THE SKEPTICS OF THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME. THE SKEPTICS OF THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE. By JOHN OWEN. THE CIVILIZATION OF THE RE- NAISSANCE IN ITALY. By Dr. JACOB BUKCKHARDT. Translated by S. G. C. MIDDLEMORE. DOX: SWAN SONNKNSCHE1N & CO. NBW YORK : MACMILLAN & CO. THE SKEPTICS OF THE ITALIAN EENAISSANOB JOHN OWEN RECTOR OF EAST ANSTEY, DEVON Author of "Evenings with the Skeptics," "Verse Musings on Nature, Faith and Freedom; " Editor of Olanvil's "Scepsis Scientifica." SECOND EDITION LONDON SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO, NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & CO. 1893 ' Die Erde ist der grosse Felsen, woran die Menschheit. der eiyentliche Prometheus, gefesselt ist, und vom Geier des Zweifels zerjieischt wird; sie hat das Licht gestohlen, und leidet nun Martern dafur." 1 Heine, Religion u. Philosophic (Werke: vol. xiii.), p. 307. ' 11 faut avoir ces trois qualitds ; Pyrrhonien, Gdometre, Chretien soumis ; et elles tfaccordent et se temper ent, en doutant oft U faut, en assurant oil il faut en se soumet- tant ou UfautS Pascal, Pensdes, Ed. Faugere, vol. ii. p. 347. Butler & Tanner, The Belwood Printing Works, Froine, and London. TO J. T. DANSON, ESQ., OF GRASMERE, I RESPECTFULLY DEDICATE THIS WORK ON THE RENAISSANCE SKEPTICS: THOSE OF ITS READERS WHO KNOW HIM WILL KNOW WHY. JOHN OWEN. EAST ANSTET, January 6th, 1893. INTRODUCTION. DIFFERENT causes of various kinds and degrees of cogency may exist for prefixing to a new work, that bugbear of the modern reader an Introduction. Thus there may be reasons of un- deniable expediency for dealing in a separate and initiatory chapter with the general outline or purport of the book. Among such reasons may be one or more whose special opera- tion gives them a peculiar claim to consideration. The book may e.g. treat of a subject long misapprehended and mal- treated by writers who have generally dealt with it in time past; or, like a stranger who can claim kinship among the circle into which he craves admission, the book may be so allied with an older work on the same or kindred subject that it is capable of receiving from it no small amount of reflected illustration in the way of references or extracts. Now both of these reasons combine as justifying an introduction to the present work. 1st. It is related to a work which the author published so far back as 1881 under the title of 'EVENINGS WITH THE SKEPTICS.' It may indeed claim to be in some sort a continuation of that work carrying down the history of the chief representative Skeptics to the period of the Renaissance and a century or more beyond. By this, however, is not intended that such a continuity in the subjects of the two works need be emphasized or exagger- ated, so that the essential independence, self-sufficingness, and conclusiveness of these two volumes should be deemed for a moment open to question. The Free-thought of the Renais- viii Introduction. sance is in reality a Free-thought of its own. Its Skepticism, in Italy and France is largely an indigenous and native pro- duct. Originated by strange unforeseen causes, fostered by new and mysterious influences political as well as religious and social conditioned by circumstances, stimulated by move- ments and energies altogether peculiar to itself, the Skepticism of the Renaissance can always claim historical consideration in and for itself alone. It is unique in the history of human speculation. There can therefore be no hesitation in regard- ing the theme of these volumes as independent, as standing aloof in its complete amplitude and entirety from, e.g., the Free-thought of Scholasticism and Medisevalism as well as from that of modern European History. Unlike most commo- tions and upheavals in the history of human thought which we might conceive not incapable of repetition at least in part it stands absolutely alone, a kind of a-rra^ Xeyopevov in the continuous utterance of progressive humanity ; and it is just this isolated magnificence which renders the culture of the Renaissance, as an epoch and product deserving attention, autonomous and independent. The visual range and power of the man who emerges from prison, and surveys for the first time a broadly extended landscape outside its walls, is necessarily a different faculty exercised under different conditions, from the restricted, half- blinded vision which his former confinement alone permitted. This truth is not essentially lessened or impaired by the fact that the original structure of the organ remains the same ; since it is its ocular power, its correlation to its environment and the light which that environment supplies, the extent and kind of visual consciousness, or the sensibility it is capable of inducing these are the qualities that constitute eyesight, and these are wholly modified by the supposed change from im- prisonment in a dark cell, to the liberty of outlook over a vista unbounded on all sides. The thoughtful reader who compares e.g. an average treatise of Jerome's or Augustine's Introduction. ix with a work of Dante's or Petrarca's soon becomes aware of the essential and overwhelming difference in his literary and speculative surroundings. In type, temperament, emotional and spiritual susceptibilities, etc., the men, though parted by centuries, are by no means dissimilar ; but in passing from the culture of the Latin Fathers to that of the Renaissance leaders he feels as if he had suddenly entered a new world, and this feeling of novelty is not lessened by what is equally true, that this new world, in harmony with its name, is in great part a Resurrection the thought and lore of Greece and Rome, for so many centuries held in thraldom by Ecclesiastical Chris- tianity, reasserting suddenly and unexpectedly that vital energy which animated the old world, proclaiming in unmis- takable accents their inherent supremacy and their ancient freedom, their liberty of Thought and their liberty of Doubt. At the same time, and with the distinction just pointed out remaining prominently before our minds, we must by no means forget that Skepticism in the view of the Author, and as an inspiring principle of the following work, implies the function of a natural energy or intellectual organ. Hence it has qualities and discharges offices which are necessarily akin in all periods and in all conditions. Especially its relations critical and antagonistic to dogma of every kind, must under every variety of condition and circumstance be very largely similar if not identical. It is therefore of primary importance that the meaning and sphere of Skepticism should be marked out with as great clearness as possible. For this purpose the author is persuaded he cannot do better than lay before his readers a few observations partly apologetic, partly expository, extracted from the preface of his former work. Besides throw- ing light on the subject and treatment of the present work, it may help to set at rest a misconception against which the author has been struggling for years which has long affected and perverted current notions of Skepticism both in Philosophy and Theology. Firstly. The author deems it necessary to advise his readers that he has adopted the orthography of Skeptic and Skepticism partly for the sake of conforming to the increasing and true taste of spelling foreign words in their own manner, but chiefly for the purpose of bringing back, if possible, a much abused philosophical term to its primitive use. In these volumes Skepticism is assigned its original and classical mean- ing; in other words, it denotes simply the exercise of the questioning and suspensive faculty ; and the Skeptic is above all things the Inquirer, the indomitable, never-tiring Searcher after Truth the restless energetic thinker for whom search may be a neccesity even more imperious than the definitive attainment of the object sought. It follows that Skepticism is confined to no period, race, or religious or secular belief. The energy itself being altogether irrepressible and natural, its manifestation is no more blameworthy than other instincts and energies of human speculation, which also share a natural basis and starting point. It may also be further allowed in reference to its varied objects, that the forms assumed by Skepticism may be indefinitely numerous ; arid unless the members of the great body of thinkers and inquirers can be classified, nothing but confusion and indistinctness of thought can well be the result. Many writers have indeed remarked the confused appearance presented by ordinary Histories of Philosophy ; in which thinkers of all kinds are huddled to- gether without any regard to intellectual affinities or similari- ties. At least it seems worth considering whether some ele- mentary basis of classification might not be adopted which would subdivide philosophers according to their psychological idiosyncrasies and tendencies. Thus e.g. they might be ar- ranged, as DIOGENES LAERTIUS suggested, into two main classes, Synthetic and Analytic ; or, using the more usual terms, Dogmatists and Skeptics denoting respectively those in which constructive or disintegrating instincts preponderate. Such a division, although not rigidly logical, seems the best of Introduction. xi which the subject is capable. Hence the present work, taking as its subject eminent examples of the analysing, inquiring type of intellect, endeavours to show the similarity of its methods and procedures under varying conditions of time, race, country, diversity of dogmatic and social environment, etc. For the purposes of such an inquiry it is necessary to remember that Skepticism may be regarded from two stand- points. 1. In relation to dogma, it is the antithetical habit which suggests investigation the instinct that spontaneously dis- trusts both finality and infallibility as ordinary attributes of Truth. It inculcates caution and wariness as against the con- fidence, presumption, self-complacent assurance of Dogmatists. In this respect a history of doubters is in fact the history of human enlightenment. Every advance in thought or know- ledge has owed its impulse and inception to inquiring doubt. Hence it would be idle to deny or attempt to minimise the historical importance of Skepticism, or to ignore the perennial antagonism between doubt and dogma the dynamic and static principles of all human knowledge. 2. Considered in itself, Skepticism implies (1) Continuous inquiry ; (2) Suspense, or so much of it as is needful to impel men to search, as well as to impart the freedom which pertains to the exercise of all intellectual energy. This is, as already remarked, the literal meaning of the word, as well as its general signification in Greek philosophy. The Skeptic is therefore not the denier or dogmatic Negationist he is com- monly held to be. Positive denial is as much opposed to the true Skeptical standpoint as determinate affirmation. One as well as the other implies fixity and finality. Each, when ex- treme and unconditional, makes a virtual claim to omni- science. The true Skeptic may hence be defined as the seeker after ultimate Truth, or, in other words, the Absolute. He is the searcher who must needs find, if he succeed in his quest, no xii Introduction. only demonstrable and infallible, but unconditionally perfect and all inclusive Truth. This definition of Skepticism may serve to remove some of the objections made against it as an antagonistic influence to religion, and especially to the Christian Revelation. Taking, however, Christianity in its primary and true sense, as we find it embodied in the words and life of Christ, this supposed conflict of its dictates with reasonable inquiry after truth is nothing else than an ecclesiastical fiction. Cer- tainly the claims of a Religion which asserts itself as THE TRUTH, which bases freedom upon truth-discovery, whose Founder's profession was that He came to bear witness to the truth, and which appealed to the Reason and Conscience of mankind, i.e. to their instincts of spiritual and moral truth, could never be fairly represented as opposed to truth-search. To the further objection that the definition of Christianity as Revelation renders further search needless, an answer is given in the course of this work. Here it may be remarked that, as a matter of fact, hardly one of the thinkers commonly accounted Skeptics, notwithstanding their aptitudes for free inquiry and their impatience of dogma, have ever thought of impugning the essentials of Christianity, in other words, the two great commandments of the law proclaimed by CHRIST as the basis of His religion. What has been most affected by Skeptical disintegration has not been Christianity so much as its undue ecclesiastical development. As regards the method and plan of the work the inter- mingling of philosophical discussion with formal essays it may be enough to say that it seems especially demanded by the subject. A series of didactic essays, however useful for dogmatic purposes, would ill accord with the freedom which necessarily pertains to philosophical inquiry. Another ad- vantage not less marked is the formal recognition of divergent standpoints in the contemplation of Truth. "Without this, indeed, Free-thought and free discussion are mere contradic- tions in terms, while a third reason of a different kind seems Introduction. xiii to be the expediency of investing philosophical subjects, when- ever possible, with a humane, homely, and familiar interest. Writers on philosophy are too apt, as a rule, to affect the position of hierophants : they pose as careful watchers over sacred and incommunicable mysteries : they account them- selves teachers of esoteric lore, and in harmony with their high vocation, their language is oftentimes pedantic and unduly technical. But whatever might have been urged in defence of such exclusiveness some centuries ago, it is certainly in- defensible in these days of general culture. There are few problems that have emerged in the history of human specula- tion which might not profitably be discussed by well-informed and candid disputants, and few minds, not hopelessly stunted by excessive dogma, that might not benefit by such earnest and friendly colloquy. All such discussions must tend to engender intellectual independence, to awaken and stimulate thought, as well as to promote its truthful and ingenuous expression. This indeed represents one chief object of this work its didactic as distinct from its historical aim. Writing the history of truthseekers, the Author incidentally advocates untiring and disinterested search for Truth as the duty alike of the Scientist, the Philosopher, and the Christian. Hence he adopts as the text of his subject the remarkable saying of LOCKE, that to love Truth for Truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues. From the foregoing remarks every reader of intelligence will have gathered that the Author of these volumes has a de- liberate, long- excogitated, and very earnest purpose in view. In other words he regards Skepticism, with all allied forms of Philosophical Thought and Method, as e.g. Eclecticism, as likely to claim a far greater sphere of energy in the Future than it has in the Past, and this too in the domain not of Theology only, but of Philosophy and Science as well. For this reason he regards this work