BRUNO IN THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
Perhaps no philosopher of equal originality and strength has had
so little apparent influence upon contemporary or later thought as
Bruno. His name hardly occurs in any of the writers of his own or the
following century; when it does occur, it is mentioned only that the
author may make sufficiently clear the discrepancy between the actual
or reputed views of Bruno and those of himself. Yet it is easy to
underestimate the influence his writings and his personality exercised;
neither in France, in England, nor in Germany could his prolonged stay
have failed to rouse, in some at least of his hearers, sympathy with
his lofty conception of the universe and of man's destiny; through them
Bruno's books must have passed into the hands of many philosophers,
both before and after they were placed upon the _Index Expurgatorius_
in 1603. A natural consequence of this public ban would be that Bruno
was no longer quoted or referred to as an authority; but all thinkers
of sceptical or liberal tendency would at least be eager to read his
works when the opportunity offered itself. Owing to the great scarcity
of the copies and their increasing costliness, this would become a
chance less and less frequent as time went on. Even so, however, one
may trace how his ideas filtered through many minds and helped to
determine the course of modern philosophy, of which Bruno has as high
claims as either Bacon or Descartes to be named the founder.
[Sidenote: Antidicsonus.]
[Sidenote: Thomas Watson.]
In English writers the only contemporary notices of Bruno which have
been found are in two small works on mnemonics,--one by a professed
opponent of Bruno's friend, Alexander Dicson, the other by the poet
Thomas Watson. The former, the _Anti-dicsonus_ of a certain Cambridge
scholar, G. P., of date 1584, was dedicated to Thomas Moffat or Moufet,
a well-known philosopher and doctor of medicine, from whom support
was hoped against the "Dicson School." Of this school Bruno, who was
then in England, must have been regarded as a member. The author is
a follower of Ramus, and ridicules the art of memory which consists
in _locis et umbris_ and its "self-parading memoriographs, such as
Metrodorus, Rosselius, _the Nolan_, and Dicson; these are the reefs
and whirlpools in which the purer science of memory would have been
wholly destroyed, had she not clung to her faith in the Rameans as a
pillar of refuge." It is an interesting note, for it shows that Bruno's
antipathy to Ramus was returned by Ramus' followers,--an antipathy
so difficult to understand when we remember that both were reformers
in philosophy, and that both zealously attacked Aristotle. The work
against which G. P. writes is Alexander Dicson's _De Umbra rationis
et iudicii, sive de memoriae virtute Prosopopoeia_, dedicated to the
Earl of Leicester (1583). There can be no doubt that it is based
upon Bruno's _De Umbris Idearum_ (1582), with which it agrees both
in substance and in metaphysical basis. Dicson, as already pointed
out, was one of Bruno's mouthpieces in an Italian dialogue. Here at
least is an avenue for influence from Bruno upon English thought.
Unfortunately Dicson's work is not of great value, and, with the man
himself, has long been forgotten. But G. P.'s reliance upon Moffat's
support to repel "the attacks of Scepsius,[607] and the wrath and
violence towards me of the whole school of Dicson," shows that on the
side, at any rate, of his mnemonic doctrine Bruno's teaching had not
fallen on wholly barren soil. Again, he is spoken of with respect,
if not quite with admiration, in Thomas Watson's dedication of his
_Compendium Memoriae Localis_ (n. d., but probably 1585) to Henry Noël,
Queen Elizabeth's courtier. "I very much fear if my little work (_nugae
meae_) is compared with the mystical and deeply learned _Sigilli_ of
the Nolan, or with the _Umbra artificiosa_ of Dicson, it may bring more
infamy to its author than utility to the reader." The scholarly poet,
terse and brilliant Latinist, could hardly have felt in harmony with
the passionate but confused thought, the virile but unscholarly style
of Bruno; yet the art of memory he professes in this compendium is no
other than that of Bruno and of Dicson, and the "Memoriographs," whom
"G. P." attacks.
[Sidenote: Bacon.]
If we turn to Bacon, who was in London while Bruno was with
Mauvissière, already in high favour with the Queen, and at home in the
society of Burghley, Leicester, Walsingham, and Sidney, we find entire
neglect of Bruno's philosophy. Only in one passage, perhaps, does
Bacon mention Bruno's name; it is in the introduction to the _Historia
Naturalis et Experimentalis_.[608] After a list of the philosophers
of Greece, and the remark that "all these made up at their pleasure
feigned accounts (or "plots") of worlds, as of fables, and recited,
published these fables of theirs--some more consistent certainly and
probable, others harder of belief," he adds that among the moderns,
through the instruction of schools and colleges, the imagination
is kept within stricter bounds, yet men have not ceased imagining.
"Patrizzi, Talesio, _Bruno_, Severin of Denmark, Gilbert of England,
Campanella, have tried the stage, acted new plays which were neither
marked by applauding favour of the public, nor by brilliancy of plot."
The names are those of men with whom it is no shame for Bruno to stand
side by side; and one and all are instances of Bacon's incapacity
for grasping the true direction in which the thought of his time was
flowing; but the mere mention of Bruno in such a context implies that
his works were still read, and that they were estimated at a high
value by the lovers of "philosophy." There are, however, many points
of contact between Bacon and Bruno, suggesting an influence, indirect
if not direct, of the latter upon the former. Bacon was perfectly at
home in Italian literature, and it is unlikely that he omitted to read
Bruno's dialogues. Two casual but significant proofs that he did so
are, the legend related of Mount Athos and of Olympus, that men had
written in the ashes of the sacrifices offered upon their summits,
and had returned the following year to find the ashes and the writing
undisturbed, the inference being that the summits of these mountains
were in a region of perpetual calm;[609] and the suggestion that the
movements of the heavenly bodies may be in spiral lines instead of in
perfect circles.[610] The latter especially is a characteristic thought
of Bruno.
Bacon, like Bruno, was a believer in a purified natural magic, the
handmaid of metaphysics, "because of its broad ways and wider dominion
over nature."[611] They are united in their admiration for the Book
of Job as a compendium of natural philosophy. Bacon writes that "if
we take that small book of Job and diligently work through it, we
shall find it full, and, as it were, pregnant with the mysteries of
natural philosophy."[612] Both recur with conviction to the saying
of Solomon that there is nothing new under the sun. "As to novelty,
there is no one who has thoroughly imbibed letters and philosophy, but
has had it impressed on his heart that there is nothing new upon the
earth."[613] Deeper harmonies, if not more suggestive, exist between
the two reformers of philosophy than these. One is the argument against
authority, against general agreement, against antiquity of belief, as
grounds or reasons _for_ belief, and the special application of this
argument to undermine the hold of the Aristotelian philosophy upon
the minds of men. "It is the old age of the world and the fulness of
years that are to be regarded as its true antiquity. For that age,
with respect to us ancient and older, with respect to the world itself
was new and younger." "As we expect greater knowledge and maturer
judgment from an old man than from a young, so from our own age we
should expect (if it knew its strength, and were willing to make trial
and to put it forth) far greater things than from old times," etc.[614]
So faith and religion are to be kept apart from investigation, science,
or philosophy, although the latter does not on that account carry us
away from God; the one shows the will, the other (natural philosophy)
the power of God.[615] To faith are to be given the things that are
of faith, to philosophy the things that are of philosophy.[616] It
was on the same ground also--the use of other than natural principles
to explain natural phenomena--that both Bruno and Bacon condemned the
physical works of Aristotle. He "corrupted natural philosophy with his
dialectics--gave the human soul, the noblest of substances, a genus
from words of second intention; settled the business of the _dense_ and
the _rare_, through which bodies occupy greater or less dimensions or
spaces, by the feigned distinction between act and potency; asserted a
unique and proper movement of each body, being more concerned for an
answer one might make in a discussion and to have something positive
in words, than for the inward truth of things, as is best shown by
a comparison of his philosophy with the others celebrated among the
Greeks." And Bacon, like Bruno and other innovators of the day, goes
back to Anaxagoras, Leucippus and Democritus, Parmenides, Empedocles,
Heraclitus, whose principles "have something of natural philosophy, and
savour of the nature of things--experience, bodily existence, whereas
the physics of Aristotle, for the most part, sound of nothing but
dialectical terms."[617]
[Sidenote: Method.]
[Sidenote: _Omnia animata._]
The false straining after simplicity of explanation, the tendency to
seek for similarities rather than differences, to expect order on the
surface rather than at the root of things, is condemned as vigorously
by Bruno as by Bacon, although not placed in the forefront of the
theory of method, as it is by the latter writer. One of the Idols of
the Tribe was--"the tendency to suppose greater order and equality in
things than is actually to be found; although in nature many things
are _monodica_ (_i.e. monadica_, unique), and full of imparity, yet
the mind feigns parallels, correspondences, relations which are not.
