POSITIVE RELIGIONS AND THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY
The hostility which the Italian and some of the Latin writings of
Bruno showed towards the positive religions of his day, alike the
Catholic, the Reformed, the Jewish, and the Mahomedan, had two grounds:
his belief that religious or sectarian strife was the chief cause of
the evils of war and civil discord that were rife throughout Europe,
and the fact that one and all of these Churches claimed the right
of limiting thought as well as of dictating practice, and in their
exercise of this right formed an unendurable barrier in the way of
human progress. Of the Roman Catholic Church, to which all his life
Bruno belonged in spirit if not in outward conformity, he never
expressly denied any of the essential doctrines, as he maintained
before the Inquisition at Venice. On the other hand, he admitted
that he had occasionally made indirect criticism of these doctrines,
speaking or writing "philosophically," not "theologically." To the
doctrine of the Trinity, for example, he had given a rationalist,
half-mystical interpretation, seeing in it a figure or metaphor of the
coincidence in God of the three highest principles--Mind (the Father),
Intellect (the word, the Son), and Love, the creating, vivifying force
of the Universe (the Comforter or Holy Spirit). It is quite clear
that he did not accept as "philosophically" true the distinction of
Persons, or the special divinity of Christ. Only once, perhaps, does
he write seriously of Christ as the Son of God, and that in one of
the posthumous works, the _Lampas Triginta Statuarum_.[531] "Charity
is the most perfect and consummate harmony, by which the soul in us
becomes so harmonious in itself that it is attuned both to God and
to all men equally, not only to friends but even to enemies; to this
perfection we are drawn, impelled, invited by the Son of the almighty
God, to raise us up to the likeness of the Father, 'who maketh His
sun to rise upon good and evil, and sends His rain upon the just and
the unjust,' uplifting us from the savage condition of life common to
brutes and to the uncivilised, who love their friends and neighbours,
but hate strangers and enemies." On the other hand, this very law is
elsewhere spoken of as coming not from the "evil spirit or genius of
any one race," but from God, the Father of all, as being in harmony
with universal nature, and as teaching a general philanthropy; "that we
should love our very enemies, not be like brutes and barbarians, but
transform ourselves after the image of Him who makes His sun to rise
upon good and evil, and makes the rain of His mercies to fall upon
just and unjust. This is the religion which I observe, as beyond all
controversy, and above all disputation, both from the conviction of my
mind, and in accordance with the custom of my fatherland and race."[532]
What Bruno rejected in Christianity was the whole mass of doctrine
which suggested a miraculous or supernatural interference with the
order of nature, for the benefit either of a particular person, or of
a particular race. That is the nerve, for example, of his satire upon
the popular idea of Providence in the _Spaccio_.[533] There Mercury,
on one of his visits to Sophia, relates a number of things he has to
see carried out, by the order of Providence, about the little hamlet
of Cicala. They are none of the cleanest--the number of melons that
are to ripen in Franzino's garden and that are not to be gathered till
over-ripe, of jujubes that are to be picked from Giovanni Bruno's
tree, that are to fall to the earth, or that are to be eaten by worms;
how Vasta, in curling the hair on her temples, is to overheat the
iron and burn fifty-seven of them, but is not to scorch her head--and
so on. These unpleasant details, however, are only a prelude to a
philosophical conception of the divine action. God, it is said, does
not provide for this and that individual as occasion arises.[534] He
"does all things without deliberation, anxiety, or perplexity: provides
for innumerable species and an infinite number of individuals, not in
any order of succession, but at once and all together: He is not like
a finite agent, doing things one by one, with many acts, an infinite
number of acts for an infinite number of things, but does everything,
past, present, and future, with one simple and unique act."[535] So the
knowledge of God is simple, containing implicitly in itself all things
that are or happen in the extended universe (the _explicate_ unity).
It is only to our confused vision that this divine government does not
appear just and holy. Mercury advises Sophia to put more strength and
warmth into her prayers, for to the mind of the infinite the small is
as important as the great! "The least things are just as much a care
to the gods as the principal things, for the greatest and chiefest
cannot subsist without the least and lowliest." The minutest trifle in
the order of the universe is important, for great things are composed
of little, little things of least things, and these of atoms and
minima.[536] The act of the divine knowledge is the substance of all
things: all are therefore known, ordained, foreseen. "Divine knowledge
is not as human, which comes after things, but is before and in all
things, and if it were not so, things could not be causes or agents,
either proximate or secondary."[537]
Thus the order of nature is fixed and eternal, ordained and foreknown
from all time. We have seen that Bruno rejected the superstitious idea
that comets and other heavenly wonders had a supernatural meaning; and
that he found the truest signs of divinity in the orderly course of
nature.[538] Miracles he explained either through imposture or through
sympathetic magic. Along with these he rejected also what may be called
the morbid side of mediæval Christianity--its constant dwelling upon
the physical, sensational aspects of Christ's life, sufferings, and
death,[539] its appeal to the hysterical in man. Against a religion
of incoherent personal emotion and brute ignorance, he would set one
of humane love and of reasoned knowledge. The chief value of the New
Testament, in his eyes, was its preaching of "the Gospel law of mutual
love," which the tyranny of Rome had violated.[540] The religion to
which he gave his adherence was that which raised the dead, healed the
sick, gave to the poor; not the contrary form to which the Inquisition
had brought the Church in Catholic lands.