as possessing with whatever xiv Introduction. other qualities it may claim the extremely useful merit of opportuneness. It responds, indirectly, but not the less com- pletely, to various indications and signs and forecasts which appear to announce a free and Skeptical awakening and re- energizing of human speculation in the near future. I. In Theology the Skeptical method falls in and harmonizes with the true conception of Faith especially as laid down by the earliest teachers of Christianity which subsequent Ecclesiastical Dogmatism, for its own selfish purposes, has sought to pervert or obscure. It not only allows but postulates a defect of demonstrable knowledge as an inevitable condition of man's limited faculties an inseparable condition of his earthly lot. It supplements this partial attainment of man's intellectual and ratiocinative powers by an appeal to instincts, feelings, prepossessions and aspirations, which, though lacking in assured conviction, can never as long as man, variously endowed and cultured, retains the use of his nobler faculties, be without a certain indirect, moral and spiritual coercion. It comes to the aid of his inadequate reasoning by supplementing it with various kinds and degrees of Probability approxima- tions to or justifiable deviations from supposedly demonstrable Truth. Not only does it accept in all needed cases the due amount of philosophical and judicial equilibrium pertaining to each ; but it demands that freedom of outlook and speculative research which is the inalienable prerogative of Thought, and which is both allied with and presupposes that entire absence of bias or preconception implied by Suspense. This, in the true analysis of religious and spiritual insight, is but another way of saying that so far from destroying, Skeptical thought gives new birth and energy to the religious faculty. It lays stress on, seizes and brings to the forefront, gives due room for the play and expansion of what is most valuable in our religious life. It calls into being, emphasizes and intensifies that fiducial relation of man to Grod which is the starting point and animating principle of all religious life. On the other Introduction. xv hand it destroys the germs of that conceit, narrowness, sur- charged individuality and Dogmatic exclusiveness, which of all evils incident to Religion, is undoubtedly the greatest. Happily, no symptom of our modern religious culture is more marked in the present day than the growing decrease among all thoughtful and spiritually minded men of Dog- matism in speculative Theology. Nor are the effects of this decrease in inducing caution, exactness in the estimate and statement of Religious Truths, liberality in the criticism and judgment of alien views, etc., less notable. Probably as the years move on, each charged, as by annual increment, with the wisdom and enlightenment of the Past, Skepticism and Free- thought may once more be permitted what has been so long wholly denied or grudgingly allowed them their legitimate use not as foes and subverters, but as conditions and contribu- tory causes of Religious Belief. II. To Philosophy also the condition of Skeptical analysis and suspense give the needed starting point, the sustaining energy, the intellectual justification. At present, the two chief directions of Philosophical movement and research are (i.) on the metaphysical side the latest developments of Hege- lianism (ii.) on the Physical side, the various ramifications of Darwinism. Both of these developments seem to have passed the Dogmatic stages, which are as inevitable to schools and systems of Thought, as certain diseases of infancy are to grow- ing children. Except in a few cases and directions, and those steadily diminishing, the bounds of Dogmatic Truth are con- tinually becoming more restricted. The Hegelian meta- physician mindful of the history of that Dogmatic Faith since it was first promulgated by the Master will not bind himself to the tenet that no other correlation of Thought and Being than that he formulated is possible or conceivable. The Darwinian mindful of certain potent reactions and retracta- tions will not dare to pronounce on the number of originating Types from whence all the terrestrial varieties of Life are de- xvi Introduction. scended ; nor, if he be wise, will he venture to affirm that the scientific knowledge at his command suffices to give an ade- quate account of the commencement in time of a single one of the countless types of existence with which creation teems. The reasonings and theorizings both of one and the other are now largely hypothetical. Both the Metaphysician and the wise Physicist agree to disclaim the Omniscience which could alone warrant the Dogmatic assumptions and unverified con- clusions of their respective Sciences in days gone by. Here again Skepticism attests its worth as the attendant on Philo- sophic and Scientific Truth. It teaches the student both of the phenomena that lie within his grasp, and of the unknown and unfathomed ocean of Phenomena and Noumena that en- circle his individual existence, and therefrom stretch forth in- to Immensities in every direction, that caution, humility, self- restraint, and suspense are primary qualifications for Truth Search and Truth Discovery. A final word as to the scope of the following work : The Author cannot lay claim to the merit of so selecting his representatives of Skepticism and Free- thought that most forms and directions of those energies find in them their impersonations and illustrations. He has merely taken the thinkers as they came in a kind of rough chronological order, but having thus conformed to what seemed the historical exigencies of the case, it is to him a source of gratification that the thinkers so selected do in reality represent so great a variety of the processes of Free-thought and Skepticism as could fairly be expected in the men chosen, and in the times and circumstances which they illustrate. In short, they are mostly typical thinkers, who will always find, as long as humanity with its thought and knowledge-greed endures, mental scions and successors among cultured and thoughtful men. The Author, who did his share of proof corrections and reference verifications during a memorable period of physical Introduction. xvii debility and prostration, has several friends to thank for much sympathy and varied assistance. These, however, he is not permitted to mention, or to express openly and frankly as he fain would, his most grateful acknowledgments. To the pub- lishers he feels himself indebted for unvarying kindness and courtesy. Indeed he must ask for special permission to record his thankful appreciation of the invaluable counsel and practical help of Mr. "Wm. Swan Sonnenschein in compiling the excellent and elaborate Index, which enriches the book and immeasurably enhances its usefulness to the student. That the Author of the masterly volume, THE BEST BOOKS, which may claim to be at once the most useful and most excellent Bibliography of its kind in the English language, should have put aside important literary work, in order to compile a full Index to these volumes, is an honour which their author cannot sufficiently appreciate, and which beggars every emotion of ordinary thankfulness. JOHN OWEN. EAST ANSTEY RECTORY, January 6th, 1893. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PASS GENERAL CAUSES . 3 Commerce and the Crusades 22 The Secularization of Literature 32 Mysteries and Moralities 51 Revival of Classical Studies 58 Arab Culture and Philosophy . 63 Reaction of Ecclesiastical Dogma .... 72 Reaction against Asceticism ....... 74 Reaction against Sacerdotalism ....... 78 Reaction against Dogma ........ 82 CHAPTER II. GENERAL CAUSES AND LEADERS 96 Dante 96 Petrarca 107 Boccaccio . 128 LuigiPulci 147 Machiavelli 16. xiv. 2O2 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. must be despised ; and by no means must virtue be departed from, no matter what happens after death.' Whatever be our opinion of Pomponazzi, and some of his teachings, it is impossible to withhold our approval from sentiments so wholesome and nobly unselfish. We shall find similar views in the case of more than one of our remaining skeptics ; and had better postpone the consideration of their practical bearings until we come to discuss Peter Charron. Probably the con- clusions of Pomponazzi, as well as undoubtedly those of Charron, as to absolute morality, were determined not only by speculative con- siderations regarding a future life, but also by the practical need which the debased Christianity of their time suggested. They had to face the portentous fact that the future rewards and punishments of the Christian Church had become utterly ineffectual as preserva- tives of, or stimulants to, morality among its chief ministers, as well as in the very citadel of Christendom itself. 1 We can hardly wonder that Pomponazzi concludes, from the increasing torpor of the Chris- tian faith, that its end was approaching. 2 This might be called a fair inference from the moral conditions of the problem, and was destined to find a sort of fulfilment in the Protestant Reformation. But the prognostication, which was a favourite speculation of the age, was originally based upon astrological signs and portents ; 3 for Pomponazzi, like Cardan, and our own Roger Bacon, was a firm 1 ' Neque universaliter viri impuri ponunt mortalitatem, neque univer- sal! ter temperati immortalitatem : nam manifeste videmus multos pravos homines credere, verum ex passionibus seduci ; multos etiam viros sanctos et justos scimus mortalitatem animarum possuisse.' De Immortal., p. 119. 2 'Quare et nunc in fide nostra omnia frigescunt, miracula desinunt nisi conficta et simulata, nunc propinquus videtur esse finis.' De Incant., 12, p. 286. 8 Few mediaeval speculations are more curious than this 'Horoscope of Religions.' It was first propounded by the Arab astronomer, Albumazar, who made the origin of all religions and prophets depend upon certain plane- tary conjunctions. Christianity, e.g. depended on the conjunction of Jupiter with Mercury. It was held that the conjunction of Jupiter with the Mouii would be the signal for the complete abolition of all religious beliefs. Albu- mazar carried his art to such perfection that by the horoscope of eac 1 ! religion he was able to determine the proper colour of its vestments. Had he exercised his calling in our own days, it is conceivable that English ritualists might have recourse to him instead of to the ' Ornaments Rubric.' Cf . Renan, Averroes, pp. 326-7; Bacon, Opus Maj., pp. 160-170; Emile Charles's Roger JSacon, pp. 47-48. It may be added that the recorded visit of Chaldtean astrologers to the cradle of the Infant Jesus appeared to give an authoritative sanction to the application of astrology to Christianity. As the star in the east announced the birth of the new religion, so a similar cometary appearance or conjunction of planets would portend, thought the mediaeval astrologers, its final extinc- tion. Comp. chapter on Vanini below. General Causes and Leaders. 203 believer in the influence of the stars upon existing religions and their destinies. Moreover, he found another argument for an ap- proaching convulsion and regenerating movement in Christianity, in Aristotle's belief that philosophy must from time to time be renewed and make a fresh start. But we must, I think, admit that Pomponazzi's view of religion, its sanctions and its objects, was of a partial and imperfect nature. Religion was to him a synonym for legislation : indeed he frequently adopts the class-name which Averroes had assigned to religions, viz. Laws (Leges). He was apparently aware that his lofty Stoicism, however much it might commend itself to the philosopher and thinker, was ill adapted for more general use. This he expressed by comparing the ignorant and unthinking to apes, who will only carry their burdens by dint either of coaxing or beating. 1 From this point of view he considered the rewards and punishments of a future life as useful to the legislator, to encourage or coerce those who were no^ amenable to more disinterested arguments. Indeed he accounts for the wide-spread prevalence of those beliefs, in other religions besides Christianity, by the hypothesis that legislators had chosen them for purely political piirposes ; and lays down the principle that the ruler may adopt any religion or religious dogma, irrespective of its truth, if it seems fitted to serve his purpose as an instrument of morality or social order. 2 Nor does he limit this permission to cases where a religious truth, as, e.g., immortality, is incapable of demonstration ; but he thinks it a praiseworthy act on the part of a ruler to invent parables, myths and fables in order to allure his subjects to orderly and right conduct. In his dealings with humanity, the philosophic legislator must have regard to the nature and constitution of man. This is so materialized and brutish, in most cases, that the only treat- ment available is that which nurses and doctors employ towards children and the sick. It cannot be denied that Pomponazzi's opinion of man, both as an intellectual and moral being, is contemptuous and cynical to an extreme degree ; and places him in close juxta-position with Machiavelli. Pomponazzi's intellect, like that of the Florentine Secretary, was of the cold, unimpassioned, legal kind, which ignores all the more deeply seated feelings and impulses of our nature, and is inherently incapable of estimating the purely religious or emotional side of human character, whether moral or intellectual. As an in- 1 De Immort., chap. 14 ; De Fato, lib. iii. chap. 16. 2 ' Respiciens legislator pronitatem viarum ad malum, intendens communi bono, sanxit animam esse immortalem, non eurans de veritate, sed tantum de probitate, ut inducat homines ad virtutem, neque accusandus est politicus.' De Jmmort.j chap, xiv 204 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. stance of this incapacity on the part of Pomponazzi, I may observe that he classes religious faith with imagination, which, though founded on illusion, is nevertheless productive of wonderful effects. The strength of either faculty he holds to be in direct proportion to the ig- norance and want of cultivation of its possessor ! He however makes a concession to the moral nature of man which he denies to his intel- lect. Though no man can attain truth, a man may, though very rarely, attain ethical perfection ; the percentage of good men to the rest of mankind he estimates to be about one in a thousand. It is on this side that our human obligation lies. No man is obliged to be learned or an artist, but every man is compelled morally to acquire, or at least to strive for, so much ethical excellence as his reason suggests to him. It is quite in harmony with Pomponazzi's contempt for the vulgar, and his rule to treat them as children, as well as being a sort of practical corollary from his doctrine of Twofold Truth, that he asserts a philosophical ' Disciplina Arcani ' advocating the necessity of esoteric teaching incommunicable to the many. ' These things,' he says, speaking of some of his advanced speculations, ' are not to be communicated to common people because they are incapable of re- ceiving these secrets (arcanorum). We must beware even of hold- ing discourse concerning them with ignorant priests.' For this reason he divides men into philosophers and religious, in harmony with his classification of divergent truths, the latter of whom are opposed to the former as fools are to the wise, ' since philosophers alone are the gods of the earth, and differ so much from all other men, of whatever rank and condition, as genuine men differ from those painted on canvas.' The self-same argument on which Pomponazzi founded his doubt of immortality, is the basis of his belief in the powerlessness of the reason to attain or comprehend truth. ' The human intellect,' he says, ' cannot comprehend abstract things, 1 being as it is of a dual nature, and placed between brutish and abstract intelligences ; it can only perceive by means of the senses, and for that reason cannot apprehend itself. Hence it is unable to obtain a knowledge of the universal as it exists in itself and simply ; and can only do so by means of the particular ; 2 or, as he elsewhere puts it, in every 1 'Anima intellectiva est naturae ancipitis inter bruta et abstracta, noil intelligit nisi cum adminiculo sensuum juxta illud: "necesse est quem- cunque intelligentem phantasmata specular!." ' Ferri, Psicologia, pp. 21, 98. 