THE FOUNDATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE[248]
It is the object of this chapter to give some account of the
speculations on nature and spirit which occupied Bruno during his first
year in England, and which show how hard he was striving to pierce
through the shell of mediæval thought in which his mind was encased.
However fiercely he struggled to gain his freedom, it was impossible
that he should do so quite at once. With all his contemporaries, he was
imbued in Aristotle's ways of thought, and the problems he set himself
to answer were largely determined for him by Aristotle. The categories
with which he wrought,--"principle," "cause," "form," "matter,"
"potency," "act," "subject," were those of the Stagirite, and were
open, therefore, to the same charge of unfruitfulness. On the other
hand, while the outward form of Bruno's philosophy, and to a certain
extent its matter also, were essentially Aristotelian, the spirit which
infused it all was not so; the emotion and enthusiasm with which he
wrote savoured rather of the fire of Plato than of the logical mind of
his successor; and throughout, the new conception of nature and of mind
which belongs to modern philosophy was struggling to the light.
From his Platonist masters Bruno had learned that the Highest or
First Principle was unknowable to man, being beyond the reach of his
senses and of his understanding alike: a complete systematisation of
knowledge was therefore impossible. A philosophy of nature had to seek
only for physical (_i.e._ real or "immanent") causes or principles;
these might depend, indeed, upon the highest and first principle or
cause, but the dependence was not so close that the knowledge of the
former gave us knowledge of the latter: no single system of knowledge
could embrace both. Knowing the universe, we yet knew nothing of the
essence or substance of its first cause, any more than that of the
sculptor Apelles could be inferred from the statue he had made. The
things of nature, although effects of the divine operation, became the
remotest accidents, when regarded as means to the knowledge of the
divine supernatural Essence. "We have still less ground for knowing it
than for knowing Apelles from his finished statues, for all of these
we may see, and examine, part by part, but not the great and infinite
effect of the divine potency."[249] The First Principle is, therefore,
the concern of the moralist and of the theologian, as revealed to them
by the gods, or declared to them through the inspired knowledge of
diviner men and of the prophets. On the other hand, in the universe we
have the infinite image of God, and it is, therefore, possible through
it to obtain an approximate knowledge of Him: "the magnificent stars
and shining bodies, which are so many inhabited worlds, and animate
beings or deities, worlds similar to that which contains ourselves,
must depend, since they are composite and capable of dissolution,
upon a principle and cause; and consequently, by their greatness,
their life and work, they show forth and preach the majesty of this
first principle and cause."[250] Thus the starting-point of Bruno's
mature philosophy is _nature_ as the vestige or imprint of divinity,
and divinity is considered only "as nature itself or as reflected in
nature": the presence of a transcendent principle above and beyond
nature is, indeed, premised to the discussion of the _Causa_, but it is
no longer admitted that its study falls within the philosopher's scope,
nor does it ever hamper or in any way influence the course of the
argument. So far from that, we find, at the completion of the dialogue,
that we have arrived at an _immanent_ principle or divinity, which
renders the _transcendent_ superfluous.
[Sidenote: Principle: Cause.]
The purpose of the _Causa_,[251] Bruno's first purely philosophical
work, was to determine what are the creative and constitutive
principles of the natural world,--its efficient cause, its end, its
form, its matter, and its unity; or, in other words, to lay down the
"foundations of knowledge," to give an outline-picture of reality the
details of which it was left to experience and observation to fill in.
Bruno begins by laying down certain distinctions, which, however, do
not, in the end, prove very binding. First, a _principle_ (_principio_)
is that which enters, intrinsically, into the constitution of a thing,
while a _cause_ concurs from without in its production; thus, matter
and form, which are principles rather than causes, are the elements of
which a thing is composed and into which it is resolved. A cause, on
the other hand, remains outside of the resultant object--for example,
the efficient, creating cause, and the end or final cause for which
the thing is ordained. Principle is the more general term, for "in
Nature, not everything that is principle, is also cause: the point
is principle of the line, not cause; the instant, of the event; the
starting-point, of the movement; the premisses, of the argument."[252]
God is both principle and cause, but from different points of view:
"He is first _principle_ in so far as all things are posterior to him
in nature, duration, or dignity; he is first _cause_ in so far as all
things are distinguished from him as effect from efficient, thing
produced from producer. The points of view are different, for not
always is the prior and more worthy a cause of that which is posterior
and less worthy; and not always is the cause prior and more worthy than
that which is caused."[253] There are really two marks of a principle
given by Bruno, priority in worth, and internality; but, generally,
a principle is that without which a thing could not come into being,
and which if taken away would take away also the being of the thing.
