to understand a little of what he thought himself. He was not, as
he was accused of being, just a blasphemous atheist who went about
offending the religious feelings of all with whom he came in contact.
He was not a rude, untutored sceptic or disbeliever who shocked people
by laughing at their beliefs. He did not merely indulge in abuse and
spiteful criticism. Though this is the view which was spread about him
by many of his contemporaries and taught about him for many years after
his death, nothing could be further from the truth. Giordano Bruno was
extremely spiritual-minded. So far was he from being an atheist (which
would have been just as narrow and dogmatic a point of view as that of
any of the other extremes), he saw God everywhere and in everything,
and his vision extended to the whole universe. He saw the essence of
Divine perfection in man, but deplored the many causes which prevented
it from showing itself. He wanted the mind of man to be free, and
not fettered by all sorts of elaborate creeds and regulations. This
freedom he demanded for himself, and he insisted that all questions
should be considered as open. What he detested most were the disputes
about religion of the various sects, the bitter and angry spirit they
produced, and the ruthless persecutions carried on by religious bodies
on all sides. Through freedom and enlightenment alone he saw that
mankind could progress, and not through submission and ignorance. But
all this was quite unintelligible to the vast majority, who took the
narrow and bigoted views on religion which were common in those days.
He was not a mere student of books, nor was he content with thoughts
alone on the great problems of religion and philosophy: he taught, he
wrote, he lectured, he spoke with such lively eloquence and striking
persuasiveness, and sometimes with such violence of language, that
it was impossible to ignore him. His views were fascinating by their
novelty and boldness, but he entirely lacked caution and prudence. In
these circumstances it is not surprising that he was excommunicated
from the Church, expelled from universities, and driven out of the
towns he visited.
For sixteen years he wandered about Europe at a time when to travel
meant spending eight days on the road from Paris to Calais: he had
to put up in inns with very rough fare and sometimes only a bed of
straw. Books were now printed, but they still circulated very slowly,
and the fame of a professor was made more by “disputation,” that is
to say, lecture and debate, than by the publication of his writings.
Nevertheless, the wandering Italian published several books in every
town he visited. With the exception of a few that have been lost, most
of his philosophical writings and poems have been collected together
and preserved.
Bruno found France torn by internal quarrels between the Protestant
Huguenots and the Roman Catholics, which had been going on for some
years in the shape of a destructive civil war. Only eight years
before, in 1572, there had been a wholesale massacre of Protestants
in Paris on St. Bartholomew’s Eve, when Charles IX was king. All this
served to show Bruno to what excesses men could be driven in religious
strife. After a visit to Toulouse, where he taught astronomy and
philosophy, he proceeded to Paris. Here, although he refused to attend
Mass, he managed to become a professor, chiefly by the favor of King
Henry III, who, however, required to be satisfied first of all that
Bruno’s wonderful memory came “by knowledge and not by magic arts.”
In gratitude for these favors the philosopher referred to the King
in his writings with exaggerated praise. It was indeed one of the
charges against him, when he came to his trial in Venice, that he had
praised the heretic prince, the news of whose assassination in 1589 was
received in Rome with a salute of cannon.
Bruno’s method of lecturing must have been very startling to those
who were accustomed to the grave airs of the learned professors. He
was enthusiastic and eloquent, and so eager that his hearers should
grasp his meaning that he would adopt every sort of different manner
of addressing them. Sometimes grave and prophet-like, at other times
lively and gay: sometimes fierce and combative, and then, again,
indulging in gross buffoonery. He was bent on attracting attention
and rousing the indifference of his audiences. In his writings, too,
he showed varying moods. The wit, the scoffer, the poet, the mystic,
and the prophet all appear. Great as his learning was, he depended
more on his intuitions; that is to say, the imaginative poet in him
was stronger than the scientific scholar. But some of the wisest
philosophers in after-years owed a great deal to his wonderfully
far-reaching thoughts and ideas.
In 1583 he went to London with letters furnished by the King of
France to his Ambassador. He found Queen Elizabeth very sympathetic.
