 The Universal Soul combined with Universal Matter to produce the universe; the former was the active power, form, and the latter its passive subject. Bruno conceived Universal Matter as indeterminate space, that is, the receptacle of Plato’s Timaeus (52A–B) or more exactly Aristotle’s interpretation of it (Physics, IV.2, 209b6–17; IV.6, 214a12–19). In this respect, it was the motionless aether or spirit, devoid of any “specific quality” of its own (BOI II, 159–160; BOL I.2 78–79), that served as the medium through which soul acted on the two corporeal principles, earth atoms and water (see  Section 3). Some philosophers, noted Bruno, called this space or container “vacuum” (BOI II, 160–161). All Universal Matter was “accompanied” by form, that is, the Universal Soul (BOI I, 665–666). This simple picture was complicated by Bruno’s interpretation of the Universal or, synonymously, First Intellect. Like the Neoplatonic Intellect, Bruno’s Universal Intellect comprised the Ideas; but, unlike its Neoplatonic counterpart, it was not a hypostasis distinct from, and ontologically prior to, the Universal Soul. Instead, it was “the inner and most essential and characteristic faculty” of the Universal Soul, operating immanently from within Universal Matter like “an internal craftsman” (BOI I, 652–654; BOL I.2, 312–313, 426; I.4, 107). It did so by articulating its effects through division: a seed of a tree became a stem, from which grew branches, from which grew twigs, from which grew buds and so on—to the point of generating a new specimen through separation or discharge of some kind.