To a cause the latter half of this description would not apply, as it
remains outside of the effect. Thus God as principle is immanent in all
things, and is the higher source from which they proceed. This twofold
interpretation of the relation of God to nature and to natural things
was already inherent in the Neoplatonic doctrine which formed Bruno's
starting-point, since God as the source of emanation was outside of
the emanations themselves, and was unaffected by them; on the other
hand, the gradations in the different stages of emanation, and the
possibility of rising from the lowest to the highest, to the One
above all, implied the existence of _somewhat_ of the One as a common
nature in all. The two points of view were, however, held apart, and
the contradiction between them was not consciously perceived, so that
the coincidence of nature between God as the source, and matter as
the lowest emanation, never suggested itself; on the contrary, their
complete opposition was maintained until Bruno put forward his theory
of the "divinity of matter," which forms the real theme of the _Causa_.
[Sidenote: Efficient cause of nature.]
The _efficient cause_ of the natural world is the universal
intelligence, "the first and principal faculty of the soul of the
world." This _intellectus universalis_ is to natural things as our
intellect to the thoughts of our mind, and Bruno identifies it with
the Demiurge of the Platonists, and the "seed-sower" of the Magi, for
it impregnates matter with all "forms": it is an _artefice interno_,
for it works from within in giving form and figure to matter, as the
seed or root from within sends forth the stem, the stem the branches,
the branches the formed twigs, and these the buds; "from within leaves,
flowers, fruit are formed, figured, patterned; from within again in
due time the sap is recalled from leaves and fruit to twigs, from
twigs to branches, from these to stem, from stem to root.... But how
much greater an artificer is he that works not in any single part of
matter alone, but continually and in all."[254] The _intellectus_ is
both external and internal to any particular being; _i.e._ it is not a
part of any particular existence, is not exhausted by it, therefore is
so far external to it; on the other hand, it does not act upon matter
from without, but from within,[255] the efficient cause is at the same
time an inward principle.
[Sidenote: Formal cause of nature.]
[Sidenote: Final cause.]
The _formal_ cause of nature is the _ideal reason_; before the
intelligence can produce species or particular things, can bring
them forth from the potentiality of matter into reality, it must
contain them "formally," _i.e._ ideally, in itself, as the sculptor
cannot mould different statues without having first thought out their
different forms.[256] This ideal reason is the _Idea ante rem_ of the
Scholastics. The ideas of the intelligence are not, as such, the things
of nature, they are the models by which the intellect guides nature
in its production of individual things. The _final_ cause which the
intellect sets before itself is the perfection of the universe, _i.e._
that all possible forms may have actual existence in the different
portions of matter; from its joy in this end proceeds its ceaseless
activity in the production of forms out of matter.[257]
[Sidenote: Form.]
Among _constitutive principles_ or elements of things, the
_intellectus_ again takes the foremost place as the form; for, as we
have seen, it is both extrinsic and intrinsic to the nature of things,
... "the soul is in the body as the pilot in the ship; in so far as
he is moved along with it, he is part of the ship, but in so far as
he governs and guides it, he is not a part but a separate agent; so
the soul of the universe, in so far as it animates and gives form to
things, is intrinsic formal principle; in so far as it directs and
governs, it is not part, nor principle, but cause."[258] As external,
the soul of the world is independent of matter, and untouched by its
defects: it is only the perfections of the lower that are present
in the higher being, and that to a higher degree. As internal it
constitutes the soul in all things--down to the very lowest, although
in these it is repressed or latent. This all-presence of soul does not
mean, however, that each particular thing, _e.g._ a table or garment,
is, as such, a living and sensible being, but only that in everything,
however small or insignificant, there is a portion or share of spirit,
animating it, and this, "if it find a properly disposed subject, may
extend itself so as to become plant or animal, and may receive the
limbs of any body whatsoever, such as is commonly said to be animate."
Even the smallest material body, therefore, has in it the potentiality
of life and mind.
[Sidenote: Substance.]
It follows that there are, strictly speaking, only two _substances_,
matter and spirit: all particular things result from the composition in
varying degrees of these two--are therefore mere "accidents," and have
no abiding reality. Bruno joins issue in this with the Peripatetics, to
whom the "real man," for example, is a composite of body and soul, or
the true soul is the perfection or actualisation of the living body,
or is a resultant from a certain harmony of form and of limbs.[259]
Death or dissolution would mean to them the loss of their being;
whereas neither "body nor soul need fear death, for both matter and
form are constant abiding principles."[260] This theory of substance
and of immortality was regarded by Bruno as one of the cardinal points
of his philosophy,[261] and one in which he differed most widely from
Aristotle, as interpreted by him, and from the Aristotelians. Its
statement, and the criticism of the Peripatetics, occur again and
again throughout the works, and he believed the removal from man of the
fear of death to be one of the greatest results of his teaching.--"This
spirit, being persistent along with matter--and these being the one
and the other indissoluble, it is impossible that anything should
in any respect see corruption or come to death, in its substance,
although in certain accidents everything changes face, and passes now
into one composition, now into another, through now one disposition,
now another, leaving off or taking up now this now that existence.