A friendly welcome was extended by her court to all foreigners, and
she herself spoke Italian fluently. He was also fortunate in having a
cultured and liberal-minded patron in the Ambassador, M. Castelnau de
Mauvissière, who was endeavoring to negotiate a marriage between Queen
Elizabeth and the Duke of Anjou. Bruno, who was excused from attending
Mass in the Embassy chapel, was no doubt grateful for the considerate
way in which he was treated, for several books produced by him
during his stay in England were dedicated to the Ambassador. He also
alludes to the Ambassador’s wife with respectful praise, and remarks
enthusiastically about his little daughter: “Her perfected goodness
makes one marvel whether she be flown from heaven or be a creature of
this common earth.”
London had only a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants in those days,
and was not such an important place as Paris or even Lisbon. Foreign
visitors were not well received as a rule by the people, and English
students seldom traveled abroad. Though the Queen prided herself on
her learning, very little education and no freedom of discussion were
allowed among her humbler subjects. Printers were only licensed in
London, Oxford, and Cambridge, and every publication was rigorously
examined. Without his introduction to the court, Bruno would probably
have been silenced after a very short time. As it was, in England no
more than elsewhere could the philosopher take things quietly, though
he very much appreciated the comparative liberty of thought and speech
he was allowed. He had no sooner arrived in London than he sent to
Oxford University a challenge which he appropriately called “The
Awakener.” With a loud flourish of trumpets, he described himself as:
a doctor in perfected theology; a professor of pure and blameless
wisdom; a philosopher known, approved, and honorifically acknowledged
by the foremost academies of Europe; to none a stranger except to the
barbarians and the vulgar; a waker of slumbering souls; a breaker of
presumptuous and stubborn ignorance.
Both to the Sorbonne in Paris and the Wittenberg University he
addressed himself in much more dignified and modest language. He
evidently did not take Oxford very seriously, and indeed there was very
little intellectual life in that University, which was under the rule
of the Queen’s favorite, Lord Leicester. The professors were court
nominees, and Bruno describes them as “men arrayed in long robes of
velvet, with hands most precious for the multitude of costly rings on
their fingers, golden chains about their necks, and with manners as
void of courtesy as cowherds.” He also thought they knew a good deal
more of beer than of Greek. The students were very young, ignorant, and
boorish, occupied in drinking, dueling, and toasting in ale-houses and
country inns. However, he had a very high opinion of the University
as a whole, and consented to deliver a series of lectures and also
held a public disputation before the Chancellor and an illustrious
foreign visitor. He appears to have aroused the pedagogues to fury,
and, by his own account, fifteen times he worsted his chief adversary,
who could only reply by abuse. He stood up in the assembly a small
man, “rough hewn,” with disheveled hair, wearing an old coat with
several buttons wanting, while the Oxford doctors, whose opposition he
describes as based on “ignorance, presumption, and rustic rudeness,”
wore “twelve rings on two fingers and two chains of shining gold.”
While they were attempting to defend the old teaching of Aristotle
from the attacks of a man they regarded as an eccentric charlatan,
he explained his new ideas, which were to them startling and highly
objectionable.
Small wonder that after three months his public lectures were brought
to an end and he returned to London. Here he made several friends,
among them Sir Philip Sidney, the poet-soldier, of whom he had already
heard in Italy, for Sidney had studied at Padua. Fulk Greville, who
described himself on his epitaph as “Servant to Queen Elizabeth,
Councilor to King James, and friend to Sir Philip Sidney,” also became
intimate with him, and at his house Bruno held a second disputation, at
which he again seems to have aggravated his hearers. He had a sincere
admiration for Sidney and dedicated a book of sonnets to him. The
protection given to him by Queen Elizabeth he repaid by referring to
her in his poems in terms of the highest flattery, which no doubt she
appreciated. But this praise of a Protestant Queen, who herself was
excommunicated, was eventually brought against him by his judges. He
was greatly impressed by the beauty and bearing of English women and
by “the Briton’s terrible energy, who, regardless of the stormy deep
and the towering mountains, goes down to the sea in ships mightily
exceeding Argonautic art.” After two years in England he returned to
Paris with the French Ambassador, who, he says, “saved him from the
Oxford pedants and from hunger.” But he did not stay long in Paris,
“because of the tumults,” and proceeded on his wanderings into Germany.
