NATURE AND THE LIVING WORLDS
We have found that, according to Bruno, the universe is infinite in
extent, and that there are innumerable worlds within it: it remains
to know what are the materials that constitute the universe, and the
moving principles that govern its changes and direct the worlds in
their courses.
[Sidenote: Uniformity of Nature.]
Nature, he said, is the same in kind, in its substance, and in its
elements, throughout its whole extent--a daring conception for a
time when the empyrean and all space beyond it were still regarded
as the special abode of divinity. He reminded his opponents of his
own childish experiences:--when from Cicala he looked towards Mount
Vesuvius, he thought it dark, gloomy, bare of trees and flowers; but
when he approached it, he found it fairer than Cicala itself, while now
the latter looked bare and dark.[339] The Aristotelians were committing
a similar error in judging the distant stars and the firmament to be
in reality as they appeared to our eyes, and in denying the existence
of that which was not visible to us. "As the philosopher must not
believe what cannot be demonstrated by evidence, so neither must he
foolishly despise or find fault with what cannot be disproved by
reason."[340] Had men, instead of bending so long over the books of
Aristotle and his commentators, the _nebulosa volumina_, but turned
their eyes to the book and light of nature, they would have formed a
far different conception of the constitution of the heavens than that
of the eight, nine, ten, or more spheres and innumerable epicycles of
the Ptolemaic system. Bruno showed how as we rise from the surface of
the earth our horizon becomes wider, while in detail less vivid, and
he supposed himself to continue the ascension upwards to the surface
of the moon.[341] A few miles away tree and mountain would not be
distinguishable from the rest of the earth, but we should perceive
only a wide circle of light with dark spots, the appearance of sea and
of land respectively. As the distance increased the form of the earth
would become more visible while it lost all appearance of opacity,
and the whole would seem continuous light. As we neared the moon, the
earth would come to appear exactly as the moon does to us from the
earth. The moon also revolves round its own axis, and from it, as
with us, the universe will appear to revolve round it as centre. It
had been said that the appearance of the heavenly bodies had always
been and continued to be the same, but Bruno points to the fact that
although a mountain, when seen from at hand, changes its face from day
to day, and from season to season, yet from a distance it seems always
the same.[342] It is owing to the distance that the face of the moon
appears to us never to change, although it is certainly subject to as
many alterations as the earth itself; and to the dwellers on the moon
the earth will appear equally changeless. The light and shadow seen
on the surface of the moon are due to the variety of sea and land in
it, the one reflecting light, the other absorbing. On the moon, as on
the earth, Nature is in continuous change: for example, the relative
positions of sea and land are ever altering; but the magnitude of the
distance renders these invisible, and more especially the minuteness
and gradual nature of the changes themselves. The lunar spectator will
be presented with eclipses of the earth, and, according to the position
of sea and land, _i.e._ of light and shadow, with phases of the
earth.[343] In the same way Bruno applied his principle of similarity
to show that from distant stars the earth would appear of uniform
magnitude and unvarying position, while in the neighbourhood of other
suns it and all the other planets would disappear. As matter is the
same in kind throughout the universe, so it is subject everywhere to
the same law of unceasing change:--"The sun in its rising never seeks
twice the same point, all things by stress of the continuous flux are
renewed, nor ever seek again the haunts they have left, nor is there
any part of the earth which does not pass through every region, and
a like force now carries each part in one direction or another, now
drives it away; and if by chance any one revisit the centre, it is no
longer in the same form, nor in the same connection (_ordine_)."[344]
Not even the whole can ever be twice the same, since the order and
arrangement of its parts are continuously changing. Even in things
that seem ever to present the same face there is a latent alteration
which time will bring to light. There would otherwise be nothing to
prevent the whole of Nature being fixed, petrified, as it were, to all
eternity. Yet the substance of things--the atom--is unchanging.[345]
"All things are in flow; the parts of the earth, seas, and rivers vary
their positions, by a certain ebbing and flowing order of Nature. As
matter wanders, flowing in and out, now here, now there, so the forms
travel through matter. For there is not any form which, once occupying
a portion of matter, retains it always, nor any matter which, once
obtaining a certain form, maintains it for ever. Hence it is that,
matter always taking up one form or another, and having equal capacity
for all, consequently by virtue of its eternity it must sometimes fall
in with that which is able to bind it to itself for ever; if this were
to happen, all things would be so constituted that there would be no
alteration or difference in them."[346]
[Sidenote: The Ether.]