'Non est credendum quod intellectus possit ea (abstracta) recipere, quia intellectus est debilis, ita ut non possit tantum lumen sustinere, ideo non movetur ab ipsis : et propter hoc poetae fingunt quod Juppiter quando accede- bat ad aliquam mulierem, deponebat suam divinitatem ! ' Op. cit., p. 89. 2 Fiorentino, Pietro Pomponazzi, p. 171. ' Unde (Intellectus) sic indigens cor- General Causes and Leaders. 205 abstract cognition there must be some material iddlon, or individual, by which alone we are able to form it. You will notice that this denial of abstract knowledge, and the assertion of its evolution from particular objects of sensation, assimilates Pomponazzi to the Nom- inalists, and to Abelard. The intellect is thus bound up in its existence and in its action with matter, and with senses which are material ; and intellectual perception of any kind, apart from and independent of material conditions and surroundings, is inconceiv- able. He rejects even the theory that our conditions of knowledge in a future life may possibly differ from what they are now ; for whereas we are now dependent on material aids, it is conceivable that hereafter we may not need them ; and so doing he appears to me guilty of unphilosophical arbitrariness, as well of undermining his own classification of beings. For if abstract intellect cannot be conceived apart from matter, what becomes of the Divine intelli- gence, as well as that of man himself, of whose soul it forms a por- tion ? Nothing is in reality left but pure materialism. 1 That a work whose conclusion, stripped of all disguise, was the essential corporeity of the human ' intellective soul,' should have excited a vehement controversy was of course to be expected. We are told that both one and the other of the only two possible ways of interpreting ' immortality ' which Pomponazzi could have adopted, had already been forbidden by the Church. 2 But the clerical instinct was quite shrewd enough to apprehend danger from Pomponazzi's free-spoken utterances, without any suggestion from authority. The clamour began in Venice, where the clergy were stirred up by a Minorite friar. The Doge was invoked with success, for he ordered the book to be burnt. But burning a book was but an insignificant triumph for those who would gladly have burnt the author. Accord- ingly the Pope was appealed to ; but, by the kindly offices of Cardinal Bembo, the appeal was frustrated. Ranke indeed quotes an authority to show that Leo X. did subsequently order Pomponazzi to retract ; but if so, the command was never enforced. 3 pore ut objecto, neque simpliciter universale cognoscere potest, sed semper universale in singular! speculatur, ut unusquisque in seipso experiri potest.' De Immort., chap. ix. 1 Fiorentino (Pomponazzi, p. 178) thus states his own conclusions from Pom- ponazzi's premisses, ' Da quelle premesse pero conseguitava necessariamente la mortalitd delV anima umana, non potendo ella sopravvivere alia corruzione del corpo, nel quale si fondamentava tutto il suo pensiero.' Comp. on this point Bartholmess in Diet, de Sci. Phil. "* Bartholmess, loc. cit. 3 On the part which the Pope took in this matter, and which is referred to above (see p. li), some light seems to be thrown by the dedication of Niphus's 206 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. As the stake was not forthcoming, recourse was had to the printing press. A controversialist of some note, Augustine Niphus, was desired by Bishop Fiandino, once a friend of Pomponazzi, but soon to become the most implacable of his enemies, to write an answer to the treatise on Immortality. Meanwhile Pomponazzi again took up his pen to indite an Apology. 1 In this work, published in 1518, he declaims in bitter and sarcastic terms on the ignorance, vice and hypocrisy of the clergy. His enemies were not a whit behind him in plainness of speech ; and what they could not effect by the more refined instrumen- tality of wit and sarcasm, they tried to accomplish by vulgar vitupera- tion and low abuse. What was the effect we might ask of these attacks, which were continued with slight interruption to the close of his life, on Pomponazzi 's standpoint ? . . . Did he, for that or any other reason, modify it in subsequent writings. His two most recent critics, Professors Fiorentino and Ferri, differ upon this point. The former supposes that Pomponazzi's account of the nature of the intellective- soul laid down in the De Immortalitate, is distinctly developed in a materialistic direction in his Apologia, and in another work bearing the title of De Nutritione.% Professor Ferri denies this, and supports his denial with an elaborate and, to my mind, conclusive argument. book, in which the author says, expressly, ' hunc libellum ad te scripsi, et sub amplitudine Tui Sanctissimi norainis publicandum esse curavi.' The author may be permitted to say that he has this rare work of Niphus, together with the most important of his other writings, in his library. 1 This work, ApoloyiaLibri tres, together with the two following, Contradic- toris tractatus doctixsimus, and Defemorium autoris, are the most valuable of all his writings for forming an estimate of his character. They are part of the collection entitled, Tractatus Aculissimi utillimi, etc. Venetiis, 1525. 2 Of. Fiorentino, Pietro Pomponazzi, pp. 172-175. The development is thus succinctly described by the learned author in his paper on ' Luigi Ferri,' in the Oiornale Napolitano, April, 1877, p. 274: ' parla prima della concomitanza dell' intelletto; poi della probabilitd che si sviluppi dalla materia ; infine della necessitd che se ne sviluppi,' he adds, ' E quando parla di semplice concomitanza, propende a distinguere la natura dell' anima intellettiva dalle altri aniini inferiori, dalla sensitiva, e dalla vegetativa.' 3 See his Psicolcgia, etc., p. 64. The controversy on this subject has recently been continued in Italian Philosophical Reviews, though with a degree of warmth out of all proportion to the intrinsic importance of the point at issue. In the Giornale Napolitano for April, 1877 (pp. 269-303), Prof. Fiorentino reiterates his original statement, supporting it by additional arguments. He points out that Pomponazzi (see preceding note) distinguished between the nature and functions of the intellective-soul, and says that it is in respect of the latter (not the former) that there is a perceptible development in Pomponazzi's views. Professor Ferri rejoins in La Filosojia di Scuole Italiana, for June, 1877 (vol. xv. p. 395), denying that Pomponazzi makes such a distinction between the nature and functions of the intellective-soul. He fully adopted, says Professor Ferri, the scholastic maxim, ' operari sequitur General Causes and Leaders. 207 The only interest the question one of extreme intricacy has for us is to show that whatever doubt may exist as to the stationary or progressive attitude of Pomponazzi on the subject of immortality, it certainly was not retrogressive. His was not one of those pliant characters which are ready to yield to controversial clamour. It is true he had powerful patrons in Cardinals Bembo and Gonzaga, and in the authorities of his own university ; but his supreme law and source of confidence came from within the strong conviction that whatever betide, he must follow the dictates of reason and conscience. Reason was, in fact, the only approach to infallibility which he acknowledged. Reason, or intellect, was superior to any human authority, even to that of Aristotle greatest of philosophers as he pro- claimed him. 1 On this point he took his stand in his defensive works, the spirit of which, and for that matter of Pomponazzi's whole life and teaching, may be exemplified by an extract quoted by Fiorentino from his reply to Niphus. 2 Having said that our will should give way to faith, but that, the will is one thing, the intellect another, he continues : ' But other things are not in our power because, given the premisses, if the consequence follows it is not in our power to dissent from the conclusion. We may do without reasoning altogether ; but we cannot grant the antecedent and deny the consequent. Heaven forbid that an honest man, and still more a Christian, should have one thing in his heart and another on his lips. Hence in the performance of my duty as interpreter of Aristotle, as I am convinced his language should be understood, and not in a contrary manner, ought I to lie by, interpreting everything differently from iny real sentiment? But if it be said the hearers are scandalized at it. Be it so, they are not obliged to listen to me, or to forbid my teaching. I neither wish to lie, nor to be wanting to my true conviction.' 3 The indomitable firmness expressed in these and similar terms received a welcome support from the Bolognese authorities. The most ancient of the Italian universities remained true to her sympathy esse.' ' The functions depend on the nature' (p. 401). It seems clear, to an impartial student of Pomponazzi, that in the case of so subtle a thinker, a controversy depending on refinements so minute may easily become intermin- able ; and must in any case be inconclusive. 1 ' Magna est Aristotelis auctoritas, magnus est etiam rationis impetus.' Cf. Ferri, p. 62. In another place he sa3 r s ' Magna est auctoritas Alexandri, major Aristotelis. maxima vero est veritatis.' On one occasion, when his university were celebrating with great festivities the election of Charles V., Pomponazzi declared from his professorial chair, ' Mallem esse Aristotelis quam Imperator nunc beatus de quo fiunt letitise.' Comp. Fiorentin in Qior. Nap., Agosto, 1878, pp. 121-124. 2 Defensorium sive Respomiones ad Xiphum. 5 Fiorentino, Pietro Pomponazzi, p. 54. Comp. Defensorium, chap. xxix. 208 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. for freedom, and to her claim of being ' the mother of Italian ' Research.' 1 Pomponazzi had proposed to accept a professorship at Pisa, but the Bolognese refused to hear of his removal. He was then the most celebrated of all the Italian professors. His fame drew crowds of foreign students to their city. The Bolognese magistrates were not disposed to relinquish so much glory, and probably advantage as well, for the sake of a little clerical excitement. Hence, instead of dismissing him, they confirmed him in his professorship for a period of eight years, and increased his salary to 1,600 ducats. The sister universities were jealous of their possession of ' Little Peter,' and would fain have attracted him each to herself. It is indeed an instructive example both of the freedom then enjoyed in the Italian universities, and of their anti-clerical sympathies, that while the clergy were most vehement in their outcry against Pomponazzi, no less than three universities were contending among themselves which should possess him. Pomponazzi, however, would not forsake her who had truly approved herself a ' mother of studies ' to the poor persecuted philosopher ; and he continued to occupy his professor's chair at Bologna, and to gather round him the most intellectual and free-thinking of the youth of Italy during the brief remainder of his life. Although the treatise De Immortalitate, and the works he wrote to defend it, represent the most conspicuous part of his career as a philo- sophical teacher and writer, he published a few other works of a novel and startling nature, which deserve a passing notice at our hands. In 1520 he published a noteworthy treatise, with the title Concern- ing Incantations, or the Causes of marvellous effects in Nature. 2 The occasion of this work was a number of enquiries put to him by a doctor of Mantua, respecting the cause of certain wonderful cures which he had apparently effected by charms and incantations. Acting upon the suggestion thus brought before him, Pomponazzi enters upon a long dissertation of natural wonders. He takes the power of demons for example. As a consistent Peripatetic he could not allow the operation of such intermediate agencies in the production of natural effects. ' It would be ridiculous and absurd,' says he, ' to despise what is visible and natural in order to have recourse to an invisible cause, the reality of which is not guaranteed to us by any solid probability.' On the other hand he dared not deny that such 1 As the mother-university of Italy, Bologna inscribed the legends on some of her ancient coins, 'Bononia docet,' and ' Bononia mater studiorum.' Cf. Muratori, Antiq. ItaL, ii. p. 664. 2 This is perhaps the best known of Pomponazzi's works, next, of course, to the De Immortalitate. It forms the second in the Basle Edition of his collected works. General Causes and Leaders. 209 mysterious powers both good and bad occupied a large space in the teaching of the Church ; he therefore again takes refuge in his old argument of 'double truth.' As a Peripatetic he refuses to believe in the existence of angels or spirits, as a Christian and a believer in the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the Church, he is compelled to admit the existence of such beings. 