Aristotelians, Platonists, and other sophists have not understood what
the substance of things is. In natural things that which they call
substance, apart from matter, is pure accident. When we know what
_form_ really is, we know what is life and what is death; and, the
vain and puerile fear of the latter passing from us, we experience
some of that blessedness which our philosophy brings with it, inasmuch
as it lifts the dark veil of foolish sentiment concerning Orcus and
the insatiable Charon, that wrests from us or empoisons all that is
sweetest in our lives."[262]
There is a certain ambiguity in the description of substance. Whether
is the spiritual unity which is placed over against matter itself
substance, or is it rather the particular souls which are part of it,
and which are thus immortal, changing only the form of composition
into which they enter? In this dialogue it seems Bruno is speaking
only of the world-soul,[263] but in later works, especially in the
_Spaccio_ and _De Minimo_, the substantiality and immortality of the
individual soul are categorically asserted. In the _Causa_ however,
Bruno maintains quite clearly the substantiality of the universal soul
alone, the finite individual being merely one of the modes of its
determination in matter.[264]
Having shown that no part of matter is ever entirely without "form,"
Bruno leaves aside for the present the question whether all form
(Spirit) is equally accompanied by matter. The form or world-soul
is not more than one, for all numerical multiplication depends on
matter. It is in itself unchanging; only the objects vary, the
different portions of matter into which it enters: and although
in the object it is the spirit or form which causes the part to
differ from the whole, yet _it_ does not differ in the part or in
the whole. There are differences of aspect only, according as it is
regarded as (_a_) subsisting in itself, or as (_b_) the actuality and
perfection of some object, or as (_c_) referred to different objects
with different dispositions.[265] That is, Spirit in itself,--the
universal Spirit,--the Spirit or Soul of a particular animate being,
the Spirits or Souls of a number of different beings (a system of
beings), these are all the same thing looked at from different points
of view. It is the same unique Spirit which determines the life of
the human individual, the development of the human race as a whole,
and the persistence of the world; the soul of Caesar and the spirit
of humanity are one with the soul of the universe. The relation of
spirit to matter in Bruno's philosophy is more difficult to understand.
Spirit is said to be neither external to nor mixed with matter, nor
inherent in it, but "inexistent," _i.e._ associated with or present to
it. Moreover it is defined and determined by matter, because having
in itself power to realise particular things of innumerable kinds,
it "contracts" or limits itself to realise a given individual; and
on the other side the potency of matter, which is indeterminate, and
capable of any form whatsoever, is "determined" to one particular
kind; so that the one is cause of the definition and determination
of the other. Thus particular bodies are modes (determinations) of
spirit and also of matter. As the universal form, spirit is all-present
throughout the universe, not however materially or in extension, but
spiritually, _i.e._ intensively. Bruno's favourite illustration is
that of a voice or utterance--"imagine a voice which is wholly in
the whole of a room, and in every part of it; everywhere it is heard
wholly, as these words which I speak are understood wholly by all,
and would be even if there were a thousand present; and if my voice
could reach to all the world, it would be all in all."[266] So the
soul is individual, not as a point is, but, analogously to a voice, or
utterance, filling the universe. It is clear from these passages that
the finite soul has no more reality in this phase of Bruno's pantheism
than in Spinoza's; not only is the world-soul one as _unique_, but it
is also one as indivisible--there are no parts of it: it is wholly in
each of the parts of the universe--in each of its realisations. The
finite individual, as this particular soul in this particular body, is
accordingly a mere accident, and passes away as all accidents do; its
existence is due chiefly to matter, by the varying "dispositions" of
which the universal form is "determined" to this or that particular
form; matter is in general the source of all particularity, all number
and measure. The difficulty underlying this attribution of diversity to
a matter which is supposed to be, apart from the _form_, undetermined
and undifferentiated, has been referred to above. It is emphasised
in the argument to this part of the _Causa_ given in the introductory
epistle,[267] where matter, although formless in itself, is spoken of
as "consisting in diverse grades of active and passive qualities?"
Bruno seems, however, at this time unconscious of the difficulty.
Certainly from pure matter and pure form, body and spirit, standing
over against one another, no start could be made. Diversity had to come
into the world somehow.
[Sidenote: The deduction of matter.]