Hence the erroneous idea, _e.g._ that 'in the heavens all things move
in perfect circles,' rejecting utterly spiral lines and _dracones_
(except for the name): hence the element of fire and its sphere were
introduced to constitute a _quaternio_ with the other three that were
actually perceived by sense," etc.[618] These things were condemned
also, and for the same reason, by Bruno, who, however, went further,
and insisted on the uniqueness of every individual existence in the
universe. Again Bacon retained (without, however, giving it a place
in his philosophy) the scholastic distinction between divine or
angelic, _intuitive_, knowledge, and the acquired piecemeal knowledge
of man. "God, the inditer and worker of forms, and perhaps angels
and (higher) intelligences, know forms immediately by affirmation,
and from the beginning of their contemplation. But that is certainly
above men to whom it is conceded only to advance in the beginning by
negatives, to come to rest in the last place only, in affirmatives,
after exclusion of every kind."[619] In Bruno the same distinction
is drawn, but it is made also _within_ human knowledge, the intuitive
knowledge of the heroic mind being the same in kind as that of the
higher intelligences, and only different from that of God in that it
does not _create_ what it intuits. So the scholastic distinction of
_natura naturans_ as the form or immanent principle of things, and
_natura naturata_ as the sum of things actually existing, the outward
expression in matter of the activity of the form--a distinction which,
in Bruno, is transcended by the identification of one with the other,
as two aspects of a higher unity--also reappears in Bacon's theory of
form. However different the "form" of Bacon may have seemed to himself
from the scholastic "form," it is still the immanent cause of the
properties of the body to which it belongs, or in which it adheres,
and as such is actually named by Bacon the _natura naturans_.[620]
So with Bacon, as with Bruno, Campanella, and Telesius, all things
are endowed with life, with sensation, with soul, which is the inward
principle of their external movements. He ridiculed Gilbert, who first
suggested a scientific explanation of magnetism and electricity, and
put forward on his own account as a theory of electrical attraction
that "friction excites the appetite of bodies for contact, which
appetite does not like air much, but prefers something else which is
tangible." The phenomena of chemical affinity and the like were also
explained, precisely as Campanella or Cardan would account for them, by
the delight in mutual contact, _i.e._ by an inherent sensibility, and
desire or striving of like towards like.[621] In both Bacon and Bruno,
also, this universal animism is combined with an atomistic theory of
mechanical nature, and with the belief that no physical phenomenon is
understood until it can be expressed in mathematical terms: "the more
our inquiry inclines to simple natures, the plainer and clearer shall
things become; for we shall have to deal with the simple instead of
the manifold, the computable instead of the surd, the definite and
certain instead of the vague,--as in the elements of letters, and the
notes of harmonies, and an inquiry is best conducted when the physical
is defined by the mathematical."[622] The last result of analysis is
not, with either Bacon or Bruno, the atom of the Epicurean physics,
viz. an immutable substance floating in empty space; but Bacon's
_particulae verae_ are much more confusedly thought out than the
Italian's theory--of a subtle ethereal matter diffused throughout the
universe, and of the denser atoms which are in constant motion within
it. There is, however, the same perpetual flux and reflux in matter
with Bacon as with Bruno.[623] In the last resort, Bacon took refuge
in a hope of future explanation--always, however, by simple, positive,
computable factors--regarding atoms and void, as on a par with _materia
prima_, human abstractions, entirely unfruitful, not light-bringing
"anticipations of nature." In regard to the relation between the
human understanding and nature, both had absolute convictions of the
power of the former, directed by the rules of experience and limited
by the data of sensation, to comprehend the latter; but while Bruno
saw in the negative limits of the understanding a positive hint of a
reality beyond, the more careful Bacon saw only a further ground for
falling back from reason upon faith. Thus the incapacity of the mind
to rest in any finite space, without thinking of a space beyond that
and beyond, or of imagining a body than which none could be greater,
was proof to Bruno that space itself was infinite, and that body or
matter was immeasurable, _i.e._ infinite in extent and in quantity.
Bacon also makes use of this impossibility in the human intellect of
resting, acquiescing, at any point as a finality. "It must ever pass
beyond--but it is in vain. Thus it is unthinkable that there should
be any extreme or outermost rim to the world, our mind always of
necessity thinks there may be something beyond: nor can we think how
eternity could have flowed down to this day: the distinction between
an infinity _a parte ante_ and an infinity _a parte post_ cannot be
maintained, for it would follow that one infinite is greater than
another, and that an infinite is used up, and declines into a finite.
Similar is the subtlety about lines always divisible (however small
parts we take), from the impotency of thought."[624] But the conclusion
drawn is simply the positivist one, that such endless questioning
after the unknowable is profitless and absurd. The one sees in it a
metaphysical or cosmological argument--infinite capacity for knowing
implies an infinite to be known, as infinite or endless desire implies
an infinite or limitless good: the other a methodological argument
against attempting to fly when we are born to creep. In two other
cases Bacon rejected the work of Bruno, and rightly, viz. in regard
to the Art of Lully, and the Art of Memory; and it is possible that
he may have had Bruno in his mind in writing both passages. "Some
men, rather ostentatious than learned, have laboured about a certain
method not deserving the name of a true method, as being rather a
kind of imposture, which may nevertheless have proved acceptable to
some triflers. Such was the Art of Lully, simply a massed collection
of technical terms. This kind of collection resembles an old broker's
shop, where many fragments of things are to be found, but nothing of
any value."[625] Again, "there exists certainly some kind of art (of
memory), but we are convinced that better precepts for confirming and
extending the memory might be laid down than are contained in this art,
and also that the practice of the art might be made better than as it
has been received. As now managed, it is but barren and useless."[626]
[Sidenote: Kepler.]
On the Continent it was rather the cosmological theories of Bruno
that attracted attention; and there, no less than in England, every
suspicion of sympathy with the heretic was avoided. Only Kepler had the
courage to complain (as a letter of Martin Hasdal to Galilei tells)
that Galilei had omitted to make praiseful mention of Bruno in his
_Nuntius Sidereus_.[627] Galilei, a thorough diplomatist, would hardly
have gone so far:[628] yet in the metaphysical basis of his theory of
the universe, and in his theory of knowledge, he only elaborates ideas
already suggested by Bruno.[629] But Kepler, fearless before men,
shrank from the thought of the infinite world in which Bruno found
a glorious freedom for the play of his mind. Kepler could not, and
did not, give up his enclosing sphere of fixed stars, shutting in the
solar system as comfortably as the orange-skin its seeds, not accepting
the giddy hypothesis of Bruno that each of the stars is itself a sun,
with a solar system of its own, and that beyond and beyond, in endless
series, are other suns and other worlds.[630]
Even _Vanini_ the unfortunate, if light-headed, sceptic, who in
1619, at Toulouse, met with a fate similar to that of Bruno, but
more horrible, mentions the latter only by indication in his
earlier work,--the _Amphitheatre of the Eternal Providence_ (p.
359)--"_Nonnulli semiphilosophi novi_ have said that beyond the last
sphere of the heavens there is an infinite created universe, as if from
God no finite action could proceed."[631]
[Sidenote: Descartes.]
Of the philosophers who represent the main line of development of
modern thought on the Continent in the seventeenth century,--Descartes,
Gassendi, Spinoza, Leibniz,--there is not one who has not been accused
of having borrowed his chief doctrines, without acknowledgment,
from the Italian philosopher. Bishop Huet[632] described Bruno as
the _antesignanus_ of the Cartesian philosophy, and pointed to the
_De Immenso et innumerabilibus_ as containing indications of almost
all its ideas. The charge is of course absurd so far as Descartes'
characteristic philosophy is concerned--the ideas by which he created
a revolution in modern thought. Bruno indeed begged men to throw over
all prejudices, all traditional beliefs, before entering upon the study
of nature: he agreed with Descartes therefore in rejecting wholly every
authority but that of man's own reason, in demanding complete freedom
of thought, not only from outward, but also from inward, subjective
fetters. Most nearly he approaches the "Cartesian doubt" in the preface
to the _Articuli adv. Mathematicos_.[633] "As to the liberal arts,
so far from me is the custom or institution of believing masters or
parents, or even the common sense which (by its own account) often and
in many ways is proved to deceive us and lead us astray, that I never
settle anything in philosophy rashly or without reason; but what is
thought perfectly certain and evident, whenever and wherever it has
been brought into controversy, is as doubtful to me as things that are
thought too difficult of belief, or too absurd." But this is still
very far from the universal doubt of Descartes,--doubt, not of this
or that particular opinion or belief, but of all possible beliefs.
