nature. 



ii GOD IN NATURE 315 



seen, he denied that any body could ever occupy the 

 same place twice ; the planets moved not in circles or 

 regular paths, but ever in spiral course, so that at each 

 moment their places were other than at any prior or 

 later moment. No two circles, no two lines in nature, 

 were ever exactly equal ; hence there was never a perfect 

 circle nor a perfectly straight line. The principle is not 

 at all an epistemological one. It does not mean that 

 we could not distinguish between two precisely equal 

 things, but that two such things could not exist, not 

 even in the minutest forms of nature, since the infinite 

 variety of the infinite all must reflect at every moment 

 the infinite, eternally realised, thought of the One 

 Mind. 



There are accordingly three aspects of God in Bruno's God in 

 philosophy three different standpoints from which He 

 may be approached. The first is that of natural religion 

 God in Nature. Nature is " the omniform image 

 of the omniform God His great living semblance 

 (simulacrum)." J Its order reveals the mind from which 

 it springs the stars u declare the glory of the majesty 

 of God and the works of His hands. Thence we are 

 uplifted to the infinite cause of the infinite effect." 

 Nature is God in things, 3 His infinite mirror, the 

 explicate^ unfolded, extended, immeasurable world, and 

 He is implicitly everywhere in the whole. 4 There is, 

 however, no argument from the world to God's existence. 

 From the first the infinite power and goodness are 

 assumed, and the universe, in Bruno's thought, is 

 simply a broad general revelation of what each one of 

 us may find in himself. 5 



1 Op. Lot. i. i. 205. 



2 Op. Lat. i. 2. 51 ; i. i. 68. 3 i. 2. 151. 4 i. i. 241. 



5 De ImmensO) bk. i. ch. 10-13. 