We have not yet solved the problem as to the relation between these two
principles themselves--matter and form. Bruno confesses to have held
at one period the "Epicurean view that matter was the only substance,
the forms being merely accidental dispositions of it; but on further
consideration he was compelled to recognise a formal as well as a
material substance."[268] In fact, however, both form and matter
tend as the philosophy develops to coincide in a higher unity which
is at last the ultimate reality. The "proof" of "Matter" is from the
analogy between Nature and Art. All who have attempted, said Bruno,
to distinguish _matter_ from _form_ have made use of the analogy of
the arts (_e.g._ the Pythagoreans, Platonists, Peripatetics). Take
some art such as that of the wood-worker; in all its forms and all its
operations it has as subject (or material) wood--as the iron-worker
has iron; the tailor, cloth. All these arts produce each in its own
material various pictures, arrangements, figures, none of which is
proper or natural to that material. So Nature, which art resembles,
must have for its operations a certain matter (material); for no agent
intending to make something can work without something _of_ which to
make it, or wishing to act can do so without something _on_ which to
act; there is therefore a species of subject or material, of which
and in which _nature_ effectuates its operation, its work, and which
is by it formed in the many forms presented to the eye of reflection.
And as wood by itself has not any artificial form, but may have any or
all through the action of the wood-worker, so the matter of which we
speak, of itself and in its own nature, has not any _natural_ form, but
may have any or all through the agent, the active principle of nature.
This natural matter or material is imperceptible, differing so from
the material of art, because the matter of nature has absolutely no
form, whereas the matter of art is a thing already formed by nature.
Art can operate only upon the surface of things formed by nature, as
wood, iron, stone, wool, and similar things; but nature operates from
the centre so to speak, of its subject, or matter, which in itself is
wholly devoid of form. The subjects of the arts are many--of nature
one; for those being diversely formed by nature, are different and
various, while the latter, not being formed at all, is entirely
indifferent,--every difference and variety being due to the form.[269]
As it is absolutely formless, this matter cannot be perceived by the
senses, which are the media of natural forms, but only by the eye
of reason. As visible matter, that of art, remains the same under
countless variations of form,--the form of a tree becoming that of a
trunk, of a beam, of a table, a chair, a stool, a comb, its nature
as wood continuing throughout; so in _nature_ that which was seed
becomes herb; the herb, corn in the ear; the corn, bread; the bread,
bile; bile, blood; blood again seed, an embryo, a man, a corpse, earth,
stone, or other things, and so through all natural forms. There must
then be one and the same thing which in itself is not stone nor earth,
nor corpse, nor man, nor embryo, nor blood, nor anything else.[270]
So the Pythagorean Timaeus[271] inferred, from the transmutations of
the elements one into another,--earth into water, the dry into the
moist,--a _tertium quid_, which was neither moist nor dry, but became
subject now of the one, now of the other _nature_. Otherwise the earth
would have gone to nothing and the water come from nothing, which is
impossible. Thus nothing is ever annihilated but the accidental, the
exterior, material form, both matter and the substantial form, _i.e._
spirit, being eternal.
[Sidenote: Natural forms.]
The argument has proved that there is a something, the "I know not
what" of Locke, which is the substance of all natural things, "natural
forms." We have now to see in what relation this substance stands to
the forms, the differences, which are on its surface. All natural forms
dissolve in matter, and come again in matter, so that nothing is really
"constant, firm, eternal, or deserving of the name of a principle,
but matter: besides that the forms have no existence without matter,
in it they are generated and decay, from it they issue, into it are
received again; therefore matter, which remains always the same and
always fruitful, must be regarded as the only substantial principle, as
that which always is and always abides; and the forms but as varying
dispositions of matter, which come and go, cease and are renewed;
therefore they have no claim to be principles."[272]
The matter or material of which Bruno here speaks is what afterwards
was called _extension_, or the extended substance, and the natural
forms are the various individual shapes or bodies of nature: both from
the transformations of one into the other, and again from the fact
that the particular forms come into being and cease to exist, it was
argued that there must be an underlying something, material indeed, but
different from all the things we know or see, indifferently capable of
becoming any one of them, persisting throughout their becoming, their
change, and their ceasing to exist,--_i.e._ a permanent reality.
[Sidenote: Matter as potentiality.]
[Sidenote: First principle or absolute.]
Matter, however, meant not only "subject" or substrate, but also
"potentiality," or possibility: and we have to consider it in this
light also. Everything that exists is therefore _possible_, and the
possibility of coming into existence,--"passive potency,"--implies
that of bringing into existence--"active potentiality or power"; the
one is never without the other, not even in the first principle.
Thus the first principle is all that which it has the possibility of
being--in it reality and possibility are one; whereas a stone, _e.g._
is not all that it has the possibility of being, for it is not lime,
nor vase, nor dust, nor grass. That which is all that it can be, the
Absolute, is also all that any other thing is or can be: it embraces
all being within itself. Other things are not thus absolute, but
limited to one reality at a time, _i.e._ one specific and particular
existence. They can be more only through succession and change. "Every
possibility and actuality that in the (first) principle is as it were
_complicate_, united, one, in other things is _explicate_, dispersed,
many. The universe, which is the great _simulacrum_ and image (of the
first principle) is--it also--all that which it may be in its kinds
and principal members, as containing all matter, to which no element
of the whole (the universal) form can be added, in which no phase of
that form is ever wanting; but it is not all that which it may be in
its differences, its modes, properties, and individuals; thus it is
a mere shadow of the first reality, and first potency, and so far in
it reality and possibility are not the same absolutely, that no part
of it is all that which it may be: besides that, as we have said,
the universe is all that it may be only in explicitness, dispersion,
distinctness, whereas its _principle_ is so unitedly and indifferently,
for in it all is all, and the same, simply, without difference or
distinction."[273]
[Sidenote: Matter and form are one.]