1 Such is the conclusion of his argument ; but in concluding it he evinces a degree of clearness and boldness, irony and sarcasm, disdain for the superstitions of his time and anticipation of greater enlightenment in the future which is truly remarkable. Not that he openly and directly runs counter to the dogmas of the Church, but by adducing collateral considerations of a scientific and natural kind he seeks to diminish their exclusively miraculous import. As a Christian e.g. he must not refuse to admit the existence of such supernatural agencies as demons ; nevertheless he enquires, how far they are capable of producing those effects which are attributed to them. He finds that being pure spirits they can only operate on matter by material means. He therefore imagines, of course ironically, that spirits who perform bodily cures on man must go about with bottles of medicine, varieties of plasters and unguents, like so many ghostly apothecaries. Absolute freedom from the superstitious ideas of his time we of course have no right to expect. We cannot therefore be surprised if Pomponazzi transfers to plants, trees, stones, etc., the occult properties and magical powers which man} 7 of his contemporaries ascribed to demons. As authorities for this belief, he refers to Pliny, Galen and others ; and though his opinions on this subject are quite as strange and superstitious as those of Cornelius Agrippa, we may remember that all progress is relative, and that the step from demons and such supernatural agencies to plants, animals and stones, represents a decided and appreciable advance in knowledge and scientific attain- ments. Miracles our skeptic treats in a somewhat similar manner. Both as an Aristotelian and as an independent investigator he is fully satisfied that all effects in nature are produced by constant and invariable laws. Miracles therefore cannot be opposed to nature. That is not their true definition. Miracles are the rare events of nature, and their extra-natural character is an inference from that 1 The Church is also to decide between genuine and false miracles. ' Quod vero aliqua talia sint miracula, aliqua vero ejusdem species lion sint, sufficit ecclesiae catholicae auctoritas que Spiritu Sancto et verbo Dei regulatur ' ( De Incant., c. vi.), on which M. Franck comments ' L'ironie est manifesto et il faut avoir la candeur de 1'age d'or pour ecrire avec Bitter aux professions de foi chretiennes de Pomponace ' (op. cit. p. 121). But this estimate of M. Franck seems just as exaggerated on the one side as Bitter's on the other. See infra. VOL. I. P 2 io The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. rarity. 1 Here as elsewhere he will not openly contradict the dogma he is discussing, he will rather reconcile it to science by modifying its definition. At the same time he regards true miracles, i.e. rare natural phenomena occurring periodically, of such importance that he anticipates the end of Christianity from the fact of their having quite ceased in the Church. As for simulated miracles, the marvellous effects for example ascribed to sacred relics, he criticises them from the point of view of a skeptical physician. He holds that whatever efficacy is truly ascribed to them is due to the subjective feeling of faith on the part of those who are benefited ; and that if they were the bones of dogs instead of holy men they would produce the same results, 2 As might be expected he treats the miracles of the Bible with more respect. He is persuaded that many of those recorded in the Law of Moses and the Law (i.e. Religion) of Christ were really natural events, contemplated and described by ignorant and superstitious people. But he admits this cannot be affirmed of all. Among those which resist the solvent agency of his rationalizing analysis, he especially names the resurrection of Lazarus, the healing of the man blind from his birth, the feeding of so many thousands with five loaves and two fishes, the healing of the lame man by Peter and John, etc., of which he says they cannot be reduced to natural causation, nor were they performed by any created agency. 3 All these cases therefore afforded scope for his bi-partite faith. As a Christian he received them ; as a natural philosopher, pledged to a belief in tha irreversible laws of the universe, they transcended both his know- ledge and belief. They remained in his intellect, with other truths of the same kind, like an insoluble precipitate, resisting the action of all the chemical substances his knowledge enabled him to apply to their solution. In the same year in which he published his work on Incantations he finished another long treatise his last important contribution to Philosophy consisting of five books, and treating of such profound 1 Miracles, he says, ' pro tanto dicuntur miracula, quia insueta et rarissime facta, et non secundum communem naturae cursum, sed in longissimis periodis.' De Incant., pp. 294-5. One of the most illustrious of Pomponazzi's countrymen in modern times, Gioberti, seems to have adopted a similar definition and explanation of miracles. Cf. Professor Ferri, Essai sur UHistoire de la Philosophieen Italie au 19 ime siecle, ii. 188. 2 ' Medici ac philosophi hoc sciunt, quantum operentur fides et imaginatio sanandi et non sanandi. Unde si essent ossa canis, et tanta et tails de eis haberetur imaginatio, non minus subsequeretur sanitas.' De Incant., chap.xii., Opera. Ed. Basle, p. 232. 8 De Incant., cap. vi., op. cit., pp. 87, 88. General Causes and Leaders. 211 questions as Fate, Providence, Free-will, etc. His object in writing this work is instructive, as it gives us an insight into the zeal and earnestness of his intellectual character. He tells us that he under- took those expositions as so many studies of the different questions he discusses in them, to satisfy himself as well as to instruct others. 1 In this treatise, as in others of his writings, he asserts with consider- able force, but also with true philosophical discrimination, the doctrine of Human Liberty. He makes it the absolute source and condition of all morality. Predestination, which he defined as the relation of Providence to the individual, as Fate describes his relation to the universe, he therefore so interprets as to leave to man his full liberty of action ; and consequently his sense of moral responsibility. He traces this freedom of action also, on its Divine side, in the large- ness of the operations of Nature, making what assumes to us the appearance of evil to be the inevitable consequence of its infinite scope and variety of action. He endeavours to reconcile Human Free-will with Divine Omniscience, but has in the last resort to allow their incompatibility. He admits that Aristotle denies special providence, and as a philosopher his sympathies are with his master ; but as a Christian he opposes Aristotle, because general providence must needs consist of particular instances. In short, Pomponazzi's position with regard to all those questions which are partly concerned with theology and partly with the phenomena of nature and humanity, is precisely that which we might have expected. He approaches the question from the side of Natural Philosophy and Reason; as an Aristotelian and Professor of Medicine, rather than as a Theologian. He discusses and decides it, if no dogmatic considerations intervene, entirely from that point of view. When however, as mostly hap- pened, almost every step in the argument has some relation to the doctrines of the Church, then he proceeds more warily. If, by slightly modifying its usual definition, the dogma concerned may be wholly or partially reconciled with the dictates of reason and nature, Pomponazzi adopts that course. If, on the other hand, they are so divergent and irreconcileable that the affirmation of the one constitutes the denial of the other, then Pomponazzi has recourse to 'double truth.' 2 Bat this alternative he only adopts after every conceivable 1 ' Neque enim tarn grande opus aggredi, illud meum f uit consilium, scilicet, ut apud Bibliopolas libri nomen meum celebrantes haberenter : sed adversus ignorantiam meam murmurantis conscientise scriptum ad hoc me compulit.' De Faio, etc., I., Proemium. Op. cit., p. 33a. 2 The following quotations will serve to explain more fully Pomponazzi's position as a maintainer of twofold truth. He approves e.g. of the distinction of Albertus Magnus, who said that he reasoned on philosophical questions as 212 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. method of reconciling the foes has been exhausted ; and in order to avert what is to him the most immoral and unjustifiable of all human actions, i.e. the flat contradiction of his philosophical conscience. Hence the numerous antinomies and dualisms, which make up so much of his intellectual creed, may be said to represent so many points where the current of his tendencies and convictions is divided by some dogmatic obstruction. There are intellects which attack such an obstacle with determination, and being unable to move it from their path, they lash themselves, like sea-waves against a rock, into a foam of anger and desperation. Other minds, like deeper currents, meeting the obstruction, divide themselves, and if possible flow round it. We already know that such a dichotomy, though incompatible with intellectual uniformity, is not incompatible with religious sincerity. We must, I think, conclude that Pomponazzi was thoroughly sincere. In fact there is too much earnestness and determination in his character to allow of any other hypothesis. 1 Like Pascal, he grappled with the problems of the universe with a zeal, I might say with a deadly passion, which is almost appalling to witness. Speaking of his earnest attempts to reconcile Divine omniscience with human liberty and with the remediable evils of the world, he says, ' These are the things which oppress and embarrass me, which take away my sleep and almost my senses ; so that I am a true illustration of the fable of Prometheus, whom, for trying to steal secretly the fire of heaven, Jupiter bound to a Scythian rock, and his heart became food for a vulture, which gnawed continually a philosopher, and oa theological questions as a theologian, and declined ' miscere credita cum phisicis.' The dogmas of the Church he regarded as extraneous necessities, beliefs imposed ab extra, while his own convictions were self wrought out. The two provinces of thought might be compared to the differently motived obedience which a man might render to law in the sense of human ordinance, and in that of equity and inherent justice ; so Pom- ponazzi says, ' Tantum credite in Philosophia, quantum rationes dictant vobis, in Theologia credite tantum quantum robis dictant Theologi.' He acknow- ledges that his principle of believing contradictions is opposed by Aristotle, but comforts himself by reflecting that one of them is only verbal, ' Dicit Aristoteles quod nullus corde potest concedere duo contradictoria, quia opiniones contradictories sunt contrariae in intellectu, sed verbo possumus concedere, corde autem minime.' See Fiorentino in Giornale Napolitano, Agosto, 1878, p. 120. 1 On this point most of his critics are fully agreed. Hitter thinks that Pomponazzi's object, in all his writings, was the reconciliation of science with the teachings of the Church ; but this was evidently quite a secondary matter in his estimation. Comp. Ferri, Psicologia, etc. Equally unsustainable is Hitter's proposition that Pomponazzi's theory of immortality is not incom- patible with the Christian doctrine of the resurrection. Comp. Fiorentino, p. 189. General Causes and Leaders. 213 upon it.' And in the same chapter he considers the symbol in its general application. ' Prometheus is the (true) philosopher, who because he will know the secrets of Grod, is devoured by perpetual cares and cogitations. He is incapacitated from thirst, hunger, sleep, or from satisfying the most ordinary needs of human life ; he is derided by all, is regarded as a fool and a heretic ; he is persecuted by inquisitors ; he becomes a laughing-stock to the multitude. These forsooth are the gains of philosophers. This is their wages.' That these plaintive utterances describe the trials and difficulties of his own position is acknowledged by all his critics, and scarcely admits of doubt. It is impossible to say how far his premature death may have been hastened by the opposition he encountered from his ecclesi- astical adversaries, or by the unwearied application with which he set himself to solve the inscrutable problems of the universe. 1 Probably both causes contributed to the fatal result. If so, his fate may be represented under another classical image besides that of Prometheus. He is a philosophical Laocoon, who perishes in a vain struggle with the twin serpent-powers the Inscrutability of the Universe, and the Dogmatism of the Church. More than one of Pomponazzi's critics have contended that he was qviite uninfluenced by the Renaissance, considered as a movement of culture. They point to the defects of his Latin style, to his complete ignorance of Greek, to his evident want of acquaintance with or regard for the Belles Lettres. But, in estimating the weight of this criticism, we must consider two things. (1) Pomponazzi's intellectual character ; (2) the full meaning of the complex movement which we designate the Renaissance. 1. .First and before all things, Pomponazzi was a thinker a rational- istic philosopher. Language was to him merely the vehicle of his thought, the instrument of his ratiocination. As long as it served these needful purposes, he did not trouble himself about graces of style or ornate composition. Yet his Latin, though rude and un- polished, is not destitute of a certain vigour of its own. His cum- brous argumentation, and the involved construction of his sentences, must be ascribed in a great measure to his scholastic training ; partly also perhaps to a fulness and many-sidedness of thought transcending his powers of expression. Still his meaning is generally attained with sufficient distinctness; and his harsh constructions are some- times agreeably diversified by neat and epigrammatic turns of expres- sion. 2. Pomponazzi's connexion with the Renaissance can only be 1 Florentine, Pietro Pomponazzi, p. 68. 214 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. denied by limiting its scope, and ignoring some of its most essential characteristics. The resurrection of classical literature, and its effect upon the artistic temperaments and sympathies of Italians, was only one phase of the movement, and this by no means the most important. It was not an inherent part of the Renaissance considered as a movement of thought. It was related to it as the ornamental setting is related to a precious stone, or as the picturesque flame and smoke of a volcanic eruption is related to the actual upheavals of the solid crust of the earth. Pomponazzi's place in the movement is as the exponent of its profounder and more deeply seated forces. He represents the craving of the human mind for freedom the convul- sive struggle, for life and vital energy, of intellectual and religious thought, rather than the elegant expression of the former, or the poetry and imagination that adorned the latter. This, however, is the phase of the Renaissance which gives it its permanent value, and which constitutes the main ground of its kinship with modern thought. In this respect there is a considerable difference between Petrarca and Pomponazzi. The former may be said to include every phase of the Renaissance. He represents not only its free tendencies, as a new effort of thought (though he does not enter so fully as Pomponazzi into the heart of the movement), but its highest expression, as a yearning after ideal beauty. Still, it would be clearly unjust to our skeptic to refuse him his due share in the sum total of the forces which make up the composite whole we call the Renaissance, merely because he cannot be said to embody a few of its attractive, but, for the most part, superficial and evanescent features. As a thinker of essentially modern spirit, Pomponazzi anticipated some beliefs and modes of thought which have since his time acquired greater currency. Though, as a Christian, he detached Christianity from the other religions of the world, ascribing to it a value and destiny sui generis as a Philosopher, he placed it on the same level with the other ' laws,' as they were called, of Moses, of the Gentiles, and of Mahomet, just as Boccaccio did in his story of the Three Rings, or as a modern student of Comparative Religions might do. He does away also with the distinction between natural and revealed religion, uniting all the Divine teaching in the universe in one harmonious whole. He assigns moreover to causation much of its modern position as the governing principle of all natural pheno- mena. Nor must we pass unnoticed his catholicity of 'spirit. Al- though, as a philosopher and lecturer on Aristotle, he felt bound to oppose Averroes, there are patent correspondencies between his system and that of the great Arab commentator. Vanini, his own disciple, said that ' Pythagoras would have judged that the soul of General Causes and Leaders. 