At Marburg, the rector of the University refused Bruno permission to
hold public disputations on philosophy, at which, the rector himself
says, “he fell into a passion of anger and he insulted me in my
house.” No doubt he made it very unpleasant for any one who attempted
to thwart him, for he was headstrong and impetuous. At Wittenberg he
was permitted to enter his name on the lists of the University, and
also to give private lectures. The professors of Toulouse, Paris, and
Oxford, he declared, received him “with grimaces, upturned noses,
puffed cheeks, and with loud blows on the desk,” but the learned men
of Wittenberg showed him courtesy and left him in peace. In fact, he
was able to remain there working for two years, until, owing to the
feud between the Lutherans and the Calvinists, in which the latter got
the upper hand, he found himself compelled to quit the city. On his
departure he pronounced a great oration in praise of wisdom, which
malicious public opinion described as a speech in favor of the devil.
His next halt was at Prague, where he was received by the Emperor
Rudolph II, the patron of Tycho Brahe and Kepler, and a student of
philosophy and astronomy as well as of magic and astrology. The Italian
philosopher addressed a small work to His Majesty, in which he repeats
that his mission is to free the souls of men and to triumph over
ignorance: he laments the hateful quarreling of different creeds, and
proclaims charity and love to be the only true religion. As he did not
meet with sympathy or support in Prague, he passed on to Helmstedt,
where the Duke of Brunswick charged him with the education of his son.
But here again he got at cross-purposes with the authorities, and
this brought down on him a sentence of excommunication. He justified
himself, and wrote a scathing attack on the pastor and rector of the
University, who were his chief enemies. But it was not possible for
him to remain, so he turned his steps toward Frankfort. This town was
the center of the German book trade: fairs were held at Easter and
Michaelmas, and people came from other countries to try and exchange
books, which were still very rare. Bruno published several books here,
and one might think he would have been left to pursue his studies
without interference. But the burgomaster, or mayor, sternly refused
to allow him to lodge with his printer. A convent of Carmelites
therefore gave him shelter, and there he is said to have been “busied
with writing for the most part all day long, or in going to and fro
indulging in subtle inquiries, wrapt in thought and filled with
fantastic meditations upon new things.”
It is very curious that Giordano Bruno should ever have been persuaded
to return to Italy. But he seems not to have thought it impossible that
he could become reconciled to the Church while retaining for himself a
certain freedom of thought. No doubt he was also tempted to return by
his love of his native land. Yet he must have had a foreboding of the
danger he was running when he wrote, on leaving Frankfort: “The wise
man fears not death; nay, even there are times when he sets forth to
meet it bravely.”
Bruno now made the acquaintance of the traitor by whose falseness he
was eventually to be handed over to a cruel fate. Giovanni Mocenigo
was a member of one of the foremost Venetian families. But the
wisdom of his ancestors, seven of whom had been Doges—that is, chief
magistrates—of Venice, had degenerated in him into cunning. He came
across Bruno’s books, and out of curiosity, believing that there was
something occult and supernatural about Bruno’s teaching, he invited
him to come and stay with him in Venice. The philosopher innocently
accepted the invitation. His reputation as a man of lively conversation
preceded him, and he found himself cordially received in Venetian
literary society. But very soon Mocenigo began to grow discontented
with his master. He was quite unable to understand his teaching or
to profit in the smallest degree by the Art of Memory, which was one
of Bruno’s favorite principles of instruction. In fact, the two were
completely out of sympathy, and the patron began to insist that he
got no return for his generous hospitality. Bruno at first tried to
reason with him, but finding him hopelessly dense and narrow-minded,
became exasperated and begged he might be set at liberty to return
to Frankfort. Mocenigo then determined to betray him because of his
religious opinions. He consulted his confessor, and then denounced his
unfortunate guest to the Father Inquisitor at Venice as a wicked and
irreligious man. Accompanied by his servant and five or six gondoliers,
he burst in upon Bruno while he was in bed and dragged him to a garret,
where he locked him up. The trial took place in 1592. The charges
brought against Giordano Bruno were that he had criticized the methods
of the Church, desired and foretold its reform, disputed its doctrines,
consorted with heretics, and taught principles which were repugnant to
Catholics. The culprit gave a complete account of his life; he said he
was sorry if he had done what was wrong or taught what was false, and
was ready to atone for any scandal he had given in the past, but he did
not retract a single one of his convictions.