The universe to Bruno is transfused with spirit, soul or life, "the
soul of the universe," which animates its every part. "The seat or
place of God is the universe, everywhere the whole immeasurable heaven,
empty space, of which He is the fulness." The material aspect, or, as
Bruno sometimes seems to say, the _body_ of this spirit is the ether,
a subtle fluid distinguished from the air we breathe by the absence
of moisture. The ether is a purely passive, non-resisting medium,
permeating the universe, without quality, and unimpressionable by
force or action; thus it is penetrated by the heat of any radiating
body without diminishing its force. It took the place, for Bruno,
of the mythical Fifth Essence, which had so long fed the dreams of
philosophers--"Divine yet corporeal, material yet without matter,
a form without privation, conjoining act with potency, neither
heavy nor light, suffering neither generation, nor corruption, nor
alteration, neither increase nor decrease; beyond which no sensible
existence is, first-born and creatrix of Nature, simplest of beings,
all-containing, most powerful, most active, most living, most perfect
of existences, endowed with life and intelligence, of its own nature
moving circularly, etc., etc.--all this is at length proved to have
been a most portentous shadow without body."[347] Heaven is either
empty space, or it is an ethereal substance, "a very subtle kind of
air, which is the first and most universal occupant of space."[348]
Again, the ether is described as a vapour or smoke, a nebulous matter,
penetrating throughout the depths of the void, interpenetrating all
things and embracing all; as not entering into movement of its own
accord, for it is but an exhalation of the wind--a kind of continuous
vapour such as is contained in the bowels of the earth: in it is
neither heat nor cold nor any similar effect (_passio_), but it is
the medium through which these are borne. All these require moisture:
moisture alone can "fix" light or darkness or combine atoms into a
concrete body and prevent their random flight through the air.[349]
It has been claimed that in this and other passages Bruno anticipated
the modern theory of the ether; it must be noted, however, that he
expressly denies to its parts any kind of motion--it is only the
composite body which moves--and that he speaks of this heaven or ether
as the soul which is at once immanent in and comprehends the stars,
_i.e._ as the soul of the universe.
[Sidenote: Moisture.]
[Sidenote: Earth: Fire.]
Of the strictly material elements of the universe, the most important
is _moisture_ or _water_. It is moisture which gives concreteness and
therefore weight to things. Nothing has weight which has not been
formed into one by the union of innumerable parts under the action
of water.[350] Consistently with this, Bruno believed the heaviest
bodies, as the metals, to be the most solid and concrete, and therefore
to contain most moisture. It is moisture also which, penetrating
through the arteries, veins, and bones of the earth, gives to it both
variety of aspect and the power of life. The visible moisture on the
earth's surface, the seas and lakes, is a mere nothing as compared
to that which is diffused through its interior--is but the sweat, as
it were, of the earth's body.[351] Bruno's passion for homogeneity
led him to understand that in its surface the land under the sea
is similar to that above it, with which the former is continually
changing place, and it is divided up into plains, mountains, valleys,
the islands and rocks of the sea being the tops of the mountains:--a
remarkable intuition of the truth, however arrived at. As to the
familiar elements, _earth_ and _fire_, Bruno could neither allow a
special place or sphere nor a special direction of movement to either,
as in the Aristotelian cosmology. The earth was not the centre of the
universe, and there were earths or similar planets everywhere. To the
several arguments of the Peripatetics[352] for the centrality of the
earth,--from the heaviness, the darkness, solidity, composite character
of the earth's matter, and the movements of its parts, from the idea
that contraries shun one another so that the coldest element, for
example, should be in the centre, the hottest at the extreme,--Bruno
opposed the common-sense answers that his own theory suggested to
him. His appeal was always from "fictitious order" to the evidence
of "sense and reason." The argument has no longer any interest in
itself, and to pursue it into detail would hardly be edifying; but so
full is it, so weighty and so vigorous, that one wonders how even the
"Peripatetics" failed to be convinced by it. Bruno's very errors are
interesting. Fire for example, far from being the outermost, lightest,
subtlest element, was regarded by him as a body of which the substance,
(light and heat being _accidents_) was water mixed with earth;[353]
and in general, he maintained, no element was ever found in isolation.
