Giordano Bruno

f the "heroic" or generous human soul in its pursuit of the infinitely beautiful and good-its efforts towards union with the divine source of all things. To this more constructive work, in wh

ly synonymous with "unorthodoxy," the Heroic Enthusiasms would have shown on how shallow a foundation the charge rested, for that dialogue breathes the purest religious emotion and aspiration. Bruno had, however, a premonition of the fate that was to befall his memory. He protested, perhaps with a touch of sarcasm, that nothing in his work was said "assertively,"-that he had no wish either directly or indirectly to strike at the truth, to send a shaft against anything that was honourable, useful, natural, and, consequently, divine.[437] His own religion was that which had its beginning, its growth, and its continuance in "the raising of the dead, making whole the sick, and giving of one's goods"; and not that in the spirit of which the goods of others were seized, the whole maimed, and the living put to death.[438] The conclusions of the Spaccio were not therefore to be regarded a

of the beast, the ass, the bearer of burdens, unquestioning, faithful. Again, one of the constellations, the Corona Borealis, is to be left in the heavens, escaping the general fate,[440] until the time when it shall be given in reward to "the invincible arm that shall bring peace, the long-desired, to a miserable, long-suffering Europe, cutting down the many heads of that worse than Lernean monster that is scattering its fateful poison of manifold heresy, and sending it through every portion of her veins."[441] To this decision of Jupiter, Momus, the critic and wit of the assembly, adds that it would be enough "if a certain sect of pedants could be rooted out, who, doing no good themselves, as the divine and natural law bade, yet thought themselves, and desired to be thought by others, pious and pleasing to the gods; they said that to do good was good, to do evil, evil; but that men gained grace and favour with the gods, not through the good that they did, but through hoping and believing in accordance with their catechism. As if the gods, said Mercury, were anxious about nothing but their own vainglory, cared nothing for the injury caused to human society. And they defame us, Momus continued, by calling this an institution of heaven, decrying effects or fruits; while all the time they are doing no work themselves, but living on the works of others, who instituted temples, chapels, hospices, hospitals, colleges, universities, for quite other men than they. These others, even if they are not perfect, will not, like their usurpers, be perverse and pernicious to the world; they will be useful to the state, skilled in speculative science, studious of morality, fanning zeal and enthusiasm for doing good to one another, and maintaining the common weal for which all laws are ordained. The usurpers are worse than grubs, caterp

inity in the concrete. The whole work is in praise of "the pure goodness, royal sincerity, magnificent majesty of ignorance, learned foolishness, divine Asinity."[446] Asinity is in the sphere of practice as submission to authority in that of speculation, or pedantry in that of teaching. Against all of these Bruno casts the shafts of his irony, now broad and heavy, now fine, light and piercing.[447] The list of virtues which Bruno gives as adorning the soul of the renovated man does not present an

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eroic generosity (or magnanimity, again-Leo); continence, equity (and justice-Libra); sincerity (observance of promises-Scorpio); contemplation, the love of solitude (freedom of mind), temperance (Aquarius); just reserve and taciturnity, tranquillity of mind, industry, prudent fear, vigilance for the state, kindliness, libera

ather the outcome of the virtuous life than any one of its constituent elements, e.g. Knowledge, Divine Enthusiasm, Contemplation, Honour. There remain the familiar virtues of Greek philosophy:-Courage; prudence and sagacity; temperance (continence and abstinence); wisdom (or the love of truth); justice, including submission to law, active justice or judgment, and equity; sincerity, with truthfulness, simplicity, faith, the observance of promises; sociability and frien

med, republics fostered; violence shall not tread reason under foot, ignorance not despise knowledge, the poor shall be aided by the rich, virtues and studies necessary or useful to the community be promoted, advanced, maintained. No one is to be put into a place of power that is not superior in merits, by force of virtue and talent, either in himself, which is rare and almost impossible, or through communication with and counsel of others, which is due, ordinary and necessary. The two hands by which any law is strong to bind are justice and possibility, one moderated by the other, for although many things are possible that are not just, nothing is just that is not possible. Whether it come from heaven or from the earth, no institution or law ought to be approved or accepted which does not tend to the highest end, viz. the direction of our minds and reform of our natures so that they produce fruits necessary or useful for human intercourse."[454] Judgment.Judgment shall make a scale of virtues and of crimes, the greatest in either class being that which affects the Republic as a whole; next that which affects other individuals than the agent; a crime committed between two who are in accord is hardly a crime, while there is no crime if the fault remains in the individual-does not proceed to bad example or to bad deed. Repentance is to be approved by it, but not set upon the same level as innocence;[455] belief and opinion, but not placed so high as deeds and work; confession an

prudent to guide, the brave to fight, those that have judgment to counsel, those that have authority to command; in states, the scales represent the keeping of contracts of peace, confederations, leagues, the careful weighing of action beforehan

osophy is concerned. The religion attacked was one that struck at the root of this human love, and made of earth a purgatory for the sake of the uncertain life to come. Sincerity.Hence the emphasis laid on sincerity, faithfulness, or truthfulness, as high among the virtues. "Without it every contract is uncertain and doubtful, all intercourse is dissolved, all social life at an end." Bruno