Bruno's aim was _knowledge_, to add to or correct the sum of general
opinion as to the world as a whole, as to man's relation to it and to
God; Descartes' was _certainty_, to find a basis from which a system of
thought might be built up _de novo_, and from which at the same time
a secure ground for morality and religion might be derived. The doubt
was nothing without the certainty to which it led,--the certainty of
self-consciousness,--which, as it has been said, is only the other
side, the positive expression of the universal doubt itself. On the
other hand, in the subsequent steps of the Cartesian philosophy,--the
arguments on the nature of God, and the relation of the infinite to
the finite substances,--many touches suggest the influence of Bruno's
comprehensive attempt to combine a philosophical pantheism with a
scientific atomism. It is unlikely that Descartes should have been
ignorant of a writer well known to Mersenne and Huet. The former[634]
would have excused Bruno "had he been content to philosophise upon a
point, an atom, or on unity,--but because he attacked the Christian
religion, it is reasonable to decry him as one of the most wicked men
the earth has ever produced!" Certainly the fact that Descartes nowhere
mentions the guilty philosopher is of no importance in deciding as to
the influence of the latter upon him.[635]
[Sidenote: Gassendi 1592-1655.]
It was only natural that Gassendi's critics should have placed him
in a close relation to the Nolan. There is no improbability in the
idea that Gassendi was attracted to the latter as an opponent of
the Aristotelian philosophy, against which he himself had already
written in his youth--although no part of the work was published until
1624.[636] Both also approached the reform of natural philosophy
from the same standpoint, that of sense-experience, and both arrived
at an atomic theory of the ultimate constitution of nature. Bruno,
before Gassendi, had attempted to place the ethical teaching of
Epicurus in a fairer light than popular prejudice allowed, but while
Gassendi followed Epicurus in his atomism only too strictly, Bruno
was much more independent, and advanced much nearer to the modern
view. So in his general theory of the system of the world, Gassendi
stops half-way--with the conception of a limited matter, but in an
endless space, of a beginning for the world, but in an endless
time, of a plurality of worlds with the earth as centre of our
system: here also it is Bruno that is the more advanced, and the more
daring thinker;--yet, from the respect with which Gassendi writes
of Copernicus, it is clear that his sympathies were with the new
hypothesis. It may be added that although Gassendi rejected the notion
of a world-soul, in the ordinary sense, as distinct from God, and that
of souls of the individual worlds, or of stones, etc., yet he too was
fain to explain the attraction of the magnet for the iron, of the earth
for the stone, of atom for atom, by an influence passing from the one
to the other, by which the one became aware of the other's existence,
and was impelled towards it, _i.e._ by a kind of sense, or feeling, a
soul, which was at the same time the principle of movement.
[Sidenote: Spinoza.]
It is, however, on the development of Spinoza's[637] thought that
the most direct influence of Bruno can be shown. Sigwart[638] and
Avenarius[639] have proved that in preparing the short treatise on
"God, Man, and his Blessedness," Spinoza must have had the _Causa_
and _Infinito_ of Bruno almost before his eyes. The treatise consists
of several parts which are more or less independent of one another,
and which represent tentative approaches towards the finished Ethics;
but it differs from the Ethics in the far greater prominence of
the mystical, Neoplatonist element. Pollock suggests that it may
have been his free-thinking teacher Dr. Van den Ende who introduced
Spinoza to Bruno's writings: there is no external evidence of the
acquaintanceship, but that, it is needless to say, is of slight
importance. Spinoza certainly read Italian, and he practised in other
cases the same neglect of authorities, of whose substance he was making
use: it was indeed the custom of the time--there were few who followed
Burton's example.
There are certain general resemblances between the finished
philosophies of the two authors, so far as Bruno can be said to have
a finished philosophy. The first principle of both is the unity out
of which all things spring, to which all return, and in which all
have their true nature, or highest reality,--a unity with which both
identify nature and spirit alike, and which is for both God. God is
accordingly beyond the reach of all human knowledge; determination is
negation, limit, by which the infinite is untouched. All attributes
in God are one only, or none; thought is one with extension, love
with intelligence; yet in strictness God is neither thought nor
extension, intelligence nor love, or he is these in another than
our human meaning. So far as this central thought is concerned,
it is Bruno that is the deeper thinker. In him the _One_ is not a
dead negation, in which real things are absorbed to the loss of all
their reality and life, as it is with Spinoza: rather it is a living
fountain, gushing forth in the infinite streams of living beings: the
whole of nature is the expression of its own inward being. The One is
in process; the whole, in which this process results, is a harmony
every member of which has its own independent reality and worth, over
against all others, as a manifestation of divinity. The life of the
one is that of its members; all are necessary to it, as it to them.
Carrière[640] indeed places Bruno above Spinoza as having found in the
one a self-consciousness, a _subject_ infinite in that it knows itself
and all things in itself, preserving all things, as necessary to its
external enjoyment and love; while Spinoza is still within the bonds
of _substance_--in God there is neither understanding nor will, in Him
all difference vanishes, the modes are an illusion. So the Spinozistic
parallelism between thought and matter finds its counterpart in Bruno,
with whom all that is thought, all that is possible, is also real, or
actual, _i.e._ has extended or material existence. It is true that
this conception is much more precisely expressed in Spinoza, with his
clean-cut distinction between the world of body and the world of mind
or ideas, to which the possible belongs, but it was a distinction
which he could not consistently uphold; on the other hand, the
universal animism, the doctrine that to every material thing or event
there corresponds a spiritual reality or process, which is only the
other side of the parallelism of soul and body, is more clearly and
vigorously defended by the earlier philosopher. The natural and the
spiritual, matter and form, are not two principles, or elements which
combine to produce a given result, or which harmonise with one another:
they are one and the same thing, and their truth is their life, their
soul, their thought. Bruno was in earnest with his animism, as his
confident belief in magical correlations showed.[641]
From their principles both derived a conviction of the necessity[642]
and of the goodness of all things, but it is Bruno rather than Spinoza
who attempted to reconcile individual liberty with determinism in the
universe as a whole, and individual moral responsibility with the
necessary goodness of the all. The corresponding relativity of evil,
the fallacy of "fortune" or "chance" (as anything but "uncertainty" of
the finite mind), were already asserted by Bruno, and his ideas as to
the relation between the religion of the Church, or the teaching of the
Bible, and the investigations of science, are precisely those which
Spinoza adopts.
[Sidenote: The short tractate.]
[Sidenote: Ratio.]
In the _De Deo seu Homine_, however, the correspondences are much
greater and more definite between Spinoza and Bruno, showing that the
former passed through a phase of Neoplatonism, in which his pantheism
was much less formal or abstract than it afterwards became. Thus the
predicates applied in the _Ethics_ to God are applied here to nature,
as by Bruno also:--Nature is infinite in the sense of "without limits
or bounds," containing no parts in itself, and therefore not a whole
over against other wholes; there cannot be two infinites, or boundless
worlds.[643] The parallelism between outward nature and the thought
or understanding of God is also more after Bruno's mode of expression
(ch. ii. § 11, 19). "Neither substance nor qualities can be in the
infinite understanding of God, which are not _formaliter_ in nature
(1) because of the infinite power of God--there is no cause or ground
in Him why He should create one thing rather than another, hence He
creates all; (2) because of the simplicity of His will; (3) because He
cannot refrain from doing what is good." The thesis, and the first and
third of the arguments by which it is supported, are all verbally close
to Bruno's argument in the _Infinito_ and in the _De Immenso_. So the
effort of all finite things after self-conservation,[644] and their
consequent movement, are explained not mechanically, through the action
of one material thing upon another, but rather spiritually, through
the unity of nature in which all share. Thus even that possibility of
an action of thought upon matter (extension) is allowed, which in the
_Ethics_ is, formally at least, denied. In the _Tractate_ also there
is more emphasis laid upon the _goodness_ of God, as the source of the
infinite world of finite beings, whereas in the _Ethics_ a logical,
mechanical necessity takes its place. It is in the second, more
mystical and ethical part, of the treatise, however, that the influence
of the Nolan philosopher is most apparent, and here it is the _Summa
Terminorum_ or _Heroici Furori_ that seems to have formed the direct or
indirect source of many of the conceptions--such, for example, as the
distinction between _Ratio_ and _Intellectus_. _Ratio_ is discursive
thought, building up knowledge by successive steps; _Intellectus_
"intuitive thought," direct and simultaneous perception of the whole
of the object--the only adequate or complete form of knowledge, for
which reasoning is merely a preparation in us. Our knowledge of God,
so far as it is possible at all, is of the second type: we cannot know
Him as he is, through His effects, His creation: it is only the few to
whom He reveals Himself that can know Him as He is, by direct contact
with Him. Yet this revelation is constantly open to all men; for each
and all God is, always, intimately present, "more intimately than each
is to himself."[645] Other ideas which Sigwart has found common to the
_Short Tractate_ and the writings of Bruno, are those of the Love of
God as springing from the knowledge of God; the correspondence between
the degrees or stages of love and those of knowledge; the inability
of our minds to rest in a finite object or finite good, the constant
pressure onwards towards other and other objects; the contrast between
sensible love and intellectual love; God as the highest, most complete
object, the knowledge of Him above and embracing in itself all other
knowledge, making the knower one with his object, transforming him into
God himself; the divine Harmony in the soul which ensues; the love of
God which is man's highest blessedness, which is wholly disinterested,
and blind to all earthly good or beautiful things; love which is
unlimited in its possibility, as its object is infinite: with this
limitless possibility of Love is the idea of immortality connected;
but "Bruno deduces from the immortality of man the possibility of a
love which increases infinitely; while for Spinoza, on the contrary,
the infinitely increasing love of God is a ground of proof for
immortality."[646] When there is added to these many instances of
doctrines in Spinoza's earlier work which were later modified in the
direction of greater rigidity and mechanical systematisation, the fact
that the _Tractate_ embraces two tentative dialogues, in one of which
Spinoza is represented by a Theophilus (as Bruno in so many of his
dialogues is represented), it is impossible not to feel convinced that
Spinoza for a period of his life at least was a follower of Bruno. It
is true that many of these ideas are not the property of Bruno alone,
but of the school of Neoplatonism of which he like Spinoza was at any
rate a partial adherent, but nowhere else than in Bruno is to be found
the same "collocation" of these ideas as occur in this tractate of
Spinoza. It is an open question whether the movement of the latter away
from the Italian's philosophy was entirely a progressive, and not in
some respects a retrograde movement.