[Sidenote: Man and God.]
[Sidenote: The Bible,--not science but morality its aim.]
With great boldness Bruno drew from his conception of the Infinite
the consequence that there can be no action of the finite upon the
infinite, no change or effect in God produced through man. A practical
corollary of this was the argument for freedom of thought. The virtue
of _Judgment_, in the _Spaccio_, has entrusted to it the defence of
the true law, and the removal of unjust or false laws, dictated by
enmity to the peace and happiness of the human commonwealth. It shall
kindle and fan the appetite for glory in the human breast, as the only
sure stimulus for inciting men to the heroic deeds that increase,
maintain, or strengthen republics. But it shall not pay heed to what
men _imagine_ or _think_, provided their words and deeds do not corrupt
the peace of the realm. Deeds are its only concern, and it has to judge
the tree, not by the fineness, but by the goodness of its fruits.
Heaven is not interested in any way in what does not interest man;
it is moved and angered, not by anything done, said, or thought by
men, except in so far as the welfare of republics is endangered. Gods
would not be gods if they were either pleased or displeased, grieved
or delighted, by what men did or thought; they would be more needy
than men, would be as dependent on men as men are on themselves for
utility and profit.[541] The gods are beyond all passion: they have
_active_ anger and pleasure only, not passive. Therefore they do not
threaten punishment or promise reward for good or evil that results in
_them_, but for that committed on peoples and in the human societies
which they foster by their divine laws and statutes, since human
laws do not suffice. The gods do not seek the reverence, fear, love,
worship, or respect of men, for any other end or utility than that of
men themselves. Glory cannot be added to the gods from without; they
have made their laws not to receive glory but to communicate glory
to men. The sole sphere of justice is the moral actions of men with
regard to other men; inward sins are sins only so far as they have
outward effect, and inward justice is not justice without outward
practice.[542] In the _Cena_ Bruno had already made practical use of
this principle in maintaining that the Scriptures teach not science,
but an ideal of conduct, and therefore that any argument from them as
to the actual constitution of the world is devoid of compelling force,
while, on the other side, no scientific theory or hypothesis can be
ruled out simply because it is contradicted by any statement in the
Scriptures. They were written, not in the service of our intellect to
instruct us in philosophy, but for the grace of our mind and heart,
ordaining by their laws what should be our behaviour in the moral
life. The Scriptures were written in the language and adapted to the
intelligence of the vulgar, the people of the time. "A historian making
use of words which the ordinary man could not understand, would be
absurd; and still more so would be one who desired to give to a whole
people a law and model of life, if he were to employ terms which he
alone or very few could understand, and should waste time over matters
indifferent to the end for which the laws were ordained. For this
reason Alghazel said that the function of the books of the law was not
so much to probe the truth of things, or speculation, as to promote
good customs," and to provide for the welfare of republics and of
humanity. To use the terms of science where there is no need, is to ask
that the vulgar, the foolish many, from whom only conduct is required,
shall have a special comprehension,--to ask that the hand shall have
the eye, whereas it is not made by nature to see, but to work, and to
obey the eye.[543]
The revelation of the Scriptures is accordingly reduced to that of a
moral ideal, to be enforced upon the ordinary man by the threat of
future punishment and promise of future reward; but it is an ideal
which the wise man would acquire by the light of reason alone, and
which he would pursue for its own sake.
On the other hand, the ceremonies and worship of the Church were never
attacked by Bruno, nor did he ever place himself in open hostility
to it; while he submitted, formally at least, to the rites of the
Protestant churches in Geneva and Helmstadt. The grounds of this
outward conformity may have been various: Bruno had no interest in
speculative theology, and probably kept an open mind towards the
prevailing dogmas and the ceremonies that symbolised the truths
contained in them. He believed with Pomponazzi, and others after him,
that religion is a good thing for the many, the foolish and ignorant
of the world, while knowledge or philosophy takes its place with the
wise. The former must be governed by laws which they have blindly to
obey, hence the supernatural sanction required; the latter pursue
the true good without this stimulus, by virtue of reason. But for the
sake of the many, the few must conform in outward practice with the
religion of their state.[544] Brunnhofer goes so far as to see in
this the idea of Lessing, that religion is a means whereby men are
gradually educated upwards to a true knowledge of God,--leading them
from the state of darkness and savagery to that of moral behaviour, at
which point only the full light of science and philosophy takes the
place of religion.[545] There was a religion, however, for the few
as well as for the many, for the wholly civilised as well as for the
semi-barbarians of Europe,--the philosophical religion of the _Heroici
Furori_. Another reason for his conformity was that Bruno regarded the
historical religions as allegories, or metaphors, of truth. Not that it
was for every one to say what was metaphorical merely, what truth or
fact: in the hands of Jews, Christians, and Mahomedans, and the many
sects of each, the same Scripture met with as many interpretations as
the number of the sects.[546] The interpretation of the divine words,
uttered by inspired prophet or poet,--for the divine inspiration was
not given at one place or one time only,--was again the work of the
wise few.