2 1 5 Averroes had transmigrated into the body of Pomponazzi,' 1 and it has been pointed out, that his opinion as to the share of the lawgiver in promoting the doctrine of Immortality and other religious beliefs that the first man came into being by natural causes ; that miracles are imaginations or wilful deceptions ; that prayer and the worship of saints and relics are inefficacious ; that religion is adapted only for simple people are either taken from Averroes, or are deductions from his teaching. His doctrine of ' twofold truth ' is also quite in harmony with Averroism. 2 But Pomponazzi's chief excellence, in my estimation, is the noble stand which he makes for pure unselfish morality. This is the pivot of his system, and his refuge from complete skepticism. Speculation, he has ascertained by painful experience, is hazardous and uncertain. The mutual conflicts and disputations of the great leaders of thought are productive only of doubt. In his own province of natural philosophy the case is the same. 3 He therefore turns to practice. At least there can be no mistake in virtue, and ethical perfection. To this centre all the different portions of his system, like the radii of a circle, are made to converge. He distrusts the doctrine of immortality, among other reasons, because in the form it is generally maintained he thinks it derogatory to virtue. He proclaims human liberty because it is the indispensable condition of all ethical action. The Church has its chief value and raison d'etre as a teacher of morality. The State is a human organization devised to protect and encourage virtue. In a word, virtue is the supreme law of the universe ; and the climax of perfection both in the Divine and human character ; and what- ever organization, ecclesiastical or political, has not this for its sole aim, or whatever doctrine or dogma does not directly or indirectly lead to it, Pomponazzi regards as worthless. All things else are liable to change : virtue, moral truth and excellence are, like their Eternal Creator, immutable. 1 ' Petrus Pomponatius Philosophus acutissimus, in cujus corpus animam Averrois commigrasse Pythagoras judicasset.' (Amphitheat, Prov., Ex. vi. p. 36.) See below, the chapter on Vanini. Renan, who places this among the number of reckless assertions on the part of Vanini, observes that if he had known anything of Pomponazzi's workSj he would have found that for the most part he opposed Averroes. Still there is, as pointed out in the text, a considerable amount of similarity in the Teachings of Averroes and Pomponazzi. What the latter chiefly complained of in Averroes was his obscurity. He says, 'Laudo doctrinam ejus sed obscuritatem vitupero quia non habet partes expositoris. > Comp. Prof. Fiorentino in the Giornale Napolitano, Agosto, 1878, p. 117. 2 Comp. Kenan, Averroes, p. 274, and passim. 8 ' In ista enim philosophia Naturali potest unusquisque dicere suo modo ) quia non sunt demonstrationes in istis. ' Fiorent., Pietro Pomponazzi, p. 514, note. 2 1 6 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. Little remains to be added on our subject. Pomponazzi's lot was cast in troublous times. His life synchronizes with some of the most remarkable events in the early history of Modern Europe. While he was peacefully lecturing at Padua, Florence was undergoing those vehement alternations of penitence and licence which mark the short-lived mission of Savonarola. Luther had already commenced his campaign against the Papacy. Rumours and portents of im- minent convulsions were everywhere prevalent. Throughout the civilized world there was a 'distress of nations with perplexity.' But, for the most part these nascent forces, which were destined to change the face of Europe, passed by Pomponazzi unheeded. Like a hermit whose cell is placed on the side of a volcano, he heard the rumblings beneath, but was too much absorbed in his studies to note their purport. His whole existence, as M. Franck observes, was taken up by his books, his teaching, and his studious contemplation ; so that one may say of him, as was said of Spinoza, he was ' less a man than a thought ' an impersonal embodiment of intellectual activity. Pomponazzi died on the 18th of May, 1525. The honour in which he was held by the University of Bologna is shown by an entry of that date, in the Register of Doctors, a very unusual circumstance, we are told, in which he is styled a most excellent Philosopher; and it is added that ' by his death the University had lost its greatest ornament.' His disciple and friend, Cardinal Gonzaga, better known as the future President of the Council of Trent, caused his remains to be removed to his native Mantua, and erected a monument of bronze to his memory. Professor Fiorentino sums up his preliminary account of Pom- ponazzi's life and works, by a parallel between his death and that of Socrates, which I here transcribe: 'Socrates on the approach of death a martyr for the truth did not flee from his fate. He did not wish to escape from the prison in which he was confined. Un- disturbed, and in all serenity, he fixed his attention on Future Life. A most beautiful woman appeared to him in a dream, and appointed him a place in one of the fortunate islands. 1 "Three days hence, Socrates," she said to him, "you will arrive at fertile Phthia." Hence 1 ' La bellissima donna apparsagli in sogno gli da la posta per un' isola for- tunata,' etc. Comp. Plato, Criton, and Cicero, De Div., i. xxv. ; but the learned Professor has mistaken the purport of the original quotation, which is from the 9th Book of the Iliad, v. 363, and relates primarily to Achilles' anticipa- tion of returning home. In its secondary application to the approaching fate of Socrates, it is employed in the sense, so widely distributed, in which death and the future world are spoken of as ' home.' Cf. Stallbaum's Note, Plato., om. Opera, i. 126. General Causes and Leaders. 217 Socrates resisted all the entreaties of Krito, and contemplated with firmness, the poisonous draught, and even death itself ; and he talked with Phsedo, with Cebes and with Simmias, as with men from whom he would be parted only for a short time, and with whom there would afterwards be a common meeting in a place more beautiful and serene. The aureole of martyrdom, the anticipation of a blissful futurity soothed the bitterness of parting, and gave the dying Socrates a foretaste of the felicity which he expected the reward reserved for his constant virtue. ' Let us now look at another picture. Pomponazzi, worn out by years, harassed by sickness, extended on the bed of pain, without the splendour of martyrdom, fought out the battle with his enemy unseen, tardy, irresistible. Unsustained by the hope of the future, he placed before him only austere virtue, without reward and without hope, as the true and final end of the human race. Out of sympathy with the beliefs of his religion, and with the traditions of so many centuries ; mocked by contemporaries, and in danger of the stake, he had no future blessedness to which to turn. He was not cheered by the smile of the beautiful woman, who invited Socrates to Phthia. He was soothed neither by Homeric fantasies, nor by the more spiritual but not less interested promises of the Christian Paradise ; and not- withstanding all this, he was not disturbed by his imminent death. It behoved him, he said, to prefer duty to life. He sacrificed every- thing affections, pleasure, knowledge, and the future to rigid virtue. Which man is the more magnanimous and sublime, Socrates or Pomponazzi ? ' Whatever we may think of this striking parallel, we must, I think, acknowledge the greatness of Pomponazzi's life and character ; as well as admit the enormous influence which he wielded as a teacher of philosophy. He founded a school, not perhaps numerically great, but possessing some very renowned names Simon Porta the great Aristotelian of Naples, Sepulveda, Julius Csesar Scaliger, Vanini, Zarabello and Cremonini were directly or indirectly his pupils. 1 And wherever the lessons of his life and teaching 1 The extent to which Pomponazzi's name became identified with all the freer and anti-ecclesiastical movements of Italian thought long after his death, is well known to the student of Italian Philosophy. A striking example of this is furnished by Bishop Burnet's Letters from Switzerland and Italy, 1685. Thus he remarks, ' There are societies of men at Naples of freer thought than can be found in any other place of Italy. The Greek learning begins to flourish there, and the new Philosophy (Cartesiaiiism) is much studied, and there is an assembly, that is held in D. Joseph Valeta's library, composed of men that have a right taste of true learning and good sense. They are ill- looked on bjr the clergy, and represented as a set of atheists, and as the spawn of Pomponatius's school ; but I found no such thing among them.' P. 207. 2 1 8 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. penetrated, the spirit that animated them bore its noble fruit. There was manifested a disinterested, untiring devotion to learning, an implicit belief in the power and essential divinity of the human reason a full persuasion that unwearied search for truth is the highest, if not the whole, duty of man. Especially was the indomit- able independence of Pomponazzi's intellectual character productive of valuable results. The Renaissance had, in this respect, accom- plished its mission. The newer thought to which it had given birth, which it had carefully nursed and cradled, was now able for the most part to shift for itself, and make its own way in the world. In politics, in science, in philosophy and in religion, modern thought was breaking away from the old lines and landmarks. Pomponazzi recognized and prepared for the change. All the main principles of his teaching were accepted and employed by succeeding thinkers. His doctrine of ' twofold truth,' the distinction between ' credita' and 'physica' dogmas to be believed without question and natural pheno- mena to be received only after verification was adopted by Galileo and his followers. His belief in the government of the universe by uniform and invariable laws has become the foundation-stone of all modern physical science. Lastly, and this seems to me his greatest merit : in an age when the foundations of morality and social life were undermined by the proved weakness and insecurity of the ecclesiastical sanctions on which they were hitherto based, Pom- ponazzi discerned the importance as well as truth of eternal and immutable morality. When Aristotle was once questioned as to the gain he had derived from philosophy, he answered, ' This, that I do from love of virtue, and hatred of vice, what you only do from hope of reward or fear of punishment.' Philosophy had taught Pom- ponazzi the same indomitable faith in the inherent and indestructible distinctions of morality. His lesson, and the spirit with which he urged it, was caught up or revived by Peter Charron, Spinoza, Lessing and Kant; and is gradually, we may hope, becoming more and more incorporated with the ethical teaching of our modern Europe. Like every other thinker whose energies and aspirations are hampered by harsh and unauthorized restrictions, Pomponazzi was accustomed to find in the future, with its ameliorations, a solace for the privations and shortcomings of his own time. In such a mood we may imagine him indulging in the anticipation which Lessing has put into his own glowing words : ' Sie wird kommen, sie wird gewiss kommen, die Zeit der Vollendung, da der Mensch, je uberzeugter sein Verstand einer immer bessern Zukunft sich ftihlet, von dieser Zukunft gleichwohl Bewegungsgrtinde zu seinen Handlungen zu erborgen nicht nothig haben wird, da er das Gute General Causes and Leaders. 219 thun wird well es das Gute ist, nicht well willkiirliclie Belohnungen darauf gesetzt sind, die semen flatterhaften Blick ehedem bios heften und star ken soil ten die innern besseren Belohnungen desselben zu erkennen.' Miss LEYCESTER. To all which I would devoutly say Amen. . . . But I hope, Dr. Trevor, you do not intend us to discuss the whole Italian Renaissance at a single sitting, because if so it is likely to be a protracted one. TREVOR. By no means. No one can be more aware of the manifoldly varied aspects of the whole movement than myself. The utmost we can do is to select a few salient or noteworthy topics from the general mass of matter I have brought before you. . . . Moreover, we must bear in mind that our main subject, round which our discussions should revolve, is Free- thought. This is the centre about which I have grouped my Italian planets, from Dante to Pomponazzi. ARUNDEL. Well, starting from that centre I must confess that I thought your general conclusions were frequently vitiated by a tendency too common to all investigations on the subject I mean a disposition to exaggerate, in the direction of Free-thought, the implications derivable from the free speech of Italians. Because, for instance, the old mysteries or the Goliard or Provencal poetry, were redolent of free ex- pression, that seems to me no sufficing warrant for inferring that the freedom was intended to be taken au pied de la lettre. Nothing is more remarkable in the Italian temperament I suppose it belongs to all the Latin races than the dispro- portion that exists between speech and genuine sentiment. When I first visited Italy some years ago I was greatly struck by the freedom with which young men spoke of their parents. I naturally thought that parental obedience was anything but a national virtue ; but I soon found I was mistaken. Further acquaintance with the people convinced me that the young really did pay extreme deference and respect to their parents. An oft-quoted illustration of the same fact is the behaviour of the Neapolitan mob when the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius is delayed. They 220 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. call him ' villain,' ' blackguard,' and every other opprobrious name they can think of; but no sooner is the hocus-pocus successful, and the blood declared to be liquefied, than they immediately fall on their knees, and thank him with every demonstration of adoring gratitude and piety. HARRINGTON. The characteristic is well-known; but it is not adequately described by calling it a divergence between the sentiment felt and uttered. Its source is an extreme sensitiveness or impressionability, which is apt to seem evan- escent, not because it is superficial, but because it pertains to a strongly and variously emotional nature. Thus the vitupera- tion of Neapolitans at the tardiness of Januarius is just as hearty as their profuse gratitude when he appears to accede to their wishes. Applying the argument to Renaissance litera- ture, I should say that the expressions of Free-thought, e.g. in the songs of Goliards, or in the Decameron, or Morgante, must be taken for what they are the actual sentiments of the writers at the time of writing. But we must bear in mind that the errant cleric, or Boccaccio or Pulci, might have been surprised into very different arguments and sentiments at another time. TREVOR. I fully admit indeed I have often been amused at this trait of Italians nor do I think I have lost sight of it in my description of the Renaissance. When you cannot take a man's words as the symbol of his definite settled conviction, you must take his general tone, his line of reasoning, the spirit which seems to underlie his thought. This I have honestly attempted to do. As a result, it appears to me that the litera- ture of the Renaissance is a bona fide expression of extreme freedom not to say licence. I am prepared, however, to acknowledge that the free sentiments of Italians, and in a lesser degree of the French, would mean somewhat more if employed by Englishmen and Germans. ARUNDEL. With that acknowledgment I am content . . . but I might have based my objection upon other than national grounds. . . . Skepticism is precisely one of those for- bidden subjects on which most men, even Germans and English, are apt to claim a licence of speech far exceeding their real opinions. General Causes and Leaders. 