[Sidenote: Leibniz.]
At first sight it might seem much more natural to connect Leibniz
with Bruno, because of the obvious correspondence of many of their
fundamental ideas:--their analysis of the universe into a system of
independent realities, each differing from every other--each mirroring
the universe in itself from its own individual point of view; each
therefore in a sense containing or comprising the all in itself, as
each is again a necessary constituent of the all. In place of Spinoza's
dead world, we find in Leibniz, as in Bruno, finite things in constant
flow, constant change, each passing necessarily through every phase
through which any other has passed--representing the universe as it
is in time, as well as the universe as it is at any moment in actual
existence; each experiencing, in other words, the life, the process,
as well as the quality, the being of the all. Everything that is, _is_
necessarily, everything that occurs, occurs necessarily, in Bruno
because the whole flows out from the thought of God, as God thinks it
(_i.e._ in the relations in which it stands in the one all-embracing
thought of God); in Leibniz, because of the will of God, who in His
goodness has chosen the best of all ideal systems, within which each
thing or event has its necessary place. In both, all things are, from
the point of view of the whole, good:--in Bruno because in God truth
and goodness, will and understanding, are one; in Leibniz because of
the will of God, which has chosen for the best: evil is finitude,
or again is ignorance, an error of standpoint. In both freedom and
necessity are one, because the necessity belongs to God's own nature;
He wills out of Himself, undetermined, uninfluenced from without, and
this is freedom. In both, as we have seen, the principle of sufficient
reason is a ground both for the infinite number and infinite variety
of the finite beings in the universe, and for the impossibility that
two should exist which are exactly identical one with another. Were it
known that Leibniz had studied Bruno before his system was formed, we
might almost say that he had chosen that aspect of the Nolan philosophy
which with Spinoza had been disregarded, viz. the aspect in which all
rights are given to the finite individual, and to the world of finite
beings, as each representing the infinite, containing the infinite
in itself, and, so far as possibility goes, each of infinite divine
worth. Whereas just that side which appealed to Spinoza would have
failed to touch Leibniz--the side in which God appears as one with
the universe, not as beyond or outside of it, but as immanent in the
whole, and present in the fulness of His nature to each and every
member of the whole. Philosophically Leibniz' mission was to develop
the Cartesian doctrine of the three substances--God, finite spirit,
and body--in a direction which identified the first and third with
the second, broke up the unity of God into the immeasurable many of
the monad spirits, and its infinity into indefiniteness. The God of
Leibniz, even as the highest of the monads, is separate from, apart
from, the other monads--a finite along with other finites. So each of
the ordinary monads is a world by itself, shut up within itself, with
no windows from which it can look out upon the world, and _really_ be
affected by what is passing without it. There is _no_ without--each is,
in a word, _God_, and so far as it is concerned there may be no other
being in existence. Bruno, on the contrary, was fully conscious--at
times--of the necessity of holding the balance between the infinite
unity of God and the finite units or realities, which are the
expression, the manifestation, the self-revelation of the one. Why this
revelation? he does not indeed ask; but given it as actual, he finds
the reconciliation in it at once of the necessity of the whole and the
liberty of the unit, the goodness of the all and the moral frailty of
the individual.[647]
Interesting as this speculative comparison of the two philosophies may
be, there is not, however, even the slightest ground for attributing
any direct historical influence of Bruno upon Leibniz. If influence
occurred at all--which is doubtful--it was through Spinoza or some of
the minor philosophical writings of the time. Lacroze (in a letter
of 1737) accused Leibniz of "having drawn his whole system" from
Bruno's book _De Maximo et Minimo_ (_sic!_): he added that he had told
Leibniz this fact himself, both by word of mouth and in writing, and
that the reason why so few had noticed it was that the philosophical
writings of Bruno were obscure and repellent. The same suggestion
has been repeatedly made since--more especially as regards the name
"_Monad_," which Leibniz, after much searching and deliberation,
gave to his "real unities" from 1696 onwards.[648] Brunnhofer goes
so far as to see both the ideas and the main formulas of Leibniz
in Bruno--the monad-doctrines, monads as living mirrors of the
universe, as fulgurations of God, the Pre-established Harmony--the
future as involved in the present, "the present is pregnant with the
future,"--the phenomenality of sense-objects--God as the highest
monad, etc. He argues that Leibniz derived his idea that "the monads
have no windows by which anything can enter or depart" from casual
remarks by Bruno as to the "windows of the soul," "the gates of the
senses" by which images enter in, or "the chinks and holes" by which
we gaze outwards upon the world. The _coup de grâce_ was given to this
legend, for so we must call it, by Ludwig Stein in his _Leibniz und
Spinoza_.[649] He showed that Leibniz was already in full possession
of the _idea_ of the monad at least ten years before he found the most
fitting expression for it, and that after 1696 he used the word "Monad"
always as the distinctive badge or typical name for his substances
or forces; that before 1700 he knew of Bruno only one of the Lullian
works (the _De Arte Combinatoriâ_, _v._ Dutens, ii. 367), and perhaps
the mathematical articles (_adv. Mathematicos_, _ib._ iii. 147). Apart
from these works, which could have no reference to his own philosophy,
he was acquainted with Bruno only by hearsay, as a reputed forerunner
of Descartes; even as librarian of the Brunswick Library, although
some of Bruno's works were in his guardianship, he is not likely to
have read them until his attention was called to them by their alleged
resemblance to his own theory. And then, as we learn from the letter
to Lacroze (11th April 1708),[650] he hardly appreciated them at their
true value--"Mr. Toland has not spoken to me of the _Specchio_ (_i.e._
_Spaccio_, an error that does not show much familiarity with Bruno)
_della Bestia trionfante_ of Giordano Bruno. I think I have seen the
book at some time, and that it is against the Pope. I have two works
of his on the Infinite, one in Latin, the other in Italian. The author
is not wanting in genius, but is not very profound (_ne manque pas
d'esprit, mais il n'est pas trop profond_)." Elsewhere he speaks of
Bruno only as believing in "innumerable worlds" with Leucippus and
Democritus, and as having been burnt, not, as he believes, on account
of his book the _De Immenso_, but for other opinions.[651]
There is therefore little reason to suppose that Leibniz had great
interest in Bruno, or that he had read his works so carefully as
to have derived any sustenance or advancement for his philosophy
from them. Stein has in any case shown that the term "Monad"
came to Leibniz, not from Bruno at all, but from the younger Van
Helmont, in whose theory it plays almost as important a part as in
Leibniz--although the difference between the two "Monads" was greater
than the resemblance.[652]
Meanwhile literature in France and England had not lost sight of
Bruno.[653] In 1633 there was published in the former a play, _Boniface
et le Pédant_, which has been described as a refined and Gallicised
imitation of the _Candelaio_; in its turn it suggested, perhaps, the
_Pédant Joué_ of Cyrano de Bergerac, and some of the pedant-scenes in
Molière.[654] In 1634 in England a masque by Thomas Carew--the _Coelum
Britannicum_--was played in English by Charles I., which was based,
partly at least, upon the _Spaccio_, with Charles I. in the place of
Truth.[655]
[Sidenote: Bayle.]
[Sidenote: Budgell.]