[Sidenote: Egyptian religion: Animism.]
Bruno's own leaning was towards Rationalism,--as in his interpretation
of the Trinity, of Creation, of the Incarnation, of Immortality, of
Providence.[547] In this he was only following Lully and Nicolaus
of Cusa, who also "demonstrated" some of the deepest of Christian
doctrines, interpreted in their own way. Yet Bruno was by no means a
thorough Rationalist: there remained always a sphere within which
Faith only was available, to which neither reason nor intellect could
penetrate. We remember that he ridiculed Lully for attempting to
demonstrate some of the particular doctrines which "are revealed to
the worshippers of Christ (_Christicoli_) alone, are contrary to all
reason, philosophy, other faiths or superstitions, and are capable
of no demonstration, but admit of faith only."[548] It is improbable
that any ironical meaning should be read into the words; for the
distinction between faith and knowledge or science, between theological
and philosophical discussion, between the supernatural light and the
light of nature or reason, occurs again and again, not only in Bruno's
replies to the Inquisitors of Venice, but in the published works. Here
and there he deprecates the taking of his statements, should they
conflict with or tend to weaken the accepted faith, as "assertively"
made, and claims, like Copernicus, the right of arguing for any thesis
which is "more in harmony with our sense and reason, or at least less
out of harmony with them than the contradictory thesis," however high
the authority of the latter may be.[549] Discreet theologians would
fix no limit to natural reasonings, however far these went, provided
they did not determine against the divine authority, but subordinated
themselves to it.[550] Even the _Heroici Furori_ disclaims any
supernatural reasoning or revelation. "If there is another order,
above the natural, which either destroys or corrects the latter, I
believe in it, and may not dispute about it, for I do not reason in
any other than a natural spirit." He is dealing with Philosophy, not
Theology.[551] In other words, Bruno refuses to dogmatise, just as he
condemns dogmatism in others; philosophy or science should be allowed
to pursue its own course, irrespective of religion, and untrammelled by
the Church, so long as it does not attack the authority of the Church,
and thereby weaken the forces that make for peace and harmony among
men.[552] Short of that, entire freedom of thought should be allowed.
Sometimes it might be well that the wise and heroic, as well as the
others, should submit and humble the light of reason received from God,
"the mark of divinity hidden in the substance of our nature," if some
higher light forbid or warn. But,--"In matters of philosophy at least,
by whose free altars I have taken refuge from the threatening waves, I
shall listen only to those doctors who bid us not close the eyes but
open them as widely as we may."[553] It has been suggested that Bruno,
like many others who were unstable in the Church, made use of the
subterfuge of the twofold truth;[554] in other words, that he professed
to disbelieve theologically what he accepted as philosophical truth:
or that he held one and the same proposition to be _true_ to sense and
reason, _i.e._ to harmonise with all other "natural" knowledge, and
yet to be _false_ to faith, _i.e._ inconsistent with revealed truth.
But no theologian denied more strenuously than Bruno, in spite of
occasional lapses, the possibility of two kinds of truth. There were
indeed two kinds of _evidence_: "one from the light of our own senses
and rational inference, such as we require in speculative sciences,
in the arts, and in practical life, where true and false, good and
evil, are apprehended by human reason and natural light;" the other,
from light of a foreign, namely, a divine source. For as God neither
deceives nor is deceived, and is not envious, but good in the highest
degree--is indeed truth and goodness itself; so, when he speaks to us
of occult things, of mysteries, it must be evident that everything
he proposes for our belief is true, and that everything he proposes
for our doing is good. But God is also the Author of nature, of our
senses, of our eyes, and of that truth and evidence which is in them
and according to them; truth does not contradict truth, goodness is not
opposed to goodness. The word of God that is spread through the parts
of nature, His hand and instrument,--for Nature is either God himself,
or the divine force manifest in things,--is not opposed to the word
of God, from whatever other part or principle it springs.[555] There
could be no clearer assertion of the right of philosophy and science to
pursue their own way in the discovery of truth. Nothing revealed from
above can conflict with truth acquired by the discursive, slow-moving
human reason, nor on the other hand can any real truth arrived at by
science ever contradict the pure, genuinely-revealed, word of God.
