 

 readily separate the minimum from the maximum than 

 the maximum from the minimum. Therefore the 

 immeasurable universe is nothing but centre every- 

 where ; eternity nothing but a moment always ; im- 

 measurable body an atom ; immeasurable plane a 

 point ; immeasurable space the receptacle of a point 

 or atom." 1 



The chief source of error on the part of the Peri- 

 patetics was their failure to distinguish between the 

 minimum as a part, and the minimum a terminus or limit. 

 Hence their idea that no combination of physical minima 

 would give a magnitude, since two or more would 

 touch one another with their whole surface, i.e. would 

 coincide : otherwise the minimum would have parts, 

 a part of each touching the other, and a part not 

 touching. On their theory it would follow that magni- 

 tudes do not consist of parts, or at least not of 

 elementary parts. This is inconsistent with nature, for 

 existing magnitudes must have been built up out of 

 nature's elements, and with art, for art can measure 

 only on the assumption of first parts. It is true that 

 what is posited as first part in one operation may be 

 the last result in another, for the minimum^ as we have 

 seen, is a relative conception, but some first part is 

 always assumed in any operation. And as the operation 

 of art is not infinite, so neither is there infinite 

 subordination of parts. 2 When two minima touch one 

 another, they do not do so with their whole body, or 

 any fart of it, but one with its terminus or limit may 

 touch several others ; no body touches another with 

 the whole of itself or a part, but with either the whole 

 or the part of its limiting- surface. The terminus of a 



1 De Mm. p. 153. 22 ff. 2 P. 158. 



