Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/262

 250 THOMAS WHITTAKER: because where act and possibility are the same everything is that which it is capable of becoming. The point, for example, by motion can become a line, the line a superficies, and the superficies a solid, and all numbers can be produced out of unity ; hence unity coincides with infinite number and the point with infinite magnitude. The point and unity were regarded by Pythagoras and Plato as symbols of the one Principle of things. Pythagoras explained the production of things from the one Principle by the analogy of the pro- duction of numbers from unity, Plato by the analogy of the production of all figures by the motion of a point. Both these methods may enable the mind to rise to the contemp- lation of the One ; but that of Pythagoras is the best, be- cause numbers have a higher degree of abstraction than figures. Bruno develops this Pythagorean idea in the book De Monade, Numero et Figura. The Monad here symbolises the absolute unity which contains in itself all being, the identity of the maximum and the minimum. The Dyad is the sym- bol of difference and division, of the contradictions that are found in things. The final reconciliation of all contra- dictions, the return to unity, is symbolised by the Triad. Other meanings are assigned to the remaining numbers up to the Decad, and to corresponding geometrical figures ; but the philosophical bearing of the chapters of this book that follow the fourth (on the Triad) is not very obvious. In Delia Causa the one principle manifested in the universe is distinguished from the universe regarded as a manifesta- tion of that principle. The universe or nature 1 is called the shadow or simulacrum of the principle in which act and possibility coincide. There is not absolute coincidence of act and possibility in the universe ; it is indeed all that it can be " explicitly " ; but its principle is all that it can be " indifferently " ; in the one principle there is no distinction of parts. This view of the universe in relation to its prin- ciple is explained in more detail in the dialogues Dell' Infinite, Universo e Mondi. Here the universe is called an attribute of God. The infinity of God is distinguished from the in- finity of the universe. God is declared to be infinitely and totally in the whole world and in each part of it, while the infinity of the universe on the other hand is totally in the whole but not in each part. The eternal existence of an infinite universe and innumerable worlds is inferred from 1 The word 'Nature' as used by Bruno sometimes means the universe as a manifestation of the divinity, sometimes the divinity manifesting itself in the universe.