The sphere of faith is separated from that of reason; faith follows
the authority of revelation, is an infallible certainty equal to,
if not greater than, that of sense-knowledge and the intuition of
first principles. Revealed truths are outside the sphere of sense and
reason, not, however, as opposed or contrary to the truths belonging
to that sphere, but as above them. While _philosophical_ faith
enables us to act according to reason and human nature, guiding us by
principles innate in ourselves, to the perfection of our _natural_
condition, _theological_ faith leads us by supernatural principles to
a _supernatural_ end, to become formed in the likeness and in the
knowledge of God.[556] Neither must we call to the bar of reason what
is above reason, summon before our tribunal "cases" of eternity,[557]
nor on the other hand must faith be allowed to prejudice the discovery
of truth by natural methods: if so, it becomes a danger and a
snare.[558] Bruno was therefore a Rationalist only in a limited sense:
while he claimed for the philosopher entire freedom of interpretation
of religious dogmas or legends, the interpretation was to be governed
not by the facts of ordinary knowledge, but by the mystical intuition
of divine truth, given, in inspired moments, to the heroic soul.
There were two types of rationalism in mediaeval philosophy--that of
Averroes, which sought to supplant the positive religions by a religion
of philosophy, and that of Scotus Erigena, which aimed at upholding
popular faiths while allowing the philosopher freedom of thought in
interpreting the doctrines these faiths involved. Bruno's rationalism
is clearly of the second type, although personally he disliked all
prevailing religions for the reasons already given.[559] All positive
religions expressed for him one and the same truth, some more, some
less adequately,--that the supreme end of human activity is the union
of the soul with God, whereby it becomes one with God and is raised
above the sphere of sense and reason, above nature, out of the ordinary
cycle of human life and human death. That which of all others most
nearly approached his ideal was the half-mythical religion of the
Egyptians, from whom indeed he believed the later religions, as well as
the earlier philosophies, to have been inspired. The Egyptian worship
of the gods in the form of living animals was symbolic of the truth
that God is in all things: "Animals and plants," says Jupiter in the
_Spaccio_, "are living effects of nature, and nature is nothing but
God in things. Diverse things represent diverse deities, and diverse
powers."[560] God is in all things, but not fully expressed in each,
"in some more, in some less excellently," in some one divine attribute
or power predominates, in some another. Thus the viper or the scorpion
represents _Mars_, the cock or the lion the _Sun_, because of their
greater affinity, respectively, with these deities, or rather with the
divine powers which the deities embody. For as divinity is communicated
in a divine scale downwards to nature, so from the light that is
reflected in natural things we may rise to the divine life that is
above them. It was on these sympathies between animals, plants, metals,
on the one hand, and the various attributes of divinity on the other,
that genuine magic and divination depended. The _Magi_ ascended by the
same scale of nature to the highest divinity, by which that divinity
itself descended to the least of things, in its self-communication.
Their ceremonies were not vain imaginations, but living voices that
reached the very ears of the gods. "These wise men knew God to be in
things, divinity to be latent in nature, acting in and scintillating
diversely from diverse subjects, and making them to participate in
itself, as in its being, life, and intelligence."[561] Of Jupiter,
Venus, and the rest is said what Bruno no doubt thought of Christ, and
other founders of religion, that they had been mortal human beings.
What men adored was not Jupiter, as a divine being, but divinity, as
expressed in Jupiter: in this or that man were worshipped the name and
symbol of a divinity which in their birth communicated itself to men,
and with their death was thought to have completed its work and to
have returned to heaven.[562] But divinity is communicated not only
through these divinely chosen human vessels, but through earth, and
sun, and moon, the planets, the stars, and all that is in them: one
divinity under innumerable names, according to the innumerable modes in
which it is diffused. Endlessly varied also are the methods by which it
must be sought, under conditions appropriate to each thing, while it
must be honoured and worshipped with endlessly different rites, because
the kinds of favour we seek to obtain from it are beyond number. Later
religions had transformed for the worse what to the Egyptians was
merely a fable or metaphor, by which a mystery above the reach of sense
was expressed, or presented to the mind in a sign or symbol.[563]
[Sidenote: The finite and the infinite.]
How Bruno understood the relation of the finite human soul to the
divine mind, or to the soul of the universe, it is not easy to
determine, and it is doubtful whether he ever made it clear to himself.
Men, as natural beings, enter into the determinate order of _Nature_,
which, as we have seen, is the divine power that moves matter to life.
This divine power is the soul in all things, everywhere "one mundane
spirit, wholly in the whole and in every part of it, producing all
things in each according to the conditions of matter, time, and place."