As to the supposed coldness of the central element,--the earth,--he
believed, again anticipating future discoveries, that the centre of
the earth was not cold, but hot, the source of terrestrial warmth;
but the theory loses something of its value, scientifically, from the
imagined _vitality_ of the planet, by which it is supported.[354] It
was natural that the _coincidence of contraries_ should be brought to
do duty against the maxim on which the Aristotelian view was really
based--namely, that contraries tend to rest at the greatest possible
distance from one another, against which Bruno marshalled a whole
army of facts. Away from the shadow of the earth there was perhaps no
light but that of the sun, too strong for our eyes, for the daylight
arose from a mixture of the light of the sun and the darkness of the
earth; we could see other colours by it, for the reason that they
were similarly composed--mixtures of light and darkness. The heat of
the sun also was only bearable when tempered by the coolness of the
earth or other planets. The body of the earth, great as it is, can
bear this heat only through its swift revolution. As to the objection
that if the earth moved we should feel its motion, Bruno remarked
that when we are carried in a smoothly and continuously moving
vehicle, not striking against any object, we do not perceive that we
are moving, except by comparison with some object known to us to be
fixed. Thus sense furnishes its own correction.[355] The differences
in the distances of the planets from the sun, as seen from the earth,
are explained much more readily by the assumption that they and the
earth itself are moving about the sun, than by that of the centrality
of the earth, which compelled astronomers to the complicated device
of the epicycles.[356] The fact that the moon always turns the same
face towards the earth disproved the Ptolemaic theory: were it on an
epicycle, as was supposed, this would be impossible. According to
the old doctrine, the earth was fixed immovably in the centre of the
universe, while about it circled the spheres of sun, planets, and fixed
stars. With Bruno, on the other hand, the centre of the universe is
everywhere, or nowhere,--in other words it is relative to the body on
which the spectator is supposed to stand.
The principle of continuous change was employed to explain, among
other matters, the variation of the equinoxes, which was already
known to occur; but the continuous change was itself accounted for on
teleological grounds.--"The motion which causes the poles to tremble,
and the equinoctial and solstitial points to vary irregularly, is
on account of the variations which are always taking place in parts
of the earth; for the frigid zones may not always be frigid, nor
the torrid, torrid; all parts must rest and have holiday from each
kind of 'affect,' and consequently take up every kind of disposition
successively." ... "The centre of the earth, therefore, and its
position relatively to the poles, will vary."[357] No star ever
repeats one day the revolution of the previous, or any one year that
of another. Mathematical exactness, as we have seen, is never found
in the material world: the earth may not always present the same face
to the sun, so that one pole must at length pass into the place of
the other--a change which must occur sensibly and continuously, and
irregularly, as natural bodies and elements of bodies are naturally in
continuous alteration and movement. "The same composite body is never
in exactly the same state at any two moments, nor consists of quite the
same parts, for from all sides and everywhere there is, necessarily,
an unceasing influx and efflux of elementary bodies."[358] The stars
and planets are compared to a flock of birds, which float hither and
thither in the clear ether, guided only by their desires.[359] Never
does the flock present precisely the same appearance twice. In nature
the law is vicissitude and succession, so that each thing may in actual
fact come to be all things.[360]
[Sidenote: Earths and Suns.]
[Sidenote: Comets.]
All the stars consist of the same elements, since water cannot subsist
without earth, nor fire without water; but in some stars the aqueous
element predominates (planets), in others the igneous (suns). From
sameness of appearance and of effects (_accidents_) we may infer
sameness of substance. It is clear therefore to Bruno that moon,
planets, stars, are all of precisely the same substance as the earth.