[Sidenote: Matter or substrate of the spiritual world.]
Bruno works out at considerable length the paradoxes to which this
identity of all possibility and all reality in the first principle
lead. Thus, in magnitude it is both greatest and least, and as in
magnitude, so in goodness, in beauty; the sun would fitly represent
such a principle if it were at the same moment in all parts of the
universe, if its motion were so swift that it was everywhere at
once, and therefore motionless. God, however, is not only all that
the sun may be, but also all that everything else may be--"potency
of all potencies, reality of all realities, life of all lives, soul
of all souls, being of all beings." That which elsewhere is contrary
and opposite, is in Him one and the same.[274] Bruno has brought us
back in a curious way to the very first principle which he proposed
to exclude from contemplation: it can be understood, it is true,
only by negations, for our intellect cannot measure itself with the
immeasurable: we can form no image or idea of a great that might
not be greater. But here follows one of the most vital steps in his
philosophy:--As the absolute possibility, the first principle becomes
itself _matter_, and as there is no possibility without an actuality,
present or to come, the absolute possibility is also absolute
reality, or matter and form coincide in the _One_.[275] We approach
this conclusion first from the consideration of matter as "subject"
(substrate). From the changes of one natural substance into others we
inferred a universal substrate, undifferentiated, which formed at once
the basis of the community of nature in things, and the ground of their
difference.[276] But the spiritual and the corporeal worlds, also, as
distinguished from one another, imply a common "subject" or substrate
in which they are _one_ or identical. Bruno refers, as we have seen,
to Plotinus[277] as having held that distinction and difference imply
a common ground or unity, and that "intelligible" distinctions are not
exempt from this rule. "As man _quâ_ man is different from lion _quâ_
lion, but in the common nature of animal or of corporeal substance
they are one and the same, so the matter of things corporeal, as such,
is different from the matter of things incorporeal, as such: but from
another point of view it is the same matter which in dimensions or
extension is corporeal matter, and which when without dimensions or
extension is an incorporeal substance. In things eternal (spiritual)
there is one matter in one simple realisation, in things variable
(corporeal) matter has now one, now another; in the former, it has at
one time and all together all that which it can have, and is all that
it may be; in the latter, at many times, on different occasions, and
in succession. The former has all species of figure and dimension, and
because it has all, it has none: for that which is so many diverse
things, cannot be any one of them in particular. That which is all
must include every particular existence.[278] In it, absolute potency
and absolute actuality, matter and form, do not differ at all; it is
the extreme of purity, simplicity, individuality, and unity, because it
is absolutely all. It is individual in the highest sense. Being both
matter and form, it is neither: as matter, it has all dimensions and
none; as form, it has all formal existence or qualities and none. The
corporeal matter is _contracted_ to this or that dimension, whereas
spiritual matter is free (_absoluta_) of dimensions, therefore is both
above all, and comprising all. Thus matter in itself, being without
dimensions, is indivisible: it acquires dimensions according to the
nature of the form it receives: the dimensions under the human form
differ from those under the horse form, and from those under the olive
or the myrtle form. But before it can be under any of these forms, it
must have _in faculty_ all their dimensions, as it has the possibility
or potency of receiving all the forms. In itself it includes rather
than excludes all dimensions, because it does not receive them as from
without, but sends them, brings them forth, from itself, as from the
womb."[279] In other words, _Nature_, under one aspect, is a spiritual
unity, in which are comprised all possible differences, or all separate
existences: under another it is these many existences themselves, in
each of which, in succession, all differences are "realised," all
modes come into being: and finally, under another aspect, it is the
force which brings forth the separate forms or existences out of the
formless, indeterminate, undifferentiated unity of being, or God.
The two kinds of matter, or potentiality, the lower and the higher,
are thus essentially one; so we reach the notion, not indeed of "the
highest and best principle," as Bruno is again careful to remind us,
but of the soul of the world, as reality of all, and potency of all,
and all in all. Thus in the end, although individuals are innumerable,
all things are one; and the knowledge of this unity is the goal and
limit of all philosophy of nature.
[Sidenote: The unity of spirit and body.]
[Sidenote: Coincidence of all things in the One.]