Men, for example, are not descended from one parent only, but have
come to life in the ordinary course of nature, in different places and
at different times; hence the difference between the races.[564] We
have seen that Bruno also reverts repeatedly to the idea that various
men present in their expressions various animal characters, which
are an index to their inward nature, and at the same time point to a
transition from a previous or towards a future state.[565] And again
it was shown how animals differed from men not necessarily in degree
or quality of mind, but only in the outward organism through which
alone the mind could express itself. It is clear then that man should
have no higher place than any other animal, should stand no nearer God
than they; yet in a sense he does, for the human state appears to be
the only one from which the soul may raise itself out of the incessant
flow of earthly vicissitude, and enjoy the calm of eternal intellectual
union with God.[566] The soul of any animal (or plant?) may in time,
however, take the body of a man, when this outlet is given to it, just
as that of a man, should he refuse his opportunity, may sink back, and
indeed must sink back, to the animal state, in the never-ceasing cycle
of change. But what precisely is this soul that passes from one body
to another, perhaps from one star to another? In one passage we read
that as in corporeal matter the body of the ass does not differ from
that of the man, so in spiritual matter the soul of the ass remains
the same as that of the man; the soul of either is not different from
that which is in all things, _i.e._ the soul of the universe.[567]
We should then have to assume that it is _matter_, not the form or
soul, that differentiates individuals. According to the differences
of the organised bodies are the souls that are in them; or, it is one
and the same soul which constitutes the vital and cognitive principle
in different animal bodies, and in different "worlds" or stars. The
individual human and animal souls would be merely modes of the one
earth-soul, just as the different star-souls would be merely modes
of the one soul of the universe, the first and highest emanation of
divinity. The immortality of the individual soul would mean accordingly
its reabsorption, at the close of its bodily life, into the eternal;
but it would be impossible then to ascribe any continuity or identity
to the souls of two beings which succeed each other in nature. This
impersonal immortality is that which is most prominent in the Italian
dialogues; it gives place, so far as prominence is concerned, to
quite another standpoint in the later Latin works. Thus we find in
the _Causa_ the comparison of the presence of the spiritual in matter
to that of a voice in a room: it is wholly in the room and in every
part of the room, yet it is only one utterance that is so heard in the
different parts.[568] It might be added that the different degrees
of perfection or of divinity in different things would correspond
exactly with the differences in the intensity, vividness, of the
sound in nearer and more distant parts of the room. As matter itself
is ultimately one with spirit,[569] the outcome of this theory is an
extreme Pantheism; especially as in the _Causa_ the transcendent Unity,
elsewhere distinguished from the soul of the universe, is disregarded.
Divinity constitutes both existence and essence of all things, and all
things are ultimately one--God, in whom individual beings have their
reality, and in whom each is one with all other beings. "We have not
to look for divinity at a distance from us, for we have it with us,
more truly intimate to us than we are to ourselves"; and so with
all other finite things.[570] It has been shown also that death from
this standpoint is merely the dissolution of a composite thing into
its immortal elements, spirit and matter;[571] death is a change of
"accidents" to the substance (_i.e._ of qualities, conditions), never a
change of substance itself.[572] Not only we, but all other substances,
spiritual and corporeal alike, are beyond reach of death; but as all
substances are ultimately one, this does not mean a peculiar, personal
immortality for each of us as separate beings.
[Sidenote: Optimism.]
It follows also from this aspect of Bruno's philosophy, that
as all things are divine, so all are good. The forms of all
living things--men, animals, metals, even those of deformed
creatures--are beautiful and perfect in heaven (_i.e. sub specie
aeternitatis_).[573] All things being subordinated to the will of the
best, everything is good, and tends towards good; the contrary is only
apparent when we refuse to look beyond the present, as the beauty of a
building is not manifest to one who sees only a part of it, a stone, a
piece of cement, a partition wall, but is clearest to one who can see
the whole, and is able to compare part with part.[574]
[Sidenote: The worth of the finite individual.]
But there is another aspect of Bruno's theory of the relation of the
finite individual soul to the universal spirit, according to which
every finite thing has an infinite worth from the very fact of its
existence as a member, or part of the universe. It is in this phase,
later in time than the other, but never completely dissociated from
it, that the real contribution of Bruno to the history of philosophy
appears.