It may be well here just to say a word about the Inquisition, which
has been so often mentioned and figures so prominently in the history
of these times.
The Holy Office, as it was first called, was instituted early in the
thirteenth century. Its practical founder was a Spanish monk, Domenigo
de Guzman, who afterwards was known as St. Dominic. The Popes at first
regarded the institution with disapproval, as it was set up as a quite
independent body, and bishops even were not allowed to interfere with
its proceedings. Towards the end of the fifteenth century it was
re-established on a far more active basis under the Grand Inquisitor
Torquemada, who organized the most fiendish cruelties for which any
human being has ever been responsible. The object of the Inquisition
was to suppress heresy, that is to say, either force people into
the Romish Church or, should they refuse, kill them or make their
lives intolerable. The mildest form of punishment was called public
penitence, which meant being made an outcast in society, closely
watched by the ecclesiastical authorities, and heavily fined. Tortures
of indescribable kinds were used; people were imprisoned for life or
burned alive, though sometimes as a favor they might be strangled
before they were burned. The burning of a heretic was a great public
function which attracted crowds of spectators. In order to make the
pageant more ghastly, grotesque dolls and corpses which had been dug up
out of their graves were carried in the procession and made to dance
round the flames.
In Spain the Inquisition directed its attention chiefly to Jews and
Moors. But it became established in other parts of Europe, notably
in the Netherlands and in Italy. Torquemada was Grand Inquisitor for
eighteen years. During that time he had 10,220 people burned alive and
97,000 condemned to public penitence or perpetual imprisonment. The
Inquisition was far more active and severe in Spain than in Italy,
where it dealt chiefly with Protestants. But a resident at Rome in
1568, which is just about the time we are dealing with, wrote: “Some
are daily burned, hanged, or beheaded; the prisons and places of
confinement are filled, and they are obliged to build new ones.”
The independence, the secrecy, and the far-extended power of the
Inquisition made it formidable and terrifying while it lasted. The
hideous cruelty and savage barbarity of its methods render the story of
the Inquisition one of the blackest pages of the history of the world.
From such a body as this there was very little chance that a man with
Bruno’s views would receive justice or mercy.
Venice was at this time an independent republic, and was a city of
refuge for many who were expelled from other parts of Italy. Rome was
jealous of the independent attitude of Venice, and the Pope demanded
that all spiritual offenders should be delivered up to him. The
Venetian authorities protested in this case, but were obliged to yield.
A lawyer who was consulted during the dispute, while acknowledging
that Bruno’s errors in heresy were very grave, declared that he
possessed “a most excellent rare mind, with exquisite learning and
wisdom.”
On his arrival in Rome he was at once cast into a dungeon, as the Pope
hoped to break his spirit by prolonged imprisonment. For six whole
years (1593 to 1599) nothing was heard of him. What his sufferings
were in the dark dungeons of the Inquisition no one can tell. Whatever
methods may have been used to overcome his obstinate determination,
they were unsuccessful. For when at last he was visited in 1599 he
said that “he ought not to recant and he would not recant; that he had
nothing to recant, nor any reason to recant, nor knew he what he should
recant.” Had he not written, too: “There are men in whom the working of
the will of God is so powerful that neither threats nor contumely can
cause them to waver. He who fears the body has never felt himself to be
one with God. He alone is truly wise and virtuous who fears no pain,
and he is happy who regards things with the eye of reason.”
