II 



THEISM IN BRUNO 319 



trated, the effect averted ; but divine necessity is neces- 

 sity in all respects to will, to know, to act, are one. 

 In the third place, God is above and beyond both Theism, 

 natural things and their order in the universe as a 

 whole. In the later works, it is no longer as a mystical 

 being inaccessible, because wholly abstract, empty of 

 content, the sublimated unity of things that God is 

 posited. The Neoplatonism of the earlier works, 

 although remaining in the language and even in much 

 of the thoughts of the later, has been overcome in fact. 1 

 God is indeed transcendent, beyond the world, but He 

 is so only as comprehending the world in Himself, its 

 source, its truth yet more than the source of things or 

 of their order. In all other things we may distinguish 

 between existence and essence (i.e. the fact of their 

 being, their historical presence in the world, and their 

 nature, through which they are what they are) ; in God 

 alone these are one or indistinguishable. 2 God and 

 things differ by a greater difference than substance and 

 accident i.e. things are not accidents, or "modes" of 

 God. They differ from one another by their special 

 differentiae, but resemble in other respects. God differs, 

 not as marked off, limited by them, but as containing 

 them all in essence, presence, power and eternity. 3 He 

 is not apart from things, but in them ; in them not as 

 comprehended or contained by them, but as compre- 

 hending and containing them, and as the essential basis 

 of all things, the centre of the universal life and sub- 

 stance. 4 He is all things in all, because He gives exist- 

 ence to all ; He is none of them, because above all, 

 transcending each and all in essence, nobility and power.' 



1 For Bruno's revolt against the mystical in Neoplatonism, cf. De Imm. v. i. 

 (Op. Lat. i. 2. 1 1 8), and cf. viii. p. 298 ff. 313 $ De Mow., p. 410. 



2 Of. Lat. i. 4. 79. 3 Ib. 83. 4 Ib. 85. 5 Ib. 86. 



5 



