320 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



He comprises all things, not as excluded and, as it were, 

 looking upon them from apart and from above, for He 

 is also comprised by all things. He is comprised also 

 not as included, contained, repressed within alien limits, 

 for He also comprises all things. He is therefore 

 within all things, as He who gives essence to all things ; 

 and is the basis of all being, the heart and source of all 

 life. He comprises all things, as excelling them, 

 governing, moving, disposing, limiting Himself un- 

 limited. 1 Hence, also, as we saw, He is nameless ; 

 names are for distinguishing, defining, separating from 

 other things, but He is above all difference, other- 

 ness, diversity, multitude 2 ; or again, all names, all 

 predicates, attributes, are equally true of Him, 

 because He comprises all in Himself. It is in this 

 sense that He is Monad of Monads, entity of entities, 

 " in whom are all things, who is in none, not even 

 in Himself, because He is indivisible, and is simplicity 

 itself." 3 



Bruno's philosophical religion is in the end a theism, 

 but theism of a purely intellectual or rationalist type. 

 The natural world is after all nothing over against God 

 who subsists in absolute simplicity as Mind ; in abso- 

 lute immobility, changelessness as Intellect (the World 

 of Ideas) ; in absolute perfection, self-sufficiency, and 

 self-satisfaction as Love, or Holy Spirit. Over against 

 this self-contained Trinity, the changing and passing 

 world is a non-ens : as /'/ changes not, neither can it 

 know change : to know change would be a change in 

 itself its knowledge is as immutable, as simple as itself. 

 " Although we see things come into being that before 



1 Op Lat. i. 4. p. 99. God is not, however, passively comprised : cf. iii. 509 (De 

 rerum princip.} : " Mens eminentius tota in toto ita ut etiam sit tota extra totum et supra 

 totum" etc. 



2 Op. Lat. iii. 4.2 (Lampas], cf. i. 4. 85, 86. 3 i. 3. 146, 147 (De Min.) 