It is unnecessary to point out by how long a period this brilliant
philosophical faith preceded the slower if surer march of science. The
great worlds of the universe are of two kinds--the suns, in which fire
is the predominating element, and from which light is diffused; and
the earths or planets, in which water predominates and which reflects
light. To the first class belong the so-called fixed stars, from which
our sun would appear no larger and no brighter than they appear to
us; to the second belong the moon, Mercury, and other planets, all in
one and the same ethereal space, suspended in free air and balanced
by their own weight as is our earth. In all are seas and woods,
rivers, men, cattle, reptiles, birds, fishes, as on the earth, and in
all the same continuous changes occur.[361] No one is in the centre
of the universe rather than another, for about all equally extends
immeasurable space with its innumerable stars. Of these "first bodies"
one kind could not exist without the other, for it is by the concourse
of contraries and opposites that nature provides for movement, life,
and growth in things. About each of the scintillating stars, or suns,
which we see, there must circle planets which are for the most part
invisible to us, but which _may_ become visible.[362] In the same way,
both on account of the smallness of their bodies, and especially on
that of the less intensity of reflected light in comparison with light
of original force, the planets which are about our fixed star, the
sun, would not be seen from any of the others. The discovery in the
last half-century of what is almost certainly a satellite of Sirius
confirms in this also Bruno's "anticipation of nature." Another of
these was his theory of comets,[363] which he held to be of the same
nature as planets, and to move in similar orbits. He believed also
that there were other solar planets which never appeared to us because
their position in the heavens precluded their reflecting any of the
sun's rays to us:--a belief to which the reported eclipses of the sun
by occult bodies has given some support. The shape of the comet, with
its appendages, was only apparent, Bruno said, and was due to the angle
made by the light reflected from its surface. In another reference,
however, he compares it with the oblique reflection of light from a
mirror, or from the surface of water; it is the watery matter, the
vapours which are drawn out by the warmth of the sun, that give the
unusual reflection.[364] This shows how nearly he approached the modern
theory. In the true spirit of the Renaissance, however, he appealed to
the authority of the ancients, of Aeschylus and Hipparchus of Chios,
who, according to Aristotle, regarded the comets as planets.[365]
The comets of the sixteenth century,[366] so far as observed, went
wholly against the received view that their orbits must lie within the
sphere of the moon, and proved that the substance of bodies beyond
that sphere was the same as the elementary substance of the earth,
as well as that there was penetrable space beyond. Both of these to
Bruno were important consequences. Still greater, however, was their
importance for humanity, in removing the grounds of the terror which
comets and other heavenly wonders had hitherto inspired. "There are
some," said Bruno, "who rest their faith in a virtue above and beyond
nature, saying that God, who is above nature, creates these appearances
in the heavens in order to signify something to us: as if those were
not better, nay the very best, signs of divinity which arise in the
ordinary course of nature; among which are those of which we speak, for
they also are not apart from this order, although their order is hidden
from us."
To account for the many appearances which seemed to conflict with
his new view of the universe, Bruno had recourse to several slight
experiments and analogies of daily observation such as a schoolmaster
might employ at the present day before his class,[367] but by which
even a man of Kepler's intelligence refused then to be convinced; at
least he would not openly profess his conviction. Among other fruitful
suggestions which Bruno makes is that the sun may perhaps turn on its
own axis, and again that it may contain vapour and earth.[368] He had
a curious theory that the heat of the sun is only directed outward
_from the surface_, not inwards; that this is the general course of
radiation; and that it leaves an inner surface of the sun cold, on
which solar animals live; finally that meteors are "animals" expelled
from the sun! So always the fruitful idea is accompanied by the absurd.
From the principle of the identity of nature it follows that bodies
which are remote from us are the same in kind with those that are with
us and near us; nothing may be denied of the former which is affirmed
of the latter, and _vice versa_. There can be no doubt, therefore,
of their similar composition and similar parts. Thus if here on the
earth we nowhere see fire subsisting without earth, nowhere earth
without water or fire, while their composites are both contained in
and penetrated by air and void, then the same is necessarily the case
in the upper world also; neither sense nor reason compels us to assert
or suspect otherwise.[369] Bruno has grasped, however confusedly,
the idea that each individual, each being in the universe, is as it
were an epitome of the universe itself; that each therefore stands in
a peculiar relation to it, differing from it only in the "proportion"
in which the elements are composed into unity. It is impossible
not to see in this idea the germ of the most important development
of Leibniz' philosophy, whatever the source may have been through
which it came to the latter. It is true that here, at least, Bruno's
conception appears much less spiritual than that of his successor,
inasmuch as he is thinking rather of the actual physical elements
which go to make up a body (and in which all bodies are similar to
one another). On the other hand, the formation of the body is, in his
view, the work of the soul, and it is in the last resort the identity
of the universal soul of nature in all its members that brings each
of these into correspondence with all others. It is true, also, that
Bruno has no definite explanation of what constitutes an individual,
and his readers are exposed to the dilemma either of regarding the
physical atoms as themselves "_beseelt_,"--a view which Bruno nowhere
sanctions,--or, on the other hand, of accepting a dualism of spirit
(the soul of the universe or God) and matter (the material atoms,
moisture, fire, and ether). Yet the tenour of Bruno's philosophy is
wholly opposed to such a dualism. As a corollary of this theory,
Bruno suggested an explanation of what has been called "spontaneous
generation," supported, however, by tales of the credulous rather than
by actual observation. "Dust that has been heated by the sun, as soon
as moisture falls upon it, becomes a frog, the whole substance of dung
goes into worms or flies, the body of a horse will turn into wasps,
the provident bee rises from the body of an ox!"[370] As each thing
is in its inner nature identical with every other, so it _may_, and
in the natural course _does, become_ every other, as we have learned
from the Italian works. Nevertheless, the outward appearances of things
do not cease to be different from one another. "That is more latent
in one subject which is more unfolded in the remainder." "The subject
of all is one (_monas_), and all things are in truth one, although in
individuals they seem to be many."