[Sidenote: Toland.]
Pierre Bayle, by the article in his _Dictionnaire Historique et
Critique_ (1697), which had a very wide influence, probably damned
Bruno's reputation for a century. The article on Spinoza also did the
same service for the Dutch philosopher, with whom, indeed, Bayle joined
Bruno, as having held the same "abominable doctrine" of atheism. He had
no real knowledge of Bruno, the biography is frivolous and inexact,
and the philosophy--a garbled version--is reported on hearsay.[656]
It was Bayle's authority which stamped Bruno with the sarcastic
description of "a knight errant in philosophy," which has sometimes
been spoken of as a happy touch of Hegel's invention, but really dates
back to one Lionardo Nicodemo (1683), who described Bruno as "playing
the part of a wandering knight (_i.e._ a travelling scholastic),
now here, now there, at different universities in France, England,
Germany, Switzerland, Italy, with shield pendant, and lance in rest,
challenging the Aristotelians to learned combat."[657] In England the
same aspersion upon Bruno's name was stereotyped by an article in the
_Spectator_ of May 27, 1712 (one of Budgell's). The writer, however,
had the fairness, which Bayle had not, to read Bruno's _Spaccio_
before making reflections upon it. Contrary to his expectations, for
Bruno was "a professed atheist, with a design to depreciate religion,"
he found "very little danger" in it. This did not prevent him from
taking Bruno as a text for a would-be humorous disquisition on Atheism.
It was John Toland,[658] the "poor denizen of Grub Street," and once
famous, or infamous, author of _Christianity not Mysterious_, who in
England first paid Bruno something of the respect he deserved. His
championship was not, perhaps, of the most discerning or of the most
valuable, but it was honest. A copy of the _Spaccio_ had come into
his possession,--one which he believed to be the only one then in
existence,--and as a result of his reading he claimed Bruno as the
founder of free thought. He had studied the sayings on Divine Magic in
that work, and had fastened on the fact that Bruno "regarded magic as
nothing but a more recondite, non-vulgar, although perfectly natural
wisdom." This was certainly true; but Toland added, "So he sometimes
calls the eternal vicissitude of material forms Transmigration," which
was at least misleading. Among his manuscripts Toland left "an account
of Giordano Bruno's Book of the Universe" (_De l' Infinito_), along
with a translation of the introductory epistle.[659] And somewhat
earlier, in 1713, a translation of the _Spaccio_ was made into English
by W. Morehead,[660] who may have been one of Toland's brethren, as the
Quarterly Reviewer suggests. Toland himself was, however, believed
to be the author. He had visited Lacroze at Berlin in 1706, and had
defended the Nolan against that virulent searcher-out of atheists,
deists, pantheists, and the like "miscreants and libertines." To a
fellow-enthusiast in Germany (Baron Hohendorf) Toland wrote three years
later, giving the proofs of Bruno's punishment, with a translation of
Schopp's account, and stating his belief as to Bruno's real doctrine
(viz. free-thinking).[661] "The author," he wrote, "gives full play
to his spirit, which is always diverting, but at the same time very
powerful; he is often diffuse, but never wearisome. In a very small
space he has expounded a complete system of natural religion, the
theory of ancient cosmography, history, comparison and refutation
of different opinions, besides many curious observations on diverse
subjects. But the author abounds in pleasantries, and in satirical
traits: he is impious in a sovereign degree, and does not always keep
himself within the limits of allegory." And so Bruno, like Spinoza in
this also, went down to posterity as a worthless, impious atheist, one
of the reputed authors of the mythical work _De Tribus Impostoribus_,
which no one had ever seen, but in which the three founders of the
great religions of the world were attacked as conscious cheats! So far
was the world as yet from understanding the martyr for truth and for
"the religion of thought."
It was from Germany that the reaction came. The story of the
restoration of Bruno's name (his _Ehrenrettung_) has been told by
Bartholmèss, and needs but a very brief sketch here. Heumann[662]
repudiated Lacroze's description of him as an atheist and forerunner
of Spinoza's pantheism, describing him as a martyr for the Lutheran
faith and as an eclectic in philosophy. Brucker[663]--without the
historical sense, but a painstaking and learned, if diffuse, analyst,
judging all philosophies by the standard of orthodox Protestantism
and the Leibnizian philosophy--yet sympathised with Bruno, described
him as an "eclectic, combining ideas of the Eleatics with those of
Democritus and Epicurus, Copernicus and Pythagoras, not an impostor,
but an intellectual enthusiast--_cum ratione insanivit_." Throughout
the remaining part of the century a number of monographs appeared, by
Jordan, Christiani, Kindervater; with, on the _contra_ side, Lessman
and Lauckhard. Adelung thought Bruno worthy of a place in his _History
of Human Folly_ (1785). In the same year (1785) appeared F. H. Jacobi's
_Letters on Spinoza's Philosophy_, which contained a "restoration" at
one stroke of both Bruno and Spinoza to their place among the great
names of the history of thought.[664] This fine thinker--if not great
thinker--penetrated by the beauty and calm of Spinoza's pantheism, saw
in Bruno a true forerunner. Bruno had "taken up the substance of the
ancient philosophy, transformed it into flesh and blood, was wholly
permeated by its spirit, without ceasing to be himself." Naturally
it was in the _Causa_ that Jacobi found the greatest affinity with
Spinoza, as in it the starting-point of Bruno is from the One, the
Highest, which is at the same time the All--the universe, the unity
of the One and Many, of Spirit and Nature. Jakobi's friend, Hamann,
the "Wizard of the North," the mystical critic of Kantianism,
went a step further than Jakobi himself; Bruno's principle of the
coincidence of opposites, he said, was of more value to him than all
the Kantian criticism. In the pantheistic or monistic side of Bruno's
philosophy he found sympathy with his own revolt against the excessive
intellectualism and rationalism which seemed to him to be the chief
danger of the Kantian philosophy.[665] Goethe also was carried away
by the flowing tide of enthusiasm, and, indeed, his own philosophical
conception had much affinity with that of the Nolan, although in their
inner natures the two men differed _toto coelo_.[666] Buhle--first in
his _Comment on the Rise and Progress of Pantheism_ (1790), afterwards
in his learned and careful _History of Philosophy_[667]--placed Bruno
amongst the highest of pantheistic writers. Even Tennemann[667] grows
eloquent over the brilliant effort of Bruno, by which he almost
achieved a philosophy of the Absolute two centuries before Schelling
and Hegel.[668] Fulleborn is more cautious and critical, but in his
_Contributions to the History of Philosophy_ he gives analyses and
extracts from several of Bruno's works.[669] Schelling himself, as is
clear from the dialogue which he wrote bearing Bruno's name, regarded
the Italian as nearest to himself among his forerunners in the
philosophy of the absolute. There is obviously a close analogy between
the two; and Schelling may be said to take, with regard to the course
of philosophy after him, the same place which Bruno took as regards
the lines of development in the philosophy of the seventeenth century.
Both had a wider view, and perhaps a deeper insight, than their
successors, while lacking the power of strenuous thought necessary to
carry out their views into the completeness of a philosophical system.
It is doubtful, however, whether Schelling knew much more of Bruno than
Jakobi's essay and his abstract of the _Causa_ had to tell.
Hegel took a much less enthusiastic view of Bruno's philosophy than
did his contemporary and sometime partner--to place Bruno on a level
with Spinoza was to give him a higher reputation than he deserved:
his doctrine was a mere re-echo of the Alexandrine. Yet Hegel, too,
saw something to admire in this "Bacchantic" spirit, revelling in
the discovery of its oneness with the Idea, and with all other
beings, with the all of nature which is an externalisation of spirit.
It was under the influence of Hegel or of the Hegelian philosophy
that the first really complete and satisfactory studies of Bruno
appeared:--Christian Bartholmèss' _Jordano Bruno_,[670] and Moritz
Carrière's _Philosophische Weltanschauung der Reformationszeit_.[671]
The quick and generous enthusiasm of the first, the wide philosophic
comprehension of the second have probably done more to attract public
attention to the forgotten Nolan, and to guarantee him a permanent
place in the history of philosophy, than any other writings about him.
Since their time the literature upon Bruno has steadily increased, and
with it has grown the comprehension of and sympathy with the man as
well as with the idea he so fearlessly proclaimed, and so strenuously
defended. It is no part of the purpose of this work to parallel Bruno
with any of the more modern philosophers. It is foolhardy to say, for
example, as Brunnhofer does, that Schopenhauer alone reaches the same
height of literary style in modern philosophy, "although the Nolan
leaves the Frankfort philosopher far behind him through the strength
of his philosophical conception of the universe, which holds its own
against pessimism and optimism alike."[672] It is foolhardy, and it
is misleading, to place him in comparison with philosophers who have
nearly three centuries of thought, of social, industrial, and literary
growth, between him and them. Like all the philosophers whom a touch
of poetical imagination has redeemed, Bruno stands more or less alone,
and he overtops all the others of his century. None of the ordinary
rubrics of historical terminology in philosophy apply to him, not
even that of "Eclectic." He is far more than that. His philosophy, as
perhaps these pages have shown, bears the stamp of individuality, the
individuality of a strong mind, fed with nearly all the knowledge,
and all the out-reaching guesses at truth of its own time, and of the
times that had gone before, striving to turn this difficult mass into
nourishment for itself, and to transmit the achievement to others.
