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
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