CHAPTER IV

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.