It is foreshadowed in the _Heroici Furori_,[575] where the pursuit
of an infinite object by a finite intelligence is justified from the
infinite potentiality of the latter, as eternal and unlimited in its
capacity for delight and blessedness. The infinite desire is itself
a pledge of its fulfilment in an eternal life.[576] The individual,
finite as it is, must realise in itself the whole nature of the
universe to which it belongs; each thing, each substance or monad,
realises in the course of its life all other possible existences. Each
takes on successively all possible forms, just as at every moment all
possible forms are actually realised in the universe as a whole. Each
thing, and every part of each, present to us the "similitude," the
image of the universe. It is precisely the thought which afterwards
loomed so largely in the philosophy of Leibniz, that each monad is a
mirror of the universe. The _transmigration_ of the earlier philosophy
appears in a far nobler light in this phase. The soul of man does not
change in itself as it passes through its innumerable forms; now it
is endowed with the "instruments" or members of the human body; anon
it will take up the members of another body; "for the soul which has
now the bodily organs of a horse there await the bodily members of a
man and of all other kinds of being, in regular series, or in confused
order; the death of the present members has no bearing upon the future
life and its innumerable forms. The soul would not suffer if this were
known to it; the wise soul does not fear death, sometimes desires
it, and goes to meet it. Before every substance lies eternity for
duration, immensity for place, omniformity for realisation."[577] The
soul is not limited to the earth alone, but has the infinite worlds
before it, for its dwelling-place. It is owing to this individual
(indivisible, therefore unchanging) substance--the soul--that we are
what we are; about it as a centre there occur in each life continuous
"massing and unmassing" of corporeal atoms, through which the changes
of form are brought about. "By birth and growth the spirit-architect
expands into this mass of which we consist, spreading outwards from
the heart. Thither again it withdraws, winding up the threads of its
web, retiring by the same path along which it advanced, passing out
by the same gate through which it entered. Birth is expansion of the
centre, life consistency of the sphere, death contraction to the
centre." It is the soul that gathers about it, groups and vivifies
the atom-mass; and the strongest argument for its immortality is that
it cannot be of less value, of inferior condition, than the atoms
themselves of which it avails itself to its own ends, and which are
in their nature imperishable.[578] Each soul exists apart in its own
unity and individuality; the soul of the universe does not impart
anything of itself to the souls of its members.[579] The hierarchy
of souls is not a scale of beings within beings, but a multitude of
realities, co-existent to all eternity, the _Monas Monadum_ at their
head, representing perfectly, completely, at every moment (_i.e._
timelessly), the reality of all the others, yet separable from them. Of
the others _that_ is higher which knows more perfectly, and in closer
unity--that is, more adequately--the universe to which it belongs. Thus
there is the daemon or soul "which is wholly in the whole extent of
the life of _the earth_, by the life of which we live, and in the being
of which we are;" above it is the individual soul or substantial nature
which is in the wider extent of the _solar system_ to which the earth
belongs; above it again the soul of the whole system of the _universe_;
and highest of all the mind of minds--_God_, the one spirit filling all
things wholly.[580]
So in the _Lampas_ the _Intellectus primus_ is said to be separable
from particular finite intelligences. It does not belong to their
substance: it works in them, but not as a part of them. It does not
gradually leave the being to which it has presented itself when that
begins to decay, but simply ceases to operate, just as it comes also
_suddenly_ to each, if at all.[581]
It follows that each of the lower monads is so far imperfect that it
is never at any one time all that it has the possibility of being; the
eternal essence of humanity, for example, the truth of humanity, its
ideal, is realised not in any one individual, but only in the species
as a whole,[582] and this is true of the perfection of every other
species. But Bruno's optimism surmounts this difficulty. The evil, the
imperfection, is so only to the individual, and in that particular
phase of its life. Each thing has a double tendency and a double
striving--to remain in the state in which it is, and to press beyond
that to realise new forms. But each thing has in itself the nature of
the whole--is therefore in its inmost nature perfect. It is imperfect
only in its explicit nature--on its outward side. The striving after
new life is due to the felt conflict, or want of harmony, between
what it has in it to become--its inner self--and what it has actually
become, the limited form in which it appears. On the one hand evil is
necessary for good, for were the imperfections not felt, there would
be no striving after perfection; all defect and sin consist merely in
privation, in the non-realisation of possible qualities. "It would not
be well were evil non-existent, for it makes for the necessity of good,
since if evil were removed the desire of good would also cease."[583]
In its whole life, however, the soul will realise all good, and
therefore is only _per accidens_ imperfect. On the other hand, however
mean in itself at any moment, it is a necessary part of the whole,
and therefore, relatively to the whole it is good. "If we look to the
order of the universe it will appear that every action and effect is
good by way of necessity, for even the things which appear the most
trifling and sordid are parts of greater and more noble things, as the
formless are parts of the formed, the least are necessary elements of
the great, the great of the greatest; and as the less cannot subsist
without the least, so neither can the greatest without the great. All
beings, therefore, of whatsoever nature, are good, if they are rightly
considered, not less good than greater things, if we take into account
the fact that the goodness of the whole depends on the goodness of its
parts."[584]
Every part, every individual in the universe, differs from every other;
each has its own inalienable individuality by which it stands out from
all others and is _itself_. So far was this principle carried by Bruno
that, as we have seen, he denied that any body could ever occupy the
same place twice; the planets moved not in circles or regular paths,
but ever in spiral course, so that at each moment their places were
other than at any prior or later moment. No two circles, no two lines
in nature, were ever exactly equal; hence there was never a perfect
circle nor a perfectly straight line. The principle is not at all an
epistemological one. It does not mean that _we_ could not distinguish
between two precisely equal things, but that two such things could not
exist, not even in the minutest forms of nature, since the infinite
variety of the infinite all must reflect at every moment the infinite,
eternally realised, thought of the One Mind.