He was an eclectic, just as every great thinker is an eclectic, but
it is the bricks merely, not the style of architecture, that he has
borrowed from others. He never founded a school, not merely because the
circumstances of his life, and the fate of his writings, precluded him
from being widely known or studied in any country, but also because his
philosophy was too much a thing of himself to be readily attractive to
many of his hearers or readers. Yet it has been a force making for the
progress of thought and of liberty, and it is still an active force.
Human nature has not yet lost the tendency to rest calmly in its "habit
of believing," to shut itself up in its finite world, refusing either
to look abroad, or to look at itself from an external point of view;
it is still apt to think "geocentrically," to take its molehills for
mountains, while "underlooking," if the term may be allowed, the real
mountains that are before it, to hold doggedly to one contrary, reject
utterly the other, whereas the truth always lies in their unity. To
these recurring foibles of humanity, and more especially, perhaps, of
philosophic humanity, the fresh and vigorous writings of the Dominican
monk and martyr of the sixteenth century will ever form a healthy
counterpoise.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
1. To p. 5 and p. 27, _Bruno's upbringing_.--In the _Infinito_, Lag.
362. 34, Burchio, the Aristotelian pedant of the dialogue, addresses
Fracastorio in the following polite terms:--"You would be more learned
than Aristotle--you, a beast, a poor devil, a beggar, a wretch, fed on
bread of millet, perishing of hunger, begotten of a tailor, born of a
washer-woman, nephew to Cecco the cobbler, _figol di Momo, postiglion
de le puttane_, brother to Lazarus that makes shoes for asses!" It
is almost incredible that any one should have taken these words as
biographical or rather auto-biographical. They are in the mouth of
a pedant and enemy: they are addressed not to the Bruno-character
of the dialogue ("Philotheo"), but to Fracastorio, who temporarily
takes his place as a well-trained disciple. Yet Lagarde, that amazing
editor, gravely wonders whether the Dominicans did not know that their
novice had been "postiglion de le puttane," or whether they were glad
to forget it when they saw the pure and attractive young face! (_v._
Lagarde's edition of the Italian works, pp. 789, 798).
2. To p. 10. _The Arian heresy._--Before the Venetian tribunal Bruno
explained his position with regard to the Arian heresy thus:--"I showed
the opinion of Arius to be less dangerous than it was generally held
to be, because generally it is understood that Arius meant to say that
the Word was the first creation of the Father, and I declared that
Arius said the Word was neither Creator nor Creation, but intermediary
between the Creator and the Creation, as the word is intermediary
between the speaker and what is spoken, and therefore it is said to be
first-born before all creatures; through it, not out of it, have all
things been created...." (Doc. xi. Bert. i. p. 403).
3. To p. 33. _Sidney and Greville._--Greville had been a schoolmate of
Sidney at Shrewsbury, but proceeded to Jesus College, Cambridge, while
Sidney went to Christ Church at Oxford; afterwards they were constant
friends at Court. When Sidney went to Heidelberg in 1577, the Queen
would not allow the handsome Greville to accompany him, nor would she
let either go with Drake to the West Indies in 1585, and Greville was
kept at home from Leicester's Expedition to the Low Countries, in which
poor Sidney met with a heroic death (Oct. 17, 1586). In a letter of
1586, Greville describes Sidney as "that prince of gentlemen": writing
to Douglas after Sidney's death, he says that the name of Sidney's
friendship has carried him above his own worth. The epitaph Greville
wrote for himself is familiar, but will bear repetition:--"Fulke
Greville, Servant to Queen Elizabeth, Councillor to King James, and
friend to Sir Philip Sidney. _Trophaeum Peccati._"
4. To p. 35. _Vautrollier and Bruno._--Vautrollier traded in Scotland
as early as 1580 as a bookseller: he had already enjoyed the patronage
of King James, and was even encouraged to return with a printing
press, which he did in 1584. Thereafter he published in both London
and Edinburgh till 1587. On the other hand some of Bruno's works were
printed in 1585, so that the theory of Vautrollier's flight to Scotland
owing to his being the printer of Bruno's works, falls through. The
business in London was carried on during his absence by his wife,
and the "troubles" out of which Mr. Randolph helped him were quite
unconnected with Bruno, and may have arisen from his printing of John
Knox's _History of the Reformation in Scotland_, which Archbishop
Whitgift suppressed. The letter to Mr. Randolph is in L'Espine's
_Treatise of Apostasy_, 1587 (Vautrollier: London).
5. To p. 51. _Mordentius._--Fabrizio Mordente of Salerno was a
mathematician of the sixteenth century, of whom only two works are
known to have existed,--one published in 1597, the other written in
conjunction with his brother Gaspar in 1591. He was the inventor of
an eight-point compasses of which Bruno writes in the second of the
Mordentius dialogues, and on which he bestows apparently extravagant
praise. The peculiarity of the invention, as far as one can discover,
consisted in the introduction of four "runners," two on either limb of
the compasses, and secured by screws; but there seems to have been no
gradation of the compasses, and it is difficult to perceive any great
value in the novelty, without that essential addition. The first of
the two dialogues suggests a possible origin for some of Bruno's ideas
on atomic geometry, as we find, attributed to Mordentius, two ideas
that were applied to some purpose in Bruno's own mathematical works.
They are (1) that of the measurement of inappreciable subdivisions of
continuous quantities by integration, and (2) that of the impossibility
of infinite division, the continuous being composed of discrete minima,
beyond which no division can go, and the _minima_ (like the _maxima_)
being relative, differing in different subjects, so that, for example,
what in _astronomy_ is a minimal quantity may in _geodesy_ be greater
than the diameter of the earth.