221 HARRINGTON. It is as well not to insist too strongly on national peculiarities in estimating the Free-thought of the Renaissance. A good deal of the liberal anti-dogmatic senti- ment touched upon in Trevor's Paper, as e.g. the Goliard poetry, Proven9al literature, the mysteries, moralities, and miracle plays, were the common possession of the whole of civilized Europe. AEUNDEL. Another objection I feel to the Doctor's paper is that it did not appear to contain any sufficing admission of the consequences of licence of thought in inducing licence of manners. The most repulsive feature of the Renaissance, to most students, is the extreme moral laxity which seems to have affected more or less every class of society. To me this appears an inseparable attendant on and result of Skepticism. At least in the cases of Greece and Rome the advance of extreme libertine opinion, combined with skeptical inroads into ancient beliefs, synchronize exactly with a marked deterio- ration of social manners, and an increase of political corruption. Machiavelli did no more than give expression to this truth when he said, that States not held together by the bonds of religion were on the road to ruin. TEEVOB. I am quite willing to concede for that matter it would be difficult to deny the ethical laxity of Italy during the Renaissance ; but I should be inclined to ascribe it to other causes. To me it appears the joint product of several con- tributory agencies. First among them I should place the social disorganization which was the inevitable consequence of the political divisions of Italy, and the continual wars thereby engendered. While allied with, and to a great extent caused by, this internecine strife, must be reckoned the perpetual irruptions of foreign, and for the most part mercenary, armies. No fact is more indelibly impressed upon mediaeval Italy than the peculiar and extreme lawlessness which followed, like the slime of a reptile, in the train of these foreign invaders ; and this quite irrespective of their nationality or religion ; for French and Spanish invaders were not much superior in this respect to the Lombards. Secondly, I should place as the next cause of social depravity, the utter corruption of the Romish 222 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. Church. For centuries it had been the policy of Rome to tie up all moral duty with religious service, in such a manner, as implicitly to deny the existence of ethical principles or conduct outside her pale. The consequence was, that when her corrup- tion and depravity became too conspicuous to be denied, the whole fabric of moral duty tended to crumble to its ruin. I have however said enough on this point in my paper. Thirdly, we must, as I have more than once remarked, make fair allow- ance for the natural tendency of new-born freedom to rush into excess. It is now an acknowledged law of history that no great liberating movement, begotten of intellectual and social fermentation, and having for its object the enfranchisement of the long enslaved conscience and intellect of humanity, can be accomplished without excesses. Indeed, it seems a general law of the universe that a new birth of any kind is only con- summated at the cost of much pain and suffering. Christ's own announcement of the effect of His revelation, ' Think ye that I am come to send peace on earth : I tell you nay, but rather a sword,' is applicable to every revolution whose object is the Divine cause of justice and freedom. . . . You must also remember that, on the principle of necessity being the mother of invention, the lawlessness of the Renaissance had the effect of inciting men to discover remedies for it. Machiavelli's Prince indicates one remedy, perhaps then the most obvious political force and coercion. Another, and better, was the tendency to throw off ecclesiasticism, and to return to the primary foundation and ethics of the gospel while Pompo- nazzi, as we saw, went a step further, and sought for it in the in- trinsic claims of virtue, and the natural repulsiveness of vice. HARRINGTON. Your plea, I think, is justifiable ; but you seem to me to have slightly waived the main issue. The question is : Did Skepticism of itself induce a laxity of manners in those who adopted it ? I think it must have done so in certain cases. Nor should I deem that such a concession contains anything derogatory to Skepticism. There are few principles in the world so inherently faultless as not to disclose in their working and operation upon differently constituted characters various seamy sides. General Causes and Leaders. 223 Miss LEYCESTER. There is also another reply to Mr. Arundel's objection. The expressions of libertine and profane thought which we find in Renaissance literature may be far in excess of real action or usual habit, just as skeptical expres- sions may have implied a greater latitude of thought than really existed. . . . What appears to me the most remark- able feature in the history of the period is the ' Weltschmerz ' of some of its leading thinkers. There is something pathetic- ally ironical in the fact that men who laid such stress on Naturalism, and who resuscitated the long-lost belief in the joys and duties of mundane existence, extinguished as it was by mediaeval asceticism and other-worldliness should have suffered so severely from what I suppose must have been a sense of the worthless or unsatisfactory nature of their effects. One is inclined to ask, does unsufferable ennui follow upon an exaggerated estimate of terrestrial existence, for a similar reason that Pessimism and Nihilism tread on the heels of Materialism ? HARRINGTON. It seems difficult to lay down any absolute ,rule for aberrations of human sentiment, even when they are manifested as general characteristics of any particular epoch. For myself, I should say that in the Italian Renaissance the feeling was a relic of that extreme asceticism of mediaeval times to which you have alluded. ARUNDEL. On the other hand, it may have been a reaction from the mundane enjoyments men sought to find in establish- ing Nature as their Deity, and obedience to her behests as their duty. Both the conception, and its actual practice, could not but cloy, in the case of intellects so comprehensive and feelings so profound as e.g. those of Petrarca. TREVOR. My theory of the matter is much more simple. ' Weltschmerz,' or intellectual ennui, is not an affection con- fined to any age, or to any particular type of thought. It is, in my opinion, totally independent of all general movements, whether in religion or anything else. I regard it merely as the reaction which under all circumstances follows intellectual labour, the lassitude that follows over-tension of brain-tissue. Depression is, as all students know, the invariable concomitant 224 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. of severe intellectual work ; and if not resisted may easily lead to a systematic contempt for existence, such as that displayed by Petrarca, Machiavelli, and Guicciardini. ... I need not add that, when strongly marked, it is often a precursor of cerebral disease. Miss LEYCESTER. Of course we cannot pretend to dispute your opinion when medical subjects are concerned ; but it seems to me clear that the feeling we are discussing does pre- sent itself in epochs. We have seen it strongly marked in the Renaissance. "We find it again in the French Revival of Literature, immediately preceding the Revolution. Traces of it present themselves in our Elizabethan era. It is strongly impressed upon the German ' Sturm und Drang,' and lastly it is dominant in the absurd Pessimism of German present-day thought the lowest depths to which German speculation has yet reached. TREVOR. You might have added the Augustan period of Roman literature our theories, however, are not altogether irreconcilable. Grant that ' "Weltschmerz ' is a reaction after severe mental toil, and it will naturally present itself as a general feature of every epoch of unusual intellectual activity. All I wish to protest against is the consideration of it as an epidemic or contagious disease. It is entirely individual ; and depends upon the cerebral and nervous constitution of the sufferer. An induction of its more celebrated victims will readily show us that it manifests itself in most cases where the sentiment or imagination of the student predominates over his purely intellectual faculties. Indeed, the measure of re- sistance that a severe brain-worker is able to oppose to the feeling forms a fair criterion of the native vigour and recupera- tive energy of his intellect. HARRINGTON. I have never seen brought out so fully as I think the subject deserves, the intimate connexion that existed between Italy and England, as regards the Naturalism that marks the Renaissance of the former and the Reformation of the latter country. Shakespere and Ben Jonson may stand as types of the tendency in the Elizabethan Age, as Boccaccio, Pulci and Ariosto in the Renaissance. In both schools there General Causes and Leaders. 225 is the same vigorous vitality the same healthy appreciation of mundane existence. So far as originality goes, the palm, I suppose, must be assigned to Italy. Indeed, the extent of indebtedness of our Elizabethan literature to the Italian Renaissance, which our literary historians are only beginning to recognise at its full value, seems to me quite embarrassing. Not only the materials for the Shaksperian dramas, to take the most conspicuous instance, but the spirit which evolved them, are importations from the Golden Age of Italian litera- ture. Hence, if Shakspere is to use a phrase of Jacobi's 1 a Christian in heart, in intellect he is a pagan ' ; and his paganism has most of the attributes of the Renaissance pro- duct of the same name a clear perception and forcible grasp of terrestrial realities and enjoyments, combined with a con- temptuous ignoring of speculative truths, whether philosophical or theological. It would not be very difficult, in my opinion, to prove that Shakespere is himself more than half a skeptic. TREVOR. For that matter, the difficulty in these days is to affirm what Shakspere has not been demonstrated to have been. Certainly he knew how to dramatize doubt in action. For doubt in speculation I cannot believe that he cared. His own idiosyncrasies were so entirely and exclusively practical that he was content to ignore all theorizings of whatever kind. Therein lies, in my opinion, his inferiority to Goethe. Miss LEYCESTER. Goethe no doubt displays the warp and woof the visible texture of his speculations more clearly than does Shakspere. That seems the greatest distinction between them. Goethe shows us his metaphysical ratiocina- tions in the making ; but Shakspere gives us his as the finished product the woven material of his mental loom applied to the ordinary uses of human existence. Hence we may regard his practical tendency as the final result of effective contempla- tion, and definitively attained conclusions, on the problems of the universe. There are many passages in his works which appear to me to show that this was the case. This would rather prove than disprove his Skepticism ; for, as we know, the concrete and practical is a favourite refuge for all doubters from the uncertainties and disappointments of pure speculation VOL. i. Q 226 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. . . but I have myself a few criticisms to offer on Dr. Trevor's Paper. First, as to Dante, regarding him from the standpoint of Free-thought ; I should have liked some account of the effect produced by the Divina Commcedia on subsequent popular theology. I refer especially to the Inferno, and what I consider the mischievous results of its vividly realistic pictures in directing, confirming and intensifying ordinary belief in the eternity and severity of hell-torments. The thinkers, I quite grant, were affected in quite an opposite direction. Instead of persuasion, the horrible torments of the Inferno induced in them a healthy repulsion. While as to its eternity, Pulci proves its injustice in a single couplet. It is in the complaint of that most anti-diabolical devil Ashtaroth, who contrasts the ready pardon granted, for a single petition, to Christians with the inexorable doom of himself and his fallen brethren : ' Noi peccammo una volta, e in sempiterno Rilegati siam tutti nello inferno.' * But on the ignorant, the timid and unreflecting, the atrocities of the Inferno must have exercised a most pernicious influence. Literature, in the person of its highest living representative, had come forward to supplement and corroborate the super- stitious teaching of friars and preachers. It thus threw men still more into the selfish grasp of the Church. Who would not have sacrificed his last farthing in delivering a dear friend from the miseries of some of these filthy bolgias, which Dante's ungainly imagination had painted in such loathsome colours ? Moreover, the extra punishments he awarded to heretics, combined with the similar treatment of those un- fortunate speculators in Italian religious art, must have tended, in many cases, to repress all independent thought. In short, the Inferno of Dante, whatever its merits as a work of poetry, added indefinitely to the harshness and severity of a doctrine which under any form is painfully repulsive' to a humane mind. HAKRINGTOX. I think you exaggerate the effects of a purely 1 Moryante, Canto xxv. str. 234. General Caiises and Leaders. 