[Sidenote: God in nature.]
There are accordingly three aspects of God in Bruno's philosophy--three
different standpoints from which He may be approached. The first is
that of natural religion--God in Nature. Nature is "the omniform image
of the omniform God--His great living semblance (_simulacrum_)."[585]
Its order reveals the mind from which it springs--the stars "declare
the glory of the majesty of God and the works of His hands. Thence we
are uplifted to the infinite cause of the infinite effect."[586] Nature
is God in things,[587] His infinite mirror, the _explicate_, unfolded,
extended, immeasurable world, and He is _implicitly_ everywhere in the
whole.[588] There is, however, no argument from the world to God's
existence. From the first the infinite power and goodness are assumed,
and the universe, in Bruno's thought, is simply a broad general
revelation of what each one of us may find in himself.[589]
[Sidenote: God in us.]
The form which the cosmological argument takes in Bruno is that as
individual things, taken singly, must be referred each to a finite
principle and cause, a finite effect implying a finite power; so
from the point of view of the universe of things, the innumerable
individuals in immeasurable space must be referred to an infinite first
cause. But to our thought the universe is only an inciting cause; we
cannot know God or anything of God's nature from it further than an
architect or sculptor can be known from one or all of his works. The
beauty and majesty of external nature leads us to aspire to God, its
source; but a nearer spring of knowledge is in ourselves. "We are
led to regard divinity not as without us, separate or distant from
us, but as within ourselves (since it is everywhere wholly), for it
is more intimate to us than we can be to ourselves, since it is the
substantiating and most essential centre of all essences and of all
being."[590] It is from these two aspects of his philosophy, the
identifying of _nature_ with God, and the identifying of the true being
of each of us with God, that Bruno has been described as a Pantheist.
So far, however, as this term implies the identity of the individual
things with each other, the conception that all things are one, not
in the sense of forming a unity of differents, but in the sense of an
indifference or uniformity of all, the term "Pantheism" would give a
very false impression of Bruno's religious belief. It is neither the
Pantheism which reduces all to a lifeless one, in which all differences
are merged, nor that which breaks up the one into a many in which all
differences are lost; but the Pantheism of a living, self-manifesting
One, which is throughout eternity unfolding itself in the diverse units
of the world--a pantheism not different from that of any of the higher
religions.
[Sidenote: God in Himself.]
Neither in nature, however, nor in ourselves, in the soul of man, is
the whole being of God to be found. Could we indeed see the substance,
the truth of ourselves, could our eye in seeing itself see all things,
as the eye of God in seeing other things sees itself,--then it would
be possible to understand all things and to create all things, for we
should then in reality _be_ God. We never penetrate to the deep-lying
individual in ourselves, but see only the accidents, the externals; as
we never see our own eye, but only its reflection from a mirror, so our
intellect cannot see itself in itself, nor anything else in itself,
but always some external form, semblance, image, figure, sign.[591]
The truth of things--God--everywhere eludes our sense and our reason,
our discursive intelligence. It is revealed, as we have seen, only to
our intuitive, comprehensive glance--a sudden insight for which reason
only prepares the way. Yet even this insight, "comprehension," is not
"comprehending." We are brought, perhaps, through it into contact and
into harmony with Him, but He is never, even to intuition, knowable. To
be known would mean to be comprehended, limited, and therefore finite.
First, then, God, the Monad, or Mind, is the true, _innermost_ nature
of things; "in themselves things are in motion, in matter, dependent,
defective, are rather _non-entia_ than _entia_, for as from not-being
they become, so from being they may cease to be; hence they truly exist
only where they cannot cease to be, _i.e._ in the first cause and
unfailing principle, which has power to bring them forth when it will.
Therefore they are more truly in the _Monad_ itself, and consequently
are more truly known in it, in simplicity and togetherness, where
all things are _one_ in an ineffable sense, without distinction,
distribution, or number."[592] God is the source of the determinations,
the forms of all things. "The first _measure_ is Mind itself: for all
measure receives its denomination from mind"[593] (_mensura_, _mens_).
"One is _mind_, everywhere wholly, giving measure to all things; one
_intellect_, giving order to all things; one _love_, producing harmony
between all things."[594] The first section of the _Praxis Descensus_
sums up the relation, the meaning of "creation," thus:[595]--"God is
the universal substance, being, by which all things are; essence, the
soul of all essence, by which whatever is, is; more intimate in every
being than its form or its nature; for as nature is the ground of the
being of each thing, so the deeper ground of the nature of each thing
is God."
[Sidenote: Theism.]