This unity, which embraces all the knowable, is the subject of the
fifth dialogue of the _Causa_. The steps by which we have reached it
are:--first, the identification of a common nature, or _substratum_
in things corporeal,--corporeal matter, that which is common to
all physical existences; secondly, the recognition that there must
similarly be a corresponding matter, or common ground of things
spiritual; there also differences exist and demand an identity; and
finally, corporeal matter and spiritual matter must themselves coincide
in ground; there must exist that which is indifferently either, or
which is the potency of both, and their "subject" or substratum. To the
objection that to have dimensions is characteristic of matter, it is
answered that each kind of matter _has_ dimensions, only the latter has
them absolutely, _i.e._ it has all indifferently, and therefore none,
while the other is always "contracted" to one or other at each instant,
but has all successively. We have seen that at the close of the fourth
dialogue Bruno refers again to the first principle, unknowable, or
knowable only by faith, and professes to abstain from any consideration
of it. It is quite clear, however, that Bruno could not have said of
it anything other than he says of this unity of the corporeal and the
spiritual itself. That which is implicitly all reality in such a manner
that it is at the same time none of the particular forms of the real,
is all things and none--could not be other than the highest principle.
Further, this unity already has the distinction applied formerly to the
Highest Intelligence,--it "is all," and at the same time it "creates
all," in producing the forms out of itself. The unity then is only the
world-soul from a special point of view, or the world-soul is at once
the unity of itself and of the corporeal world.[280] This means that
of the spiritual and the corporeal worlds each is a unity in itself,
and each only a special aspect of a final unity which embraces both.
It is no wonder then that Schelling found a congenial spirit in Bruno.
The reality of this final matter or unity is moreover higher, truer,
than that of any of the forms to which it gives birth, and finally it
is _divine_. Little more is wanting to prove the entire superfluity
of the theological highest principle. The unity (or matter) is by no
means an "abstract" identity, but a concrete whole, which contains all
differentiation in itself, and a "dynamic" being, which produces, or
realises, its own modes. "Determinate, sensible, _explicate_ existence
is not the highest characteristic (_raggione_) of actuality, but
is a thing consequent, an effect of the latter; thus the principal
essence of wood, _e.g._ the characteristic of its actuality, does not
consist in its being 'bed'; but in its being of such a substance and
consistency that it _may be_ bed, bench, beam, idol, or anything formed
of wood. Nature, however, from its material produces all things, not
as art, by mechanical removal or addition of parts, but by separation,
birth, efflux, as the Pythagoreans understood,"--Bruno adds Anaxagoras,
Democritus, the Wise Men of Babylon, Moses! "Rather, then, it contains
the forms and includes them, than is empty of them, or excludes them;
and matter, which makes explicit what it contains implicitly, ought to
be called a _Divine thing_: it is the substance of nature."[281] Thus
the One is the only ultimate reality; it is neither matter nor form,
yet both together,--implicitly. And it has no parts, or all parts, for
all parts coincide in it, the smallest with the greatest, in it all
particular things coincide with one another, and all differences. It
has all possible existence and is therefore unchangeable, it has all
perfections and therefore is infinitely perfect.
[Sidenote: Indifference of all things in the Infinite.]
"The universe is one, infinite, immovable. One is the absolute
possibility, one the reality. One the form or soul, one matter or body.
One the thing, one the _ens_. One the greatest and best, which can not
be comprised, and therefore can neither be ended nor limited, and even
so is infinite and unlimited, and consequently immovable. It does not
move locally, for there is no place outside of itself, to which it
might transport itself (for it is the all). Of it is no generation, for
there is no other existence which it can desire or expect, for it has
all existence. Of it is no corruption, for there is no other thing to
which it can change; it is everything. It cannot grow less or greater,
for it is infinite; it cannot be added to, and it cannot be subtracted
from, for the infinite has no proportional parts. It cannot be subject
to mutation in any quality whatever, nor is there anything contrary
to, or diverse from it, which may alter it, for in it all things are
in harmony."[282] In it height is not greater than length or depth;
hence by a kind of simile it may be called a sphere. It has no parts,
for a part of the infinite must be infinite, and if it is infinite it
concurs in one with the whole; hence the universe is one, infinite,
without parts. Within it there is not part greater and part less, for
one part, however great, has no greater proportion to the infinite than
another, however small; and therefore, in infinite duration, there is
no difference between the hour and the day, between the day and the
year, between the year and the century, between the century and the
moment; for moments and hours are not more in number than centuries,
and those bear no less proportion to eternity than these. Similarly,
in the immeasurable, the foot is not different from the yard, the yard
from the mile, for in proportion to immensity, the mile is not nearer
than the foot. Infinite hours are not more than infinite centuries,
infinite feet are not of greater number than infinite miles.[283]
Thus, Bruno frankly draws the conclusion, which is inherent in all
pantheistic thought, that in the infinite all things are indifferent;
there are no proportional parts thereof--in it one is not greater nor
better than another: "In comparison, similitude, union, identity with
the infinite, one does not approach nearer by being a man than by being
an ant, by being a star than by being a man. In the infinite these
things are indifferent, and what I say of these holds of all other
things or particular existences. Now if all these particular things
in the infinite are not one and another, are not different, are not
species, it necessarily follows that they are not number (_i.e._ not
distinct)--the universe is again an immovable, unchangeable one. If in
it act does not differ from potency, then point, line, superficies and
body do not differ in it (for each is potency of the other--a line by
motion may become a surface, a surface a body). In the infinite, then,
point does not differ from body; since the point is potency of body, it
does not differ from body, where potency and act are one and the same
thing. If point does not differ from body, centre from circumference,
finite from infinite, the greatest from the least, then the universe,
as we have said, is all centre, or the centre of the universe is
everywhere; or, again, the circumference is everywhere but the centre
is nowhere." Thus, not only are the particular existences indifferent
in the infinite: they have also in it no _true_ reality, _i.e._ their
existence is a purely relative one.