[Sidenote: Movements of bodies; their soul-principle.]
The movements of the earth and of other free-moving bodies are always
attributed by Bruno to an "internal principle or _soul_." Movement
from without could only take place through direct contact, and the
liquid air or ether is too light to move these heavy bodies.[371] "It
is taking things by the wrong end to say that the loadstone attracts
the iron, the amber the straw, the sun the sunflower. In the iron there
is a kind of sense, awakened by a spiritual (_i.e._ a subtly material)
virtue diffused from the loadstone, ... and generally everything that
desires and has intelligence moves towards the thing desired, converts
itself into it as far as possible, beginning with the wish to be in
the same place." By the same principle are explained the phenomena
of _gravity_, which is defined as impulse towards the place of
preservation, such as the earth is to the stone that has formed part of
it; its opposite, "_levity_," is impulse away from the contrary or the
injurious. "_Gravity_ and _levity_ are nothing but the impulse of parts
to their place, where they may either move or be at rest, or to a place
through which it is necessary for them to go (in the circular movement
of all material things)." Thus the motions of the heavy and the light
are merely relative movements; the same kind of motion does not belong
always to the same kind of substance or element.[372]
The movement of the stars is determined not by considerations of place
only, but also by the necessity that bodies of one kind are under of
deriving sustenance from those of another,--the suns from the earths
and the earths from the suns. It is through the soul that their needs
are felt, and the soul directs their movements as does the human
soul those of the human body. There are, however, no fixed limits to
their movements: they are governed only by the convenience of life,
as perceived by the sense and mind, which are inborn in each. By this
fantastic principle Bruno explained what he thought to be the fact,
that all heavenly bodies whatsoever are in movement; or perhaps we
should say he inferred the fact from the principle:--which was first
in the order of his thought it would be impossible to know. Like most
of his contemporaries he looked upon the conception of a soul in all
things with peculiar reverence--
_Porgimus haec paucis, vulgus procul esto prophanum,
Ne liceat laico sacrum conscendere montem._
The method by which Bruno sought to know the nature of the souls of
the worlds is one which the course of modern philosophy has rendered
familiar to us in other connections. It rests upon the argument from
the part to the whole. "Whatever we find in a part of the world
belongs, in a higher sense (_sublimius_), to the whole, and must be
attributed to it. All the capacities of each part are attributed to
the whole--that is, their perfections and activities, not the qualities
they possess as parts, and as less than the whole in any respect." Thus
the hindrances to which lesser individuals are exposed, the necessity
of taking in and giving out matter as their forms change, exist in the
greater individual in a minimal degree. But in all parts of the earth
Bruno found signs of life, sensation, and even intelligence. Stones of
different kinds were universally believed to have a kind of sensibility
and instinct: to move of their own accord, attract other bodies to
themselves, act upon our human spirits and senses. The phenomena of
animal instinct were a constant object of interest to Bruno, who saw
in them the expression of a deeper intelligence than the merely human.