In the second place, the order and life of things has its source
in God, as the _Monas ordinatrix_; the whole order of nature, both
as it is simultaneously, as it has been, and as it shall be, lies
"complicitly," grasped in one thought, and realised in one act, in his
Mind. "What immutable substance wills, it wills immutably, _i.e._ it
wills necessarily, not as determined by an alien will, which enforces
the necessity, but of its own will; this necessity is far from being
contrary to liberty; liberty itself, will, and necessity are one
and the same" (in God).[596] Divine necessity differs from natural
causation, the sequence of causes and effects, in that in nature the
causes, will, and knowledge may be frustrated, the effect averted; but
divine necessity is necessity in all respects--to will, to know, to
act, are one. In the third place, God is above and beyond both natural
things and their order in the universe as a whole. In the later works,
it is no longer as a mystical being--inaccessible, because wholly
abstract, empty of content, the sublimated unity of things--that God
is posited. The Neoplatonism of the earlier works, although remaining
in the language and even in much of the thoughts of the later, has
been overcome in fact.[597] God is indeed transcendent, beyond the
world, but He is so only as comprehending the world in Himself, its
source, its truth--yet more than the source of things or of their
order. In all other things we may distinguish between existence and
essence (_i.e._ the fact of their being, their historical presence in
the world, and their nature, through which they are what they are);
in God alone these are one or indistinguishable.[598] God and things
differ by a greater difference than substance and accident--_i.e._
things are not accidents, or "modes" of God. They differ from one
another by their special _differentiae_, but resemble in other
respects. God differs, not as marked off, limited by them, but as
containing them all in essence, presence, power and eternity.[599] He
is not apart from things, but in them; in _them_ not as comprehended
or contained by them, but as comprehending and containing them, and
as the essential basis of all things, the centre of the universal
life and substance.[600] He is all things in all, because He gives
existence to all; He is none of them, because above all, transcending
each and all in essence, nobility and power.[601] He comprises all
things, not as excluded and, as it were, looking upon them from
apart and from above, for He is also comprised by all things. He is
comprised also not as included, contained, repressed within alien
limits, for He also comprises all things. He is therefore within all
things, as He who gives essence to all things; and is the basis of
all being, the heart and source of all life. He comprises all things,
as excelling them, governing, moving, disposing, limiting--Himself
unlimited.[602] Hence, also, as we saw, He is nameless; names are for
distinguishing, defining, separating from other things, but He is above
all difference, otherness, diversity, multitude[603]; or again, all
names, all predicates, attributes, are equally true of Him, because He
comprises all in Himself. It is in this sense that He is _Monad_ of
_Monads_, _entity_ of _entities_, "in whom are all things, who is in
none, not even in Himself, because He is indivisible, and is simplicity
itself."[604]
Bruno's philosophical religion is in the end a theism, but theism of
a purely intellectual or rationalist type. The natural world is after
all nothing over against God who subsists in absolute simplicity--as
Mind; in absolute immobility, changelessness--as Intellect (the
World of Ideas); in absolute perfection, self-sufficiency, and
self-satisfaction--as Love, or Holy Spirit. Over against this
self-contained Trinity, the changing and passing world is a _non-ens_:
as _it_ changes not, neither can it know change: to know change would
be a change in itself--its knowledge is as immutable, as simple as
itself. "Although we see things come into being that before were not,
and the world itself, as is believed, was produced out of nothing--a
new thing, yet from this change and novelty of effects, no change in
His action or power can be inferred, for He exists above all motion and
all vicissitude, an unchanging agent in eternity; not as artificers,
or material principles, moved by changing dispositions to new willing,
new faculty, new effects, but from the instant of eternity, above time
and above change, He creates all that which becomes in time, in change,
in motion, in vicissitude. Before and above time and motion there is
not always time and motion, but there we find divinity, immutable and
invariable. He has from eternity willed that to be which now is."
"There liberty makes necessity, necessity attests liberty."[605] "Past
is not past to it (the First Intelligence), nor future future, but
the whole of eternity is present to it as one whole, all together, in
its completeness."[606] Seldom, even in recent idealist philosophy,
has the World of Ideas maintained its hold so powerfully over a mind
whose whole trend was towards a naturalistic interpretation of things.
The religious instinct dominates to the last Bruno's thought; these
passages are from the very latest of his works. Each and all of his
speculations on nature, on its elements, its individuals, its general
laws, bring him back to the all-embracing Mind, in which nature has its
source, but which nature by no means exhausts. So his speculations on
the nature of man, on the moral life, on the inspiration of the artist
and of the generous human soul, the hunter after truth, point again to
a thought, a world above nature, revealed neither capriciously nor yet
to the natural faculties of the seeker, but to a divinely implanted
power of intuitive insight. It was an attempt, more consistent perhaps
and more thorough than any other has been, to combine the independence
and freedom and worth of individual souls, of the finite many, in one
thought with the absolute unity, necessity, eternity of God. And this,
after all, is the one aim philosophy has to achieve.