We have now to consider the relation of particular things one to
another. It follows from the argument that all things are in all;
each particular thing has the possibility of all reality, has all
reality implicit in itself, but only one _mode_ is at any particular
time realised, and the life of particular things consists in their
constant transmutation from one mode to another. While the universe
comprehends all existence and all modes of existence,--of particular
things, each has all existence, but not all _modes_ of existence,
and cannot _actually_ have all circumstances and accidents, for many
forms are incompatible in the same subject, either as contraries or as
belonging to diverse species. The same individual subject (_supposito_)
cannot be under the accidents of horse and of man, under the dimensions
of a plant and of an animal. Moreover, the universe comprehends all
existence wholly, because outside of and beyond infinite existence
there is nothing that exists, for there is no outside or beyond: of
particular things on the other hand, each comprehends all existence,
but not wholly, for beyond each are infinite others. But the ens,
substance, essence of all is one, which being infinite and unlimited in
its substance as in its duration, in its greatness as in its force, can
neither be called principle nor resultant; for as everything concurs
in its unity and identity, it is not relative, but absolute. In the
one infinite, immovable, which is substance, _ens_, there is multitude,
number; and number, as "mode" of the _ens_, differentiates thing from
thing; it does not therefore make the _ens_ to be more than one, but
to be of many modes, forms, and figures. Hence "leaving the logicians
to their vain imaginings," we find that all that makes difference
and number is pure accident, pure figure, pure "complexion"; every
creation of whatsoever sort it may be is an _alteration_, the substance
remaining always the same, for there is only One Being, divine,
immortal.[284]
[Sidenote: Beauty, harmony, permanence of nature.]
Thus all things are in the universe, the universe in all things; we in
it, it in us; and so all concurs in a perfect unity. Therefore, cries
Bruno, we need not be troubled in spirit, nor be afraid; for this
unity is one, stable, and always abides; this one is eternal; every
aspect, every face, every other thing, is vanity, is as nought; all
that is outside of this One is nought. These philosophers have found
the wisdom that they love, who have found this unity. Wisdom, truth,
unity, are the same. All difference in bodies, difference of formation,
complexion, figure, colour, or other property, is nothing but a varying
aspect of one and the same substance,--an aspect that changes, moves,
passes away, of one immovable, abiding, and eternal being, in which are
all forms, figures, members, but indistinct and "agglomerated," just as
in the seed, or germ, the arm is not distinct from the head, the sinew
from the bone, and the distinction or "disglomeration" does not produce
another and new substance, but only realises in act and fulfilment
certain qualities of the substance, already present.
The coincidence of Bruno's doctrine with some of Spinoza's principal
positions is striking, although their terms are different. The
indeterminate all-comprising unity of Bruno is that which was
afterwards called by Spinoza substance; its two aspects, material and
spiritual--substances with Bruno,--are attributes in Spinoza, and
finally, the innumerable finite and passing modes with both are mere
accidents, and therefore do not determine any change in the one reality
itself. In a subsequent chapter other more detailed resemblances will
be pointed out in their bearing on the history of Spinoza's development.
[Sidenote: _Coincidence of Contraries._]
[Sidenote: "Signs."]
The concluding portion of this dialogue and of the work is taken up
with the doctrine of the _Coincidence of Contraries_, which derives
from that of the unity and coincidence of all differences, and which,
although it was undoubtedly contained in his own system, Bruno obtained
directly from Nicholas of Cusa. It is an indirect proof, from the side
of particular things themselves, of the identity of all in the One.