It is true the observations on which he built may not always have been
exact; but that does not detract from the value of his principle. Thus
the porcupine (_istrix_) moved his admiration because of its careful
storing up of a stock of darts in its back, with which to protect its
life; it could, with unerring aim, cast one at its enemy, hearing, it
is said, with its skin; and its precision far surpassed all that the
cunning of man, with his many instruments, could do. With perfect skill
it threw its darts, yet sparingly, so that no part of its body was ever
defenceless, the spirit directing all its actions from one centre, to
which, from every part of the body, report was made! "With how much
higher reason will the _star_ be endowed, of the body of which animals
are made, by whose spirit they flourish? So the earth from one centre
directs all its actions and those of its parts; it never errs, neither
it nor any of the worlds which dwell in the immeasurable ether."[373]
Bruno rejected[374] the popular notion that the behaviour of ants,
spiders, and other animals does not spring from their proper foresight
and artifice, but from divine, unerring intelligence acting upon them
from without, giving them those "_thrusts_" (_spinte_) which are called
"natural instincts"--a term which he regarded as meaningless. "Is this
'natural instinct' sense or intellect? If the former, is it internal
or external? Clearly it is not external; but if internal, where is
the internal sense from which they could have their foresight, their
arts and artifices, their precautions, expeditions, to meet various
conditions, both present and future? There must be some proximate
principle, _i.e._ a form of _intelligence_ peculiar to each animal,
which determines its actions. The divine and universal intelligence is
merely the principle that _gives_ it intelligence, through which it
understands."[375] The action of animals of a given kind were supposed
to be after one perfect model, and to be undeliberate. Bruno therefore
placed their intelligence higher than that of man, nearer the level of
that of the world-souls. "The swallow makes its nest, the ants their
cave, the spiders their web or nets, in one way only, than which they
could not make them more admirably or suitably.... Who knows whether
the spirit of man is rising upwards, that of others moving downwards?
At least it is to be referred to a defect of light and divine force
that men hesitate and deliberate in all that belongs to the means of
life, the modes of worship and defence, for if all knew perfectly, all
would be governed in the best, and consequently in one way only." It
is, then, on the analogy of these supposed higher, unerring faculties
of animals that Bruno considers the souls of the worlds to think and
act. They have perfect freedom, since their life and soul are their
own, not borrowed, as ours. "Thus as we breathe, see, sleep, without
labour or anxiety, and while our soul performs the function of life,
the vital humours and spirits continually circulate, so these, the
chief members of the world, divine animals, have no need to undergo any
anxious toil, for all things with them are done for the best." Their
fixed aim of life defines for them certain determinate orbits, "in
which they move freely by the force of that soul which is much more
certainly present in these high, perfect, divine bodies than in us, of
more ignoble condition, who draw from them spirit and body, come forth
living out of their bosom, are nourished by them, and at length are
dissolved and received back into them."[376]
It is to the internal spirit also that the spherical form of the worlds
is due. The so-called mountains of the earth do not in the least
detract from its spherical form. Bruno anticipated modern science in
his discovery or intuition that the real mountains are not those we
are accustomed to call such, but immense tracts of country,--the whole
of France, for example. "I find the whole country of France to be one
mountain, which rises gradually from the North Sea to Auvergne, where
is its summit, marked on the west by the Pyrenees, where the Garonne
flows, on the east by the Rhone, on the south by the Mediterranean
Sea."[377] The whole earth is, however, as smooth in reality as is to
us the pumice stone, which to the ant seems furrowed with mountains
and valleys. It is on teleological grounds that Bruno accounts for this
sphericity. Composite things are preserved through the harmony and
union of their parts, while decay arises from dissolution. But such
harmony and union are best secured by the spherical form: towards this
form, then, every soul aspires in the moulding of its body. The most
perfect animals, the stars, having fewer limitations, have the greater
advantages; being almost independent, free, self-sufficient, they are
most closely united in themselves, _i.e._ tend most nearly to the
purely spherical form.[378]
However perfect they are, the stars are yet of mortal stuff. "You
may say if you will that the worlds change and decay in old age, or
that the earth seems to grow grey with years, and that all the great
animals of the universe perish like the small, for they change, decay,
dissolve. Matter, weary of old forms, eagerly snatches after new, for
it desires to become all things, and to resemble, as far as may be,
all being." The efflux and influx of atomic matter into the great
bodies is continuous, and this is the only kind of motion which is
unceasing.[379] "As the conflux of native matter is greater, so the
bodies grow more and more, and increase up to a certain limit, on
touching which they grow weary and become subject to a contrary order;
as about the seed atoms are gathered and added continuously until the
body and its limbs reach their maturity, when the same parts are cast
out from the centre, and the breaking up of the composite is presented
to our eyes." Hence there are atoms innumerable roaming through the
void, while infinite changes succeed one another in bodies. Those in
one region receive the atoms repulsed from another: there is no danger
of their straying infinitely without reaching a goal, for everywhere
are great bodies to receive what is expelled from other stars.
Composite as the worlds are,--capable, therefore, of dissolution and
destruction,--yet, as Timaeus had suggested, the power and providence
of the divine purpose may maintain them eternally as they are.