ii FINITE SOUL AND DIVINE MIND 307 



thought to have completed its work and to have re- 

 turned to heaven. 1 But divinity is communicated not 

 only through these divinely chosen human vessels, but 

 through earth, and sun, and moon, the planets, the 

 stars, and all that is in them : one divinity under in- 

 numerable names, according to the innumerable modes 

 in which it is diffused. Endlessly varied also are the 

 methods by which it must be sought, under conditions 

 appropriate to each thing, while it must be honoured and 

 worshipped with endlessly different rites, because the 

 kinds of favour we seek to obtain from it are beyond 

 number. Later religions had transformed for the worse 

 what to the Egyptians was merely a fable or metaphor, 

 by which a mystery above the reach of sense was ex- 

 pressed, or presented to the mind in a sign or symbol. 2 



How Bruno understood the relation of the finite The finite 

 human soul to the divine mind, or to the soul of the infinite, 

 universe, it is not easy to determine, and it is doubtful 

 whether he ever made it clear to himself. Men, as 

 natural beings, enter into the determinate order of 

 Nature^ which, as we have seen, is the divine power that 

 moves matter to life. This divine power is the soul in 

 all things, everywhere " one mundane spirit, wholly in 

 the whole and in every part of it, producing all things in 

 each according to the conditions of matter, time, and 

 place." Men, for example, are not descended from one 

 parent only, but have come to life in the ordinary 

 course of nature, in different places and at different 

 times ; hence the difference between the races. 3 We 

 have seen that Bruno also reverts repeatedly to the 



1 Spaccio, 531. 2 De Immense, Op. Lot. i. 2. 172. 



3 De Immense, Op. Lat. i. 2. 284 f. : " Every land produces all kinds of animals, 

 as is clear from inaccessible islands, nor was there one first wolf, or lion, or bull, 

 from which all wolves, lions, and cattle are descended and transported to these 

 islands, but at every part the earth from the beginning has given all things," etc. 



