Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/260

 248 THOMAS WKETTAKEE: containing his doctrine of the divinity of Nature, even the expressions are seen to be almost identical in the two books, though there is an interval of nine years between them. But the central ideas of Bruno's metaphysics are best seen in the dialogues Delia Causa, Principle et Uno (" Of the Cause, the Principle and the One"). " The universal intellect " is here declared to be the universal efficient cause. Many names have been given to this cause by philosophers in order to describe its mode of operation. The name that is to be preferred is that of an "internal artist " ; for the universal efficient cause gives form to all things from within. The final cause which the universal intellect proposes to itself is the perfection of the world ; that is, that all forms shall have actual existence in all parts of matter. There are two principles of things, " form " and " matter ". "Form" as one of the principles of things is to be dis- tinguished from the accidental forms of things. The formal principle is in a manner identical with the efficient cause. For the soul of the world may be regarded now as cause and now as principle. In virtue of the formal principle not only the universe but all its parts are animated. Every portion of matter has its soul or " form ". Not all concrete things are alive as such, but all things are alive as regards their substance. The portion of spirit that belongs to any cor- puscle is capable of becoming the soul of any kind of animal by receiving the members appropriate to that kind of animal. All motion, all action, is due to the soul or form that is in the universe and in particular things. But there could be no action if there were not something capable of being acted upon, if corresponding to the active power of shaping there were not a passive power or possibility of being shaped in all ways. Hence a second principle or substance of things, " matter," must be assumed in addition to the principle or substance of "form". These two substances are equally eternal. No portion either of material or of spiritual substance can perish. Nothing is ever annihilated except the external and accidental forms of things. In particular things, "act" and "possibility" do not coincide. No particular thing in the universe is all that it can be. But in the absolute first Principle of things, which is all that it can be, " act " and "possibility " are the same. Material and spiritual substance, "form" and "matter," the active and the passive principle, are therefore, with res- pect to the whole, identical. Matter may be considered not only as "possibility" or