227 imaginative work upon the average mental faculties of man- kind. Men's convictions, in most cases, are not permanently modified by appeals to their sympathies which they know are founded on fictitious bases. Take the case e.g. of a novel reader whose feelings are sought to be enlisted on the side of an imaginary hero or heroine, of whose principles or conduct he may not approve the sympathy he might otherwise have felt will, in this particular instance, be counteracted by dis- sentient conviction. Or take the case of a cultured Unitarian who listens to the Passion-music of Handel's Messiah. He may feel for the time his emotions stirred by music and words from whose implication, regarded as dogmatic propositions, he altogether dissents. Similarly, readers of Dante's Inferno might be pleasurably affected by the poetic beauties of the work, and yet, unless their convictions had already been pledged, would neither feel increased anxiety for departed relatives, nor would they abstain from speculation on account of the punishment supposed to be inflicted on errant thinkers. Miss LEYCESTER. But you are begging my whole position, Charles. The Inferno of Dante was addressed to men whose convictions were already, and most heartily, enlisted in its favour. The poem was a vivid elaboration of a doctrine they had long believed, upon what they regarded infallible authority. It was just this confirmation and detailed elaboration of an old article of their faith, that made the Inferno so dangerous. MRS. HARRINGTON. My own criticism of the Divina (70m- mcedia is, that it appears to me an unsatisfactory handling of the whole theme. No doubt it is full of poetic beauties ; but neither the Purgatorio nor Paradiso the Inferno I omit as a non-existent state convey my ideal of the future world. Indeed the Paradiso, for the most part, is only a celestial canopy designed for the especial purpose of the enthronization of Beatrice. ARUNDEL. I suspect, Mrs. Harrington, that like so many other readers of Dante, your dislike of II Paradiso is founded upon what is in reality its most marvellous feature, i.e. its exceedingly impalpable and superhuman character. It soars so far above the sphere of our ordinary occupations, thoughts 228 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. and interests, that it necessarily forfeits some measure of our active sympathy. It is very remarkable that the division of the Commcedia in which humanity approximates most to our actual experience (I am not speaking satirically) I mean the Inferno has always been that part of it which has commanded most general appreciation. As to Beatrice, I readily grant that, even in her heavenly character of Theology, she occupies a disproportionate space in the common home of all the blessed. She is, besides, too ecclesiastical and dogmatically speculative to be Christian after the mind of Christ. Miss LEYCESTER. Speaking of the celestial Beatrice of Dante, we are naturally reminded of her sister in literature the beatified Laura of Petrarca. In your remarks on Petrarca, Doctor Trevor, you did not assign a philosophical reason why the cult of women assumed the rather extravagant form it seems to have attained in the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- turies. Are wo to take it as an outcome of chivalry, or of religion ? TREVOR. Primarily, I should say, of religion ; secondarily and directly, of chivalry. The gradual growth of Mariolatry in the Church, together with the mingled refinement of manners and deference to women engendered by the inter- course of Europe with the East, furnished a double foundation, sacred as well as secular, for the fancies of Dante and Petrarca not to mention the personal tendencies of those two poets. HARRINGTON. I musb say, Doctor, that I thought you gave an ingenious but not quite fair advantage to Skepticism, in the case of Petrarca, by making his Laura the setherialized symbol of unattained desire. No doubt his passion for her became ennobled and sublimated as he grew older, but its ultimate form was rather a spiritual type of womanliness than that of unrealized aspiration. Petrarca's Skepticism was not, I think, sufficiently pronounced to have suggested such an excogitation. TREVOR. My reason for that view, which was thoroughly well considered, was Petrarca's undeniable melancholy as he approached the end of his life. All his later writings betray such a profound sense of the vanity of mundane existence and objects such a tender, wistful longing for some worthier General Causes and Leaders. 229 attainment while, pari-passu with, the growth of these feelings there is an increased appreciation of the spiritual excellencies of Laura, that any other interpretation of her final relation to Petrarca is to me almost inconceivable, This view seems moreover confirmed by many expressions in the latter half of his Rime ; several passages of which I had marked for quota- tion, but omitted in order to save time. As to Petrarca's Skepticism, it was of a mingled quality. It was not exclu- sively, or even mainly, an intellectual product, being just as much emotional and sentimental. It was the outcome of passions unsatisfied, aspirations unrealized, as well as of truth unattained. He is, in point of fact, an interesting example of the combination of intellectual distrust with emotional dis- satisfaction a kind of mystical skeptic. ARUNDEL. On the subject of Boccaccio, Trevor, I must enter a protest against your interpretation of his Three Rings. You seemed to imply that the story contained nothing deroga- tory to Christianity. I cannot perceive how, from the stand- point you adopted, you could have arrived at that conclusion. Certainly, if the story as you interpreted it teaches anything, it teaches the co-equality of all Religions ; and from that point of view Christianity can claim no superiority over the other two Semitic creeds ; and there is therefore no real reason why Christians might not become Jews or Mahomedans. Now while I readily admit that every form of faith may have its own good sides, and that there is a peculiar suitability of the great religions of the world to the races among which they originated while also I repudiate the conclusion that the Divine love is confined exclusively to those of my own creed ; still I cannot, as a Christian, allow that Judaism and Mahome- tanism are on precisely the same level with my own faith. Nor do I think your interpretation of the story justified, either by its original form in the Decameron, or by Lessing's re- adaptation in Nathan der Weise. In the two cases the original ring remains. Boccaccio expressly calls it the True Ring, and the other two are therefore only imitations. It appears to me that this single fact is of itself enough to set aside the complete co-equality of the three rings. Boccaccio implies 230 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. that next in merit to Christianity the original ring, and the prototype and exemplar of the other two stand the remain- ing rings, Judaism and Mahomedanism. TREVOR. I can appreciate the feeling which prompts your objection ; but the real question at issue is concerned with Boccaccio's words. These must, I think, be held to signify that the three rings are of precisely similar construction, and of equal value. Moreover, it is the father himself who has copies made of the original ring ; and why ? Not as you would imply, to mark a preference for one son above another, but for the very opposite reason, because he loved his three sons equally and would make no invidious distinction of one above the rest. . . . But stay ! Here is a good translation of the Decameron. I will hand it to Harrington ; and let him decide the matter. HARRINGTON. Thanks, I don't want the translation. I remember Boccaccio's words perfectly well, and their only meaning is, in my opinion, what the Doctor contends for. I can find nothing on which to base the conclusion of designed inequality in the worth of the rings. The declared intention of the father is that the rings should be absolutely indis- tinguishable, both in construction and value, one from the other. Lessing's words ' . . . Da er ihm die Kinge bringt Kann selbst der Vater seinen Musterring Nicht untersclieiden ' are almost a literal rendering of Boccaccio. Besides, the original ring, if it be distinguishable from the other two, must have been not Christianity but Judaism, as the earliest Semitic faith. I won't say that this interpretation of the relations of Christianity to the other two creeds is without difficulties. Still this is, in my judgment, the meaning of Boccaccio's words ; and this construction of them is rather intensified than lessened in Nathan der Weise. Miss LEYCESTER. My solution of Mr. Arundel's difficulty, and the reconciliation for Christians of the pre-eminence of their faith with a due recognition of the merits of Judaism and Mahomedanism would be this: The three start from a General Causes and Leaders. 231 common origin, and possess, for the most part fundamentals in common. That is, they have all three alike an ethical basis. They aim at establishing virtue and goodness, justice and charity, among men. Judaism, Christianity and Mahomed- anism have in this respect a common object. But in carrying out and developing that object, the means may vary ; and Christianity may well, to a thoughtful Christian, seem to have superior sanctions, higher affinities, historical and otherwise, and to lead generally to a nobler life. But so far as the moral bases, the direct intention, the indispensable requisites of the religions are concerned, the three rings may be said to be identical. ARUNDEL. I cannot accept your rendering of Boccaccio's words ; nor can I admit Miss Leycester's ingenious comment upon them. If your construction held good, Boccaccio would be a complete Skeptic, maintaining the absolute indifference of all religious creeds ; and that would be an inference directly contradicted by his whole life. Miss LEYCESTER. I could have wished, Dr. Trevor, that you had expended a little more space on Pulci. As a type of the general Skepticism of the Renaissance, I think he stands higher than Pomponazzi ; who seems to me too terribly in earnest to be an exponent of a movement that had so many lighter elements of gaiety, frivolity and insouciance inter- mingled with it. Besides which, Pomponazzi's Skepticism was altogether an academic product. It was the Free-thought of Pulci and Ariosto that formed the topics of conversation at the courts of Italian princes, and in the mansions of Florentine merchants. Pulci, in short, was a free-thinker in Belles Lettres; Pomponazzi in the severest walks of philosophy. Now the general literature and popular affinities of the Renaissance seem to affect the former much more than they do the latter. TREVOR. I quite acknowledge Pulci's claims from the standpoint you mention. He is, as you say, the free-thinker of courts and of literary and civic circles. But for that very reason his contribution to the Free-thought of the Renaissance is not so permanently valuable as that of Pomponazzi. Wit, banter and sarcasm have their fitting place in every Intel- 232 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. lectual movement ; but those agencies are neither so effective nor so durable as intellectual power. Pomponazzi is especially the thinker the reasoner ; and it is in its ratiocination, in the free and independent play of the purely intellectual faculties, that the especial value of the Renaissance to European thought chiefly consists. HARRINGTON. I was glad to hear you place Pulci's Devil Ashtaroth, on a higher pedestal than Dante's malicious monkey- fiends, Milton's diabolical giant, or Goethe's sneering demon. All the latter creations seem to me to savour strongly of melo- drama, and to betray a tendency to the excessive denigration against which a common proverb warns us. Now once grant the ordinary theological account of the origin of these infernal spirits, and all such representations must appear over-strained and exaggerated. Their very title, ' fallen angels,' implies that half mournful reminiscence of other times to which Ashtaroth so plaintively refers ; and his plea is confirmed by the psychological experience which assures us that an entire elimination of inherent tendencies, and a substitution, as com- plete of others diametrically opposite, is a priori an enormous improbability. AKUNDEL. For my part, I prefer Milton's Satan, with his genuine diabolical utterance 'Evil, be thou my good.' We cannot apply psychological laws derived from introspection of our human faculties to possible changes in the minds of superhuman spirits. Largeness of capacity implies greatness of possible movement or transmutation, and I can readily con- ceive how all the noble passions of the great archangel might have been perverted by his ambition, just as wine turns to vinegar. Nor indeed are there lacking examples of a similar kind of transformation in human nature. Besides, the evil of Milton's Satan is a distinct positive entity, the very idea of which provokes violent antagonism that of Pulci's Ashtaroth is a mild diluted evil, more suggestive of acquiescence than repulsion ; and the former seems on that ground more in harmony with the strong positive qualities of evil as we know it in the world. Miss LEYCESTEK. Do you think so, Mr. Arundel ? For my General Causes and Leaders. 