The first illustrations are geometrical.[285] The straight line and
the circle, or the straight line and the curve, are opposites; but
in their elements, or their _minima_, they coincide, for, as Cusanus
saw, there is no difference between the smallest possible arc and the
smallest possible chord. Again, in the _maximum_ there is no difference
between the infinite circle and the straight line; the greater a circle
is, the more nearly it approximates to straightness ... as a line
which is greater in magnitude than another approximates more nearly to
straightness, so the greatest of all ought to be superlatively, more
than all, straight, so that in the end the infinite straight line is an
infinite circle. Thus the maximum and the minimum come together in one
existence, as has already been proved, and both in the maximum and in
the minimum, contraries are one and indifferent.
[Sidenote: "Verifications."]
These geometrical illustrations are "signs" of the identity
of contraries, those which follow are called by Bruno
"verifications,"[286] the first of which is taken from the primary
qualities of bodies. The element of heat, its "principle," must be
indivisible--it cannot have differences within itself, and can be
neither hot nor cold, therefore it is an identity of hot and cold.
"One contrary is the 'principle' or starting-point of the other, and
therefore transmutations are circular, because there is a substrate,
principle, term, continuation and concurrence of both." So minimal
warmth and minimal cold are the same. The movement towards cold takes
its beginning from the limit of greatest heat (its "principle" in
another sense). Thus not only do the two maxima sometimes concur in
resistance, the two minima in concordance, but even the maximum and the
minimum concur through the succession of transmutations. Doctors fear
when one is in the best of health; it is in the height of happiness
that the foreseeing are most timid. So also the "principle" of
corruption and of generation is one and the same. The end of decay is
the beginning of generation; corruption is nothing but a generation,
generation a corruption. Love is hate, hate is love in the end; hatred
of the unfitting is love of the fitting, the love of this the hatred of
that. In substance and in root, therefore, love and hate, friendship
and strife, are one and the same thing. Poison gives its own antidote,
and the greatest poisons are the best medicines. There is but one
potency of two contraries, because contraries are apprehended by one
and the same sense, therefore belong to the same subject or substrate;
where the principle (_i.e._ the source, or faculty) of the _knowledge_
of two objects is the same, the principle (_i.e._ elementary form)
of their _existence_ is also one. (Examples are the curved and the
plane, the concave and the convex, anger and patience, pride and
humility, miserliness and liberality). In conclusion:--"He who would
know the greatest secrets of nature, let him regard and contemplate
the minima and maxima of contraries and opposites. _Profound magic it
is to know how to extract the contrary after having found the point
of union._" Aristotle was striving towards it, but did not attain it,
said Bruno; "remaining with his foot in the _genus_ of opposition,
he was so fettered that he could not descend to the _species_ of
contrariety ... but wandered further from the goal at every step, as
when he said that contraries could not co-exist at the same time in
the same subject."[287] There is a naïve but at the same time a bold
realism in this demand of Bruno's that reality shall correspond even
to the simpler unities of thought--unities which after all are mere
limitations. It is only because we cannot distinguish in imagination
between an infinite circle and a straight line that their identity in
actual existence is postulated, and so the minimal chord and minimal
arc coincide to our limited imagination only. Admittedly in the case
of sense-qualities the argument is from oneness of faculty knowing to
oneness of things known. These, however, are only, as we have said,
"signs" and "verifications" of a metaphysical truth which is arrived at
by other methods.
A corresponding passage in the _De Minimo_[288] explains more fully
the coincidence of contraries in the _minimum_:--"In the _minimum_,
the simple, the monad, all opposites coincide, odd and even, many and
few, finite and infinite; therefore that which is _minimum_ is also
_maximum_, and any degree between these." Besides the coincidence of
contraries in God as the monad of monads, the examples are given of the
indifference of all dimensions in the universe, and the ubiquity of
its centre; the indifference of the radial directions from the centre
of a particular sphere; the indifference of all points in the diurnal
rotation of the earth, so that any point whatever is east, west, north,
or south; the "subjective" coincidence of concave and convex in the
circle ("subjective" meaning "in the thing itself"); the coincidence
of the acute and the obtuse angle in the inclination of one line to
another; that of smallest arc and chord as of greatest arc and chord,
"whence it follows that the infinite circle and the infinite straight
line, also the infinite diameter, area, and centre are one and the
same." Lastly, we have the coincidence of swiftest motion with slowest,
or with rest, "for the absolutely swift (swift '_simpliciter_,'
_i.e._ in its highest possible manifestation, without any degree of
the contrary, slowness) which moves from A to B, and from B to A, is
at once in A, and in B, and in the whole orbit, therefore, it stands
still."
These coincidences are again of two kinds: some "subjective" in the
modern sense, _e.g._ the coincidences of directions in the globe; any
one may be taken as depth according to the spectator's standpoint;
others are "objective," _e.g._ when in God the one and the many are
said to coincide. According as the stress is laid on one or on the
other, the theory may be regarded as either dualistic (as Cusanus'
really was) or as pantheistic. There is no doubt, however, that it was
in the latter sense that Bruno held the coincidence of contraries.