striving of the knowing after the knowable, its highest good.[231] Bruno also adopts the Trinity of Possibility or Matter, Potency or Form, and Reality, but it is applied at once to God and to Nature as two sides of the same thing. As the Divine potency is infinite, so is nature, its expression, infinite; matter and form do not in their origin stand opposed to one another, as if separated from one another, any more than _power_ and _possibility_ are separate in God; all that can be is realised; matter has in itself all possible forms, and produces these out of itself in the successive moments of time; the universe is eternal, therefore, in order that the infinite power may in it be realised. In all these respects Bruno transforms the orthodox Cusanus' conception of a created and finite world; although nowhere perhaps has the idea of a creation been more skilfully woven into a profound philosophical system than in the Cardinal's quaint dialogues. The Cusan does not attempt the impossible, to account for the fact of creation--"God comprehends (or contains) all things, for all things are in Him, and He unfolds all things out of Himself, for in all things He lives"; but the essence and the process of the comprehension and the unfolding are unknowable by us, just as we can never understand how _chance_ comes to be united with _necessity_ (creation) in the world. It is to this incomprehensible partnership that the imperfections of created things are attributed. In its reality the universe is finite, limited; in its possibility (_i.e._ its _idea_) it is infinite, but only _privatively_ infinite--that is, God could still call a more perfect universe into existence than it has actually pleased Him to do. Only He, as the Absolute Greatest, is infinite in the full _negative_ sense, _i.e._ that which can neither be nor be thought greater than it is. Here Bruno's theory is in complete contrast with that of the Cusan. There are, however, many consequences that both alike have drawn, as that no two things in the universe are wholly and in all respects alike (the _identity of indiscernibles_); each thing expresses the nature of the whole in a special way, but all things may be arranged in graduated scales from the lowest to the highest, or from any one to any other, _i.e._ there are no absolute differences, only differences of degree. Nor are there absolute centres in the universe, or in any of the worlds, nor perfect figures--thus there are no perfect circles described, _e.g._ by the planets, in nature. A further corollary was that the whole is mirrored in each of the parts, as each particular thing partakes of the soul or creative force of all; each does not, however, mirror or reflect the Divine nature with the same adequacy as every other; some do so more perfectly than others, man most perfectly of all.[232] Cusanus did not definitely accept the suggestion of a soul of the universe, analogous in its relation to the world to the