At last sentence of death was passed on him. “Perhaps you pronounce
your sentence with greater fear than that with which I receive it,” was
his only reply to his inhuman judges. From the presence of the great
assemblage of cardinals and theologians who sat in judgment over him,
the man whom suffering could not move and for whom the condemnation
of such a tribunal was no degradation was led from the judgment hall
and handed over to the governor of the city. A day or two more in a
solitary cell and the end came.
There was a multitude of pilgrims in Rome at the time. Some fifty
cardinals were assembled to celebrate the jubilee of the Pope. The
Church was mustered in all its glory. The last agony of the philosopher
no doubt served to enhance these triumphant celebrations, although the
burning of a heretic was such a common occurrence that it probably
caused very little stir. The concluding scene has already been
described.
Nearly three hundred years later, in 1889, a statue of Giordano Bruno,
a picture of which is reproduced here, was erected on the very spot in
the Campo dei Fiori at Rome where he was burned. The world is learning
slowly to respect liberty of conscience, to admire sincerity, to
detest intolerance, and to stamp out the spirit of persecution. We are
beginning to understand that a really religious nature may exist apart
from any profession of faith in any particular set of doctrines. And no
sensible man now would condemn as wicked and irreligious a courageous
thinker who fought throughout his career for freedom and independence
of thought, and refused to alter his convictions to please others or
even to save his own life.
A. P.
VI
GROTIUS
1583–1645
I shall never cease to use my utmost endeavors for establishing peace
among Christians; and if I should not succeed it will be honorable to
die in such an enterprise.
When we read history, what a lot we have to learn about wars! Invasions
and conquests and sieges and battles seem to cover more pages than
anything else. I think there is hardly a country in Europe that England
has not fought against at one time or another, and not only in Europe,
but in Asia, Africa, and America. And although nations are supposed to
be getting more civilized, it does not seem to make any difference—they
go on fighting one another just the same. If we took the wars from
the Roman invasion of Britain down to 1914, it would be a very long
list. We might be able to give the dates and name the chief battles,
but I doubt if we could always say what was the cause of the war. The
causes of war are generally most difficult to discover, and historians
become rather confused and obscure when they deal with that part of the
subject. The truth is that causes are very difficult to disentangle.
Generally there is an occasion as well as a cause. The cause is the
general state of feeling that exists between two countries, which again
has to be traced back to a number of different incidents and accidents:
the occasion may be some quite trifling event, which is just enough to
set the fire blazing. Without the occasion the state of feeling might
in time improve, and the same trifling event, or a more serious event
which concerned two countries who were on friendly terms, might never
lead to war at all.
In the more barbarous ages men fought one another because one race
hated another race, or wanted to capture its goods and its property.
Men walked about ready and eager to fight, and no one wanted to stop
them. We pretend we are much more civilized now, and that we do not
have these feelings, and yet without these excuses we have constant
wars. It does not say much for what we are pleased to call our
civilization. Because, after all, killing a large number of people,
devastating countries, and destroying homes is not an occupation that
any one approves.
Then a period came when kings and great conquerors wanted to win power
and renown by leading their armies out to battle and subduing their
neighbors. The motive was very much the same as that of the barbarous
man, but it was less natural and spontaneous, because the people
themselves were less inclined to fight. They were, however, prepared
and drilled, and taught that their country’s greatness depended on
its power of conquest and the size of its territory.
[Illustration: HUGO GROTIUS.]
Then, too, a large number of wars were religious wars. Men feel very
deeply about their own religion, and in the Middle Ages they were
always ready to fight others who did not share their particular belief.
The Crusades were by way of being religious wars, but they were more an
opportunity for great fighters to go out and distinguish themselves on
the battlefield. Civilized people do not fight about religion now, but
there is no subject that makes them quarrel and dispute more violently.