rwhelms some of the European peoples, it may have had three grounds: the reputed avarice of the Jew:[462] his exclusiveness, unsociability;-"a race always base, servile, mercenary, solitary, incommunicative, shunning intercourse with the Gentiles, whom they brutally despise, and by whom in their turn, and with good reason, they are contemned"

se sentiment which condemned as unholy whatever pertained to the natural man. The place of Virgo is taken by chastity, continence, modesty, shame; the contrasting vices being lust, incontinence, shamelessness. "It is through these," Bruno adds, "that virginity becomes a virtue. In itself it is neither virtue nor vice, implies no goodness, dignity, or merit, and when it resists the command of nature it becomes a wrong, an impotence, a folly, madness express; while if it is in compliance with some urgent reason, it is called continence, and has the essenc

of vainglory, contempt of others, violence, oppression, torment, fear, and death, that the age had departed. "All praise the fair age of gold, when I kept minds quiet and peaceful, safe from this virtuous goddess of yours. For their bodies, hunger was sufficient sauce to make a delicious and satisfying repast out of acorns, apples, chestnuts, peaches, and roots, which benign nature administered at a time when such food was the best nourishment for them, gave them most pleasure, and kept them longest in life, which the many artificial sauces that industry and zeal have discovered cannot do

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hrough commerce, evil feelings, adding the vices of one race to those of another, propagating new incitements, instruments, methods of tyranny and assassination, which in time, by the natural vicissitude of things, would recoil upon our own heads."[471] It was really, he thought, for the advantage of men themselves that the world-regions should be kept as distinct in their usages and customs as they are physically distinct by the natural divisions of mountains and tracts

runo is quite at one with modern theories of human evolution; Evolution.it can hardly be said, however, that he anticipated the evolution theory so far as it involves an identity of origin for human beings and lower animals. The idea that different human beings express different animal types was not a new one. It means in Bruno that such men have animal souls, but this is not because their bodies have reverted to the animal type. It is the soul that moulds the body and gives, in these cases, the animal expression to the face-the look of wolf, or bear, or fox, or serpent. There is no question of a physical continuity between animal and man, but there is a psychical continuity, since a soul which is that of an animal in one generation may become that of a man in another.[475] Man and the animals.A much nearer approach to the evolution-theory is to be found in the Cabala,[476] where it is said that if a serpent could have its head moulded into that of a man, its tongue widened, its shoulders broadened, arms and hands branching out from it, and, where the tail now is, a pair of legs, it would think, look, breathe, speak, work, and walk just as a man does, for it would be nothing but a man. Or if the reverse process occurred, in a man (involution), in place of talking he would hiss, in place of walking he would creep, in place of building a palace he would hollow out a hiding-place for himself. This is not, however, because the body of the o

not justice or injustice, honour or shame, calm or storm, but committing all to chance. As a general rule Riches are to go to the most insensate, the most foolish, careless, silly-to beware of the wise as of fire. Poverty, on the other hand (in inferior or corporeal goods), may be conjoined with riches in goods of the mind, as riches in inferior goods may never be, for no one that is wise or wishes to gain knowledge can ever achieve great things by their means. To philosophy Riches are an impediment, while Poverty offers it a safe and easy road. He will be great who in poverty is rich because he is content; and he is a slave who in riches is poor because he has not enough. Not he that has little but he that desires much is really poor. The friends of Poverty are open, the enemies of Riches are secret; the poor man by repressing desire may rival Jove in happiness; the

ed at all cost,-gross ignorance, injustice, infidelity, lying, avarice, and the rest."[480] Simplicity.Beside Fortitude may be placed Simplicity,[481] between the vicious extremes of Boastfulness on the one hand and Dissimulation on the other, the latter being the less hateful of the two: "sometimes even the gods must make use of it, and to escape envy, reproach, outrage, Prudence is wont to cover Truth with her vestments." Self-consciousness.Simplicity is pleasing to the gods, for it has in a mann

ed in the highest part of the heavens by the gods,-Truth, Prudence and Wisdom, which in reality are one and the same.[483] Truth is the unity which stands above the all of things, and the goodness which is pre-eminent over all things, for being, goodness, and truth are one:-in other words, it is the Eleatic One,-the "implicit universe,"-of the metaphysical works.[484] It is before things as cause and principle, and things have dependence upon it: it is in things, as their substance, and through it things subsist: it is after things, for through it things are known without error. These three aspects represent metaphysical, physical, and logical truth respectively. What is presented to our senses and may be grasped by our intelligence, is not the highest truth, but only the figure, image, resplendence, or appearance of it. Prudence also is both above and in us. It is above as Providence, when it is also truth itself, and there Liberty, Necessity, Essence, Entity, all are one, the Absolute. In us Prudence is the virtue of the consultative and deliberative faculty,-"it is a principal form of reason dealing with the universal and the particular,[485] has for its maid-servant dialectics, and for guide acquired wisdom, vulgarly called metaphysics, which deals with the universals of all things that fall within human knowledge."[486] So too Wisdom, Sophia, is at once supra-mundane,-when it is one with Providence itself, light and eye in one,-and mundane, inferior, not truth itself, wisdom itself, but participant in truth and in wisdom,-an eye that is illuminated by a foreign light. The first is invisible, infigurable, in