INDEX
Absolute, first principle or, 166
Agrippa of Nettesheim, Cornelius, 148, 149;
_De occulta philosophia_, 131, 149;
_De Vanitate Scientiarum_, 149, 257
Alasco, Prince, of Poland, 23
Algerio, Pomponio, 4
Alsted, John Henry, _Artificium perorandi_, 114
Anaxagoras, 126
Animism, 305;
universal, 147
_Antidicsonus_, 36, 324
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 9, 80, 137
Areopagus, literary society, 27
Aretino, Pietro, _Cortegiana_ of, 19
Arian heresy, the, 357
Aristotle, _De Anima_, 16, 158, 159;
criticism of, 50, 123;
_Organon_, 53, 55;
_Topics_, 55;
_Metaphysics_, 113, 125;
_Rhetoric_, 114, 138;
_Physics_, 115, 116, 122, 125, 236;
_De generatione et corruptione_, 116;
_Meteorologica_, 116;
Bruno's acquaintance with, 121-23;
rejection of mathematical method, 123;
treatment of predecessors, 124;
_Logic_, 138;
theory of limitation of space, 183;
on finitude of world, 185, 186;
on plurality of worlds, 197
Asinity, 257
Aspiration, 291
Atom, the, 236;
knowledge implies the, 227;
spherical, 240;
and materialism, 249
Atomism, belief of Bruno and Cusanus in, 147;
a metaphysical doctrine, 227, 246;
mathematical, 245;
physical, 247;
critical, 247;
and mathematics, 331
Avarice, 272
Avenarius, 337
Averroes, 136, 305
Avicebron or Avencebrol, _Fons Vitae_, 135
Bacon, Francis, 33, 123, 139, 325-29;
_Novum Organum_, 123, 124, 327-32;
_Historia Naturalis et Experimentalis_, 325;
_Historia Ventorum_, 326;
_De Augmentis Scientiarum_, 327, 328, 333;
method, 329;
theory of form, 330
Balbani, Nicolo, of Lucca, 13
Bartholmèss, Christian, 5, 16, 20, 97, 311, 348, 350
Basäus' Catalogue of Frankfort Books, 65
Bayle, Pierre, 348
Beauty, 281, 283;
reason apprehends true, 281
Bellarmino, censor of Bruno's works, 89
Berti, Domenico, 5, 8, 10, 11, 94, 95, 333, 357
Besler, Bruno's pupil and copyist, 114-17
Bible's teaching, the, 299
Bochetel, Maria de, 47
Body, distraction of the, 288
Bodies, movements of, 216;
prime, 224
Brunnhofer, 3, 18, 41, 51, 60, 64, 89, 114, 301, 337, 345, 354
Bruno, Giovanni, father of Bruno, 3
Bruno, Giordano (Filippo), birth and family, 3;
childhood, 5, 357;
at Naples, 8, 121;
enters Dominican Order, 9;
became priest, 9;
charges of heresy, 9, 10;
at Rome, 10;
at Venice, 11, 66;
at Padua, 12, 69;
at Geneva, 12;
before Consistory, 15;
at Toulouse, 16, 17;
Doctor in Theology and professor, 16;
at Paris, 17, 18;
Reader at the university, 20;
at London, 21;
at Oxford, 21;
impressions of Oxford, 25;
relation to Mauvissière, 27;
on Mauvissière, 29;
admiration for women of England, 41;
hostility in England, 45;
consults Bishop of Bergamo, 48;
associate of College of France, 49;
at Marburg, 51;
at Wittenberg, 52;
at Helmstadt, 60;
denounced by Mocenigo at Venice, 72, 73;
examination before Tribunal, 74, 294, 357;
defence, 75;
creed, 76, 77, 109;
abjuration of errors, 81;
remitted to Rome, 84;
orthodoxy, 87;
death, 92-96;
grounds for death, 97;
mission, 103;
dislike of pedantry, 105;
originality, 107;
optimism in philosophy,
111, 175, 313;
works published during imprisonment and posthumously, 113-17;
interest in Greek philosophy, 125;
and Cusanus, 147;
religion, 297;
rationalism, 301;
restoration of name, 351
_Publications_--Italian Dialogues, 5, 29, 34, 45, 127;
_Sigillus Sigillorum_, 5, 12, 17, 37, 111, 112, 137, 140, 297;
_Le Opere Italiane_, 5, 89;
_Opera Latina_, 6, 7, 12, 17, 20, 22, 40, 80, 96, 106, 113,
114, 122, 126, 127, 134-37, 140, 141, 151, 178, 180, 181, 183,
184, 188, 196-200, 202, 207, 209-11, 213, 216, 230, 231, 235,
236, 242, 243, 260, 261, 266, 292, 295, 297, 298, 302-4, 307,
310, 311, 313-16, 318-20, 334, 335;
_De Immenso_, 8, 48, 51, 62, 65, 108, 122, 133, 152, 180, 183,
185, 186, 191, 192, 196, 203-08, 212, 213, 215, 218, 221, 223,
226, 307, 311, 315;
_Signs of the Times_, 11;
_Ark of Noah_, 11;
_Cabala_, 11, 40, 41, 102, 107, 149, 219, 252, 265, 270, 308;
_Cena_, 12, 23, 25, 27, 33, 35, 37, 41, 103, 104, 106, 108, 123,
125, 126, 152, 161, 163, 170, 216, 219, 268, 299, 300, 301, 310,
327;
_Clavis Magna_, 17, 37;
"The Thirty Divine Attributes," 17;
_De Umbris_, 18, 19, 103, 107, 115, 310, 324;
_Ars Memoriæ_, 18;
_Cantus Circæus_, 18, 37;
_De Compendiosa Architectura_, 19, 140, 141;
_Il Candelaio_, 19, 106;
_Oratio Consolatoria_, 21, 60, 260, 298;
_Explicatio Triginta Sigillorum_, 22, 26, 34, 37;
"Immortality of the Soul" and "The Five-fold Sphere," 25;
_Causa_, 25, 29, 30, 33, 35, 38, 106, 124-26, 132, 133, 135, 137,
138, 150, 153, 155, 200, 302, 309, 340;
_Infinito_, 28, 108, 125, 131, 142, 180, 185, 192, 217, 221, 224,
310, 357;
_Spaccio_, 32, 39, 40, 46, 57, 130, 131, 144, 149, 160, 224,
252-54, 265, 296, 302, 306, 307, 341;
_Heroici Furori_, 32, 41, 42, 100, 126, 129, 134, 137, 252, 253,
302, 310, 313;
_Modern and Complete Art of Remembering_, 37;
Centum et Viginti, Articuli _De Natura et Mundo_, 49;
_De Lampade Combinatoria_, 53, 139, 261;
_De Lampade Combinatoria Lulliana_, 54;
_De Specierum Scrutino_, 54, 59, 114;
_De Progressu Lampada Venatoria Logicorum_, 55;
_De Minimo_, 62-65, 106, 116, 160, 163, 178, 223, 226, 228,
234-36, 238-41, 243, 312, 313, 320;
_De Monade_, 62, 65, 80, 149, 150;
_Articuli adv. Mathematicos_, 110, 244, 295, 318, 335;
_Summa terminorum metaphysicorum_, 113, 304, 305, 308, 321, 341;
_Artificium perorandi_, 114;
_Lampas Triginta Statuarum_, 114, 295, 313, 314, 320, 321;
_De Magia_, et _Theses de Magia_, 116;
_De Magia Mathematica_, 116, 137;
_De Rerum Principiis et Elementis et Causis_, 116;
_De Medicina Lulliana_, 117, 139;
_De Vinculis in genere_, 117, 134, 266;
_Acrotismus_, 180, 217, 223, 225, 226
Budgell, Eustace, in _Spectator_, 348
Buhle, _History of Philosophy_, 352
Burton, Robert, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, 347
Cabala, Hebrew, 130, 131
Camden's _Elizabeth_, 24
Cardanus, 150
Carrière, Moritz, 339
Cause of nature, efficient, 157, 184;
formal, 158;
final, 158
Change, ceaseless, 205, 210, 221
Christianity, attack on, 225
Cicala, Mount, 5, 7
Clemens, F. J. 142, 266
Coincidence of all things in One, 172, 176;
of contraries, 176, 179, 209;
verifications of, 177-79
Comets, Bruno's theory of, 212
Commerce, the evils of, 269
Company of St. John the Beheaded, 95, 96
Contarini, Venetian procurator, report of, 84
Continuum not divisible, 237
Copernicanism, a heresy, 89;
influence of, on Bruno, 110
Copernicus, 150-52;
_De orbium c[oe]lestium Revolutionibus_, 150
Culpepper, Warden of New College, 26
Cusanus. See Nicolaus of Cusa.
