ineffable, unsearchable One, down, tier upon tier, through successive emanations, to the Gods that are immanent in the world we know and the things of the world. In the scheme not only do the Ideas of Plato, the Numbers of Pythagoras, the Forms of Aristotle, find a place, but also all the Gods of the Greek mythology, of the Egyptian religion, of the Babylonian and Hebrew esoteric cults. The same character is to be found in the writings of the so-called Hermes or Mercurius Trismegistus, to whom Bruno constantly appeals.[182] It was partly for their cosmology, more in accord with modern thought than that of the Peripatetics and the Church, that they were read; but still more for the support their belief in demonic spirits, governing the movements of the worlds and of all individual things, gave to magical and theurgical practices, which through the slackening of the rule of the Church were now universal. "All stars are called fires by the Chaldaeans," writes Bruno, "animals of fire, ministers of fire, innumerable gods, divine oracles."[183] "The Chaldaeans and the wise Rabbis endowed the stars with intelligence and feeling."[184] "There are some who are by no means thought worthy of a hearing among philosophers,--the Chaldaeans and Hebrew sages, who attribute body to the omnipotent God, calling him 'a consuming fire'": below Him were innumerable Gods, flames of fire, and spirits of air, which were subtle, active, mobile bodies: souls too were spirits--that is, subtle bodies; and Bruno adds, "We do not pursue this mode of philosophising, but are far from despising it, nor have ever thought that a wise man should think it contemptible."[185] The theology or theosophy of the Egyptians is praised in the _Spaccio_,[186]--"The magical and divine cult of the Egyptians, who saw divinity in all things, and in all actions (each manifesting divinity in its own special way); and knew by means of its forms in the bosom of nature how to secure the benefits they derived from it--as out of the sea and rivers it gives fish, out of the deserts wild beasts, and out of mines metals, out of trees fruits, and out of certain parts of nature, certain animals, certain brutes, certain plants, are gifted certain fates, virtues, fortunes, or impressions. Divinity in the sea was called Neptune, in the sun Apollo, in the earth Ceres, in the deserts Diana, and diversely in each of the other species of things: as divine ideas, they were diverse deities in Nature, and all were referred to one deity of deities, one source of Ideas above Nature." The passage shows clearly the connection between the revived enthusiasm for the old pagan cults and the new but dark beginnings of independent study of nature, in Magic, Divination, Alchemy, and Astrology: equally close was the connection of both with the revival of Pantheism, the conception of nature as a single whole throbbing with one life, springing from one single source. So of the Hebrew Cabala, Bruno writes, "its wisdom