Giordano Bruno

For here is a philosophy that opens the senses, contents the spirit, glorifies the intellect, and produces the humane and true state of blessings that humanity desires, consists through balance, frees from care and pacifies sorrow, causes one to rejoice in the present and not to fear the future; for that Providence or fate or chance in life which determines our course through our particular vicissitudes neither wants nor permits us to know about one thing without ignorance of another, so that at first glance, we are always doubtful and perplexed. But, when we consider more profoundly the being and substance of the universe in which we immutably dwell, we see that neither we nor any real substance truly dies; for nothing is diminished in its substance, but all things that travel in infinite space change in aspect. And since we are all subject to the same Ultimate Efficient Cause, we should not believe, expect or hope otherwise than that, since everything comes from good, all is good, for the good and to the good; from good, through good, to good; anyone who believes the contrary apprehends nothing but what is present, as the goodness of a building is not manifest to one who sees only a tiny piece of it, like a stone affixed with a bit of cement to a garden wall, but which is visible  to one who sees the whole inside and out, who has the ability to see how each part converses with all the others. We have no fear that what has accumulated in this world could, through the vehemence of some errant spirit, or the wrath of Jove’s thunderbolt, be dispersed through this little sepulcher or cupola of the heavens, or shaken or scattered like dust throughout this starry mantle; and in no other way could nature be made to empty itself of subsistence, except when to our eyes it appears that air compressed within the concavity of a bubble vanishes on release, because there is nothing known in the world where one thing does not always succeed another, nor is there some ultimate deep of the world where being is finally dispersed into nonbeing by the Maker’s hand. There are no ends, boundaries, limits or walls which defraud or deprive us of the infinite multitude of things. Therefore, the earth and sea are fecund, therefore the sun burns forever, eternally supplying fuel for the voracious flames, as vapors feed diminished seas, therefore the infinite perpetually bears forth new material.

Giordano Bruno

On the Infinite, the Universe and the Worlds

Prefatory Epistle