Death and life contrasted, 289
Democritus, 126
Descartes, 334-36
Desire, human, 181
Dicson, Alexander, 35, 36;
_De Umbra Rationis_, 36, 324
Disputation of Pentecost, 49
Divine essence, attributes of, 193;
union with the, 280;
finite soul and mind, 307
Divinity of Christ, 79;
of matter, 157
Domenico da Nocera, 71, 75
Dominicans, the, 8, 357
Douglas, Archibald, 47
Dufour, Théophil, 14
Earth, the, 208; as centre of gravity, 190;
its movements, 211;
and suns, 211
Eglin, Raphael, 64, 113
Egyptian theosophy, 130;
religion, 305
Elements, the, 185;
in isolation, 209
Elizabeth, Queen, 21, 30, 31, 47, 81;
the London of, 41, 45
Empedocles, 126
England, works published in, 37
Epitaph, Bruno's, 99
Erlangen Codex, 116
Ether, the, 206, 245
Euclid, simplification of, 243
Evolution, theory of, 270
Existences, finite, 173;
differ, all, 235
Faith and works, 254
Faye, Anthony de la, 14
Ficino, Marsilio, 128
Figure in body and space, 189
Finite soul and divine mind, 307
Fiorentino, in _Giornale de la Domenica_, 6
Fire, Bruno's theory of, 209
Florio, 21, 35, 43;
"First Fruites," 35;
translation of Montaigne, 35
Form, intellect as, 158, 160;
natural, 165
Franco, Nicolo, 39
Frankfort, works published at, 51, 62, 66, 114;
petition to council of, 63
Furor (inspiration), kinds of, 279
Gassendi, Pierre, 336, 337
Gemistus, Georgius (Gemistus Plethon), 127, 128
Gentile, Alberico, 53
God in us, 291, 316;
love of, 291-93, 342;
man and, 298;
in nature, 315;
in himself, 317
Goethe, 352
Golden Age, the, 266
Greville, Sir Fulke, 27, 33, 43, 357
Grün, professor of philosophy, 54
Gwinne, Matthew, 35, 43
Hegel, 353;
_De Orbitis Planetarum_, 108
Helmstadt, Bruno at, 60, 61
Hennequin, John, 49
Henry III., 17, 18
Heraclitus' fire, 125
Heretical propositions, the eight, 90
Heumann, _Acta Philosophorum_, 350
Iamblichus, 129
Ideas, abstract, 196
Identity in God, 167;
in kind of all beings, 215
Imagination of Bruno, 107
Immaculate conception, rejection of, 109
Immortality, 159;
meaning of, 309;
individual, 311
Indifference of all things in the Infinite, 173
Infinite and the finite, the, 187, 307;
action between the, 187;
relation of, 188
Intellect, 282, 341
Intelligence and Love, 290;
instinct and, 219
Isolation, no elements in, 209
Jacobi, F. H., _Letters on Spinoza's Philosophy_, 351
Jews, antipathy towards the, 265
Judgment, 262;
based upon sensations, 234
Juvenal, 104
Kepler, 333
Knowledge of God, 194;
principles of, 229;
relativity of, 233;
Bruno's _Summum Bonum_, 276
Lacroze, 345, 346, 350
Lagarde, 5, 11, 12, 23, 25, 27, 28-31, 36, 40, 42, 46, 57, 102-8,
124, _et seq._, 142, 144, 150, 154-65, 167-69, 172, _et seq._, 185,
193, 216, _et seq._, 252, 253, 255-57, 259, 261 _et seq._, 276-93,
296 _et seq._, 357
Law, function of, 262
Leibniz, _Monadology_, 224;
and Bruno, 343;
Bruno's influence on, 345;
on Bruno, 347
Lessing's idea of myths anticipated, 108
Life, one principle of, 199;
the practical, 261;
the strenuous, 279;
and death contrasted, 289
London of Elizabeth, the, 42, 45
Love, degrees of, 281;
intelligence and, 290
Lucian's _Parliament of the Gods_, 39
Lucretius, 127;
_De rerum natura_, 127
Lully, Raymond, 138-41;
_Art of Reasoning_, 115, 139, 333
Luther, 57
Magnus, Albertus, 137
Man and the animals, 270;
and God, 298
Matter, divinity of, 157;
spirit and, 161;
and form, 163, 168;
deduction of, 163;
the true substance, 165;
as potentiality, 166;
substrate of the spiritual world, 168;
the ultimate unity, 171
Matthew, Tobias, 26
Mauvissière, 26, 27, 29, 47;
_Teulet Papers_, 23;
_Salisbury Papers_, 47
Melanchthon, 52
Mendoça, Bernardino di, 31, 32
"Metaphysical Remains," 113
Minima, the three, 227;
in the classification of the sciences, 229
Minimum, relativity of, 227;
as substance, 230;
indestructible, 231;
mathematics of the, 241
Miracles and deceit, 257
Mirror of God, 182
Mocenigo, Giovanni, 66, 67, 70, 72, 73, 75
Moisture, a material element, 207
Mordente, Fabrizio, 51, 358
Morehead, W., 39, 349
Morosini, Andrea, 71
Mystical and naturalistic attitude compared 110, 111
Naples, Bruno at, 8, 121;
cloister at, 9
Nature as one and many, 169;
permanence of beauty, harmony, 175;
uniformity of, 203;
and spirit, 251
Necessity and liberty, 195
Neoplatonist school, 127, 128;
mysticism of the, 110, 134
Nicodemo, Lionardo, 348
Nicolaus of Cusa, 141, 176;
sketch of his philosophy, 142-48;
_De Docta Ignorantia_, 143, 145, 257;
and Bruno compared, 144, 146;
_Alchoran_, 145;
_De Ludo globi_, 147;
_De Idiota_, 149;
_De Conjecturis_, 148;
_De Visione Dei_, 148;
_De Venatione Sapientiæ_, 148
Nigidius, Petrus, 51
Nola, 3, 4, 7
Object of _De Minimo_, 226
Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, 99
Oxford and Aristotle, 21, 22;
Bruno's impressions of, 25
Padua, 12, 69
Paracelsus, 149, 150;
_ad miraculum medicus_, 150
Paris, 18
Perfection, abstract conception of, 198;
plurality and, 199;
nature of, 201;
progress and, 285
Peripatetic philosophy, theses against, 49;
criticism of theory, 49
Philosophy, practical test of a perfect, 112;
Bruno's--Matter and spirit, 159;
necessity and liberty, 195;
similarity in composites, 234;
time and space, 237;
part and limit, 239;
peace and liberty, 261;
sincerity, 264;
temperance, 265;
evolution, 270;
avarice, 272;
fortune, 272;
courage, 273;
simplicity, 273;
solicitude, 274;
beauty, 281, 283;
love, 281, 290
Pius V., Pope, 39
Plato, _Timæus_, 131;
_Republic_, 131
Platonism, Platonists, 128, 133
Plethon. See Gemistus, Georgius
Plotinus, 132, 133;
_Enneads_, 132, 168
Pognisi, _Giordano Bruno_, 96
Prague, 59
Pre-Aristotelians, the, 125
Predicates of God, 114;
of substance and nature, 115
Primum mobile, the, 185
Principle: cause, 155;
first or absolute, 166
Process, the infinite, 284
Progress, human, 269;
and perfection, 285
Prudence, the virtue of deliberative faculty, 275
_Quarterly Review_, 27, 34, 348
Ramus, Petrus, Dialectic of, 16, 324
Ratio or discursive thought, 341
Rationalism in Bruno, 301;
mediæval, 305
Reality of things, timeless, 321
Reuchlin, Johann, _De arte cabbalistica_, 131
Riches and poverty, 271
Riehl, _Giordano Bruno_, 69
Roche, La, _Memoirs of Literature_, 94
Roman people, Bruno on, 263
Rome, Bruno at, 10;
tribunal at, 91
Rudolph II., 59
Savolina, Fraulissa, mother of Bruno, 3
Schelling, 352
Scholastics, the, 137
Schopenhauer, 354
Schopp, Gaspar, 40, 94;
letter on Bruno's death, 92, 350
Self-consciousness, 273
Sense-knowledge, relativity of, 232
Shakespeare, 34, 35
Sidney, Sir Philip, 12, 27, 31, 32, 35, 59, 357
Sigwart, 3, 52, 63-65, 67, 86, 337, 340, 342
Soul, the goods of the, 271;
the body, 286;
functions of the, 286;
hierarchy of, 313
Soul-principle in bodies, 216, 224
Spagnolo, Alfonso, 48
Spenser, Edmund, _Cantos on Mutability_, 33;
_Færie Queen_, 33
Spinoza on Bible interpretation, 108;
and Bruno, 176, 337-43;
_De Deo seu Homine_, 340, 342;
_Ethics_, 341
Spirit and matter, 161;
unity of, and body, 170
Stars, souls of the, 217
Stein, Ludwig, 346
Superstition and natural law, 7
Tansillo, affection of Bruno for, 5;
quoted, 283
Tasso, _Aminta_, 36, 268
Telesio, _De natura rerum_, 150
Temple of Wisdom, the, 57;
builders of, 128
Tennemann, Wilhelm G., 352
Theism in Bruno, 319
Theophilus of Varrano, 121
Tiraboschi, Girolamo, historian, 107
Tocco, Felice, _Conferenza_, 90;
_Le Opere Latine de G. Bruno_, 114, 225;
criticism of _Lampas Triginta Statuarum_, 115;
_Le Opere Inedite di G. Bruno_, 115, 116;
_Le Fonti piu recenti_, 138, 149
Toland, John, 38, 94, 349
Trinity, rejection of the, 109;
Cusanus' proof of the, 145;
interpretation of the, 294, 295
Trismegistus, Mercurius or Hermes, 129
Truth, philosophical and theological, 76;
the "implicit universe," 274, 275;
the twofold, 303
Universe, infinite in extent, 182, 183;
perfection of the, 190
Vacuum, the, 240
Vanini, Lucilio, burnt as a heretic at Toulouse, 17, 334
Vautrollier, bookseller, 34, 358
Venice, works published at, 11;
tribunal at, 73, 294, 357;
relation between, and the Pope, 85
Verifications of coincidence, 177
Vico, Marquis of, 12
Virtues, table of the, 259
Wagner in Bruno's _Opere Italiane_, 89
Waldensian persecution, 8
Watson, Thomas, _Compendium Memoriæ Localis_, 36, 325;
translation of Tasso's _Aminta_, 36
Whole and its parts, the, 186
Williams, L., 41
Wisdom reviewed, 275
Wittenberg, Bruno at, 51, 52;
works published at, 54, 55;
lectures at, 114;
notes dictated at, 115
Wittmann, _Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie_, 135, 136
Works, Marburg edition, 113;
State edition, 113-115;
published during imprisonment and posthumously, 113-117;
Noroff collection, 116, 117
Worlds, innumerable, 191, 194;
decay of, 221
Zurich, Bruno at, 64;
work published at, 113
THE END
_Printed by_ /R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED/, _Edinburgh_
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Brunnhofer, p. 321, Appendix.]
[Footnote 2: Sigwart, i. p. 118 (note 5).]
[Footnote 3: Berti, _Vita di S. B._, p. 28.]
[Footnote 4: Bartholmèss, vol. i. p. 26.]