233 part all my experience tends in an opposite direction. I never yet have found evil with no trace of goodness either in or associated with it without some palliative or redeeming trait. Evil, as we know it, seems therefore to be quite of the type of Ashtaroth, instead of the unqualified wickedness of Milton's Satan, or the combined cunning and malevolence of Goethe's Mephistophiles. HAEEINGTON. Another protest which I think should be entered against part of your paper refers to your treatment of Machiavelli. I think you have hardly done justice to that most eminent thinker, nor to the political theories associated with his name. The justification you half grudgingly awarded to him on account of the state of Italy appears to me to amount to a complete exoneration. No one except a practical statesman, and such Machiavelli undoubtedly was, can grapple with the imperious necessities of certain political disorders. The remedy must oftentimes be severe because of the severity of the disease. It is a case of ' kill or cure.' Now, taking Sismondi's Republics as a guide to the state of Italy in the sixteenth century, it seems difficult to conceive how any other remedy than the extreme one prescribed by Machiavelli could have met the urgency of the case. A tyranny, strong, masterful and unscrupulous was the only conceivable process by which order could be introduced into the anarchy and con- fusion then rampant in Italy. Gervinus said of the polity of Ancient Rome that it was based on the dictum 'Necessitas lion habet leges.' The good of the Republic was the single aim of her statesmen and generals ; and to this ' Supreme Law ' every other consideration was subordinated. Indeed many writers of the highest mark have agreed that, in danger- ous political conjunctures, recourse may be had to extreme measures. Jean Paul e.g. defended the deed of Charlotte Corday as an act of ethical retribution, Schiller in his dramas repeatedly allows an appeal to crime in the interests of society and of freedom, while Goethe says : ' Jeder Weg zu rechtem Zwecke 1st auch recht auf jeder Strecke.' l 1 These words were written some years since, and it is not intended to claim 234 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. TREVOR. I entirely dissent from your line of argument, which is nothing less than the apology which all despots and tyrants have known how to make for themselves, and their measures of coercion and repression. I don't wish to deny that there may arise occasionally political conjunctures which, like the G-ordian knot, admit of no solution except that of the sword, but it does not seem to me that the state of Italy in the sixteenth century was precisely of this kind, nor do I feel sure that the bulk of its people did not enjoy a larger measure of political and religious freedom than we, at this distance of time, think possible. Machiavelli, with all his pretended love of liberty, shows most clearly that he distrusts it ; and that his sole principle of social order is brute force. This is also proved by his unworthy conception of humanity. For with men as he supposes them compounds of weakness and wickedness a pitiless tyranny would doubtless be the most effectual rule. Nor can I admit, even as a temporary ex- pedient, the sacrifice of liberty freedom of thought and speech at the shrine of social order. Order doubtless is good, but freedom is still better, and for my part I could acquiesce even in a certain amount of lawlessness, if it could be shown that it was an inevitable result of freedom, rather than I would in a tyranny which involved slavery. Miss LEYCESTER. In your account of Pomponazzi you omitted one thing, Dr. Trevor. You did not give us Bocca- lini's amusing satire on him and his doctrine of double truth. TREVOR. The omission was intentional, Miss Leycester: I meant to read during our discussion the rendering of the passage in the Earl of Monmouth's translation of Adcertise- for them any noyelty in respect of a defence of Machiavellianism in politics. They merely indicate the lines on which such a defence has been variously placed, from the publication e^j, of Gabriel Naude's Considerations Politiques sur les Coups d'Etat, 1712, to Lord Acton's Introduction to Mr. Burd's II Principe, 1891. The latter concludes with a sentence so applicable to the above theory as to deserve quotation. Machiavelli ' is more rationally in- telligible when illustrated Toy lights falling not only from the century he wrote in, but from our own, which has seen the course of its history twenty- five times diverted by actual or attempted crime.' General Causes and Leaders. 235 ments from Parnassus. 1 Here it is : ' Pietro Pompon atio, a Mantuan, appeared next ' (before Apollo, who is supposed to be engaged in judging the most renowned literary characters of all time) ' all besmeared with sweat, and very ill accoutred, who was found composing a book wherein, by foolish and sophistical arguments, he endeavoured to prove that the soul of man was mortal. Apollo, not able to look upon so wicked a wretch, commanded that his library should be presently burnt ; and that he himself should be consumed in the same flames : for that fool deserved not the advantage of books who laboured thereby only to prove that men were beasts. Pomponatio cryed out then with a loud voice, protesting that he believed the mortality of the soul only as a philosopher. Then said Apollo to the executioners : let him be burnt only as a philosopher.' HARRINGTON. How curiously all these stories are linked together. The anecdote you have read is clearly related to the well-known story of the German Prince-Bishop ; who being remonstrated with for undue freedom of language, re- plied that ' he swore as a Prince, not as a Bishop ; ' on which the question was- asked, ' When the Devil took possession of the Prince what would become of the Bishop ? ' a story by the way which would seem to show that the doctrine of double truth, or disparate responsibility, is not limited to philosophy. Indeed the convenience of such a principle in ethics is obvious. You have something of that sort too among the fanatical sectaries of the Commonwealth ; who held that whatever sin they committed was due to ' the Old Adam,' and formed no part of their own regenerate nature. Miss LEYCESTER. What an interesting feature of mediaeval manners those philosophical jousts must have been. I suppose it would be too superficial a mode of accounting for them to say that they were suggested by the prevailing taste for tournaments the wish to test intellectual prowess by the same means as physical. It seems a pity we have nothing of the same kind now in our universities. The contest of a 1 Advertisement* from Parnassus, etc. ; translated by the Earl of Monmouth. 2nd Edition, 1669, p. 158. 236 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. well-matched pair of Professors representing say, the intui- tional and experimental philosophy, or ecclesiasticism and rationalism, would be an interesting spectacle. ARUNDEL. More interesting than useful I think. The qualities needed for success, in a contest of this kind, are peculiar and, to my mind, not of the highest merit. A great amount of assurance, controversial astuteness, combined with readiness and fluency, are the most necessary ; and these are not invariably combined with learning, or profound intel- lectual power. Besides which, they were generally inefficacious ; and the hearers left the arena with precisely the same opinions as they entered it. The intellectual gain to European culture from the numberless controversies with which the halls of mediaeval universities resounded seems to me very doubtful. The elder Casaubon summed up that matter years ago, when, on being shown the great hall of the Sorbonne, and the attendant remarking that it was the place where all the great Doctors disputed, he quietly asked ' Aye, and what have they settled ? ' TREVOR. I fear the same question might be put to most branches and methods of human enquiry. But the mediseval free-trade in teaching, for it almost amounted to that, was not so ineffectual as you think. "When Abelard emptied his rival's lecture room in Paris, and Pomponazzi repeated the exploit in Padua, both victorious professors being avowedly champions of Free-thought, such a fact speaks well for the docility and true instincts of the pupils, as well as for the power of the teachers. Miss LEYCESTER. I confess I am radical enough to wish for a return to the freedom of teaching which existed in those days. What can be more humdrum, stereotyped and conven- tional than our modern university usages, with their protec- tionism and exclusiveness in every department of thought. I have been lately reading, with intense enjoyment, Remusat's dramatised Abelard. Take the scene depicted in- that work of the young Breton student's controversy with the renowned "William of Champeaux. "What vigour and animation is there displayed. The whole scene is instinct with full, fresh and free intellectual life. Even the turbulence of the students is General Causes and Leaders. 237 only the youthful expression of mental excitation. Compare such a scene with the dull routine of an English University Lecture Room in our own days, and who would not prefer the life and freedom of Paris in the thirteenth century to the staid and respectable, but hopelessly apathetic, proceedings of e.g. an Oxford ' Lecture ' of our own day. Moreover, what a reflection upon our boasted advance in liberty and civilization, the re- mark I may say does not apply to German Universities, who have never given up their prerogative of free-trade in teach- ing that if a modern Abelard or Pomponazzi were to appear at one of our great seats of learning, he could not find a room in which to deliver his lectures. ARUNDEL. Well, he might hire the Town Hall of the Mayor for a couple of guineas ! HARRINGTON. But the poor wandering lecturer might not have so much money, or if he had, and chose to invest it in the way you suggest, the authorities would, in the case of a Pomponazzi, prohibit the attendance of the undergraduates. . . . But I fear your German ideas, Florence, make you unjust to our more decorous English customs. Under the anti- quated and formal usages of our Universities you would find more ' liberty of prophesying ' than you are aware of. At present there is, I am informed, not a single phase of thought, in Church or nation, which has not its exponent, generally an able one, in our University chairs. When I was at Oxford, twenty-five years ago, there was a much more limited selec- tion ; but in those days we supplemented by private enterprise the deficiencies of our national seminaries. I was a member of a club of advanced thinkers in which we broached and dis- cussed many things which were then little thought of, but which have since come to the surface of English speculation. I am inclined to think that our private debating club, which we called the Synagogue, was of real service to me in my pro- fession ; and I know fellow-members who have since achieved distinction, both at the Bar and in the House of Commons, who ascribe the foundation of their debating power to the practice of free and full discussion which we thus privately enjoyed in our university days. 238 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. TREVOR. No doubt such debates are useful for certain pur- poses ; and so must also have been the dialectical contests in the Universities of the middle ages ; but their peculiar merits were better adapted, I think, to meet the wants of those days than similar exhibitions would be to supply our own. Liberty enjoys a wider scope and a greater variety of existence now than she did then. With a free printing press, a man who has anything worth communicating can, as a rule, labour under no difficulty as to the means ; and to my mind the cold unimpas- sioned utterances of the press are better adapted to philosophi- cal discussion than the warmth of debate and personal alter- cation, besides being more dignified and impartial. MRS. HARRINGTON. I want to know what possible interest a Paduan or Parisian citizen could have in debates which he would hardly understand, carried on as they were in Latin. He could not even know, of himself, which of the champions came off best. Whereas if he went to a tournament or some contest of physical strength he would have ocular demonstra- tion of the final result. ARUNDEL. There was a considerable circulation of a kind of popular student Latinity in all the mediaeval university towns ; so that the terms more frequently used in debate were well recognised by the average citizen. As to the victorious com- batant, perhaps the citizen identified him by the same token as the rustic on a similar occasion, who said ' He could see who was the first, that put t'other fellow in a passion.' HARRINGTON. There are several more points in Pomponazzi that suggest discussion. Take e.g. the storm of indignation which his book on Immortality raised, and his attempt to meet it by the plea of ' twofold truth.' Theologians are never tired of telling us that our religious beliefs are based on faith, and are not dependent on the reason. Yet the moment a belief is professed avowedly independent of all reason, they immedi- ately exclaim against it as infidel, blasphemous,, or at least heterodox. What is this but a tacit acknowledgment that the reason must have some part in every sincere conviction which a man has '? ARUNDEL. In the majority of cases the religious beliefs of General Causes and Leaders. 239 men are founded on the unconditional demand of faith, and owe little or nothing to the approval or disapproval of the rea- son. The difficulties of theologians commence with the minor- ity who bring all convictions indifferently to the bar of its judgment. In such cases no doubt they distrust, though rather illogically, a conviction ostensibly based upon faith, revela- tion, or religious intuition, when it is unaccompanied by the approval of the reason ; but I confess the inconsistency which must needs include reason as an element of all well-founded conviction seems to me not only justifiable but happy. Hence if a friend were to assure me that he believed a doctrine solely on the ground of Revelation, though all the facts of the case appeared to him to militate against it as a scientific truth, I am not sure that as a clergyman I should have any ground for remonstrating with his faith as imperfect, though as a philo- sopher, I should certainly think that it needed some reasonable presumption to give it the validity which every genuine belief should possess. HARRINGTON. We are getting back into our former discus- sion on 'Double Truth.' But you must take care, Arundel. If you divide yourself into two personalities, philosophical and theological, you will be treading on the heels of Pompo- nazzi. . . . By the way, the ' absolute morality ' of the Italian thinker suggested to my mind a speculation with which I have often entertained myself as to the future of philosophi- cal and ethical thought. Since the time of Kant, antinomies and categorical imperatives, or ultimate truths in which con- tradictions converge, are continually assuming a larger import- ance both in philosophy and theology. 1 "We are, I think, ap- proaching a time in which the simple affirmative ' It is so,' or ' It must be so ' will be the ne plus ultra of all ratiocina- tion, and the basis of all religion r.nd morality. So philosophy will end in dogma of the mcst decisive and unconditional kind; and her progress will have been like a stormy ocean dividing two solid continents a philosophical Atlantic, separating, yet forming a highway between, an old world of metaphysical 1 Among more recent illustrations of this tendency may be noted Lotze in Germany ; and Darwin, and H. Spencer, in England. 240 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. dogma and a new world of positive or scientific dogma or like the human maturity of independent thought, which sepa- rates the unreasoned convictions of childhood from the senile obstinacy of old age. Miss LEYCESTEE. Why, Charles, your predicted ' Future ' will be quite a ' Ladies' epoch.' Our sex has long since at- tained the culmination of philosophy, if that is to consist of an immediate intuition or simple determination which disdains all reasoning and is impervious to all argument. What a forcible justification, by the way, of the anticipation of the advocates of woman's rights, that our sex is destined in some remote future to occupy its own place as the head of the intel- lectual universe. ARUNDEL. Moreover there is another still more dire con- tingency, if that be possible when all the religious and philo- sophical problems of the universe have been thus reduced to a few infallible propositions. What would become of the Skep- tics ? TREVOR. Of course we should start afresh by analysing the supposed propositions, and protesting against their claim to infallibility. I cannot say, Harrington, that I agree with your forecast. The resources of the human intellect appear to me to be boundless and therefore inexhaustible. I do not even share the opinion of Comte and others, who think that metaphysics have arrived at the end of their tether, and that the Future of human enquiry pertains entirely to physical science. Physics without the ' Meta ' are only conceivable in an uni- verse where nothing is unknown; or where human faculties are incapable of the faintest degree of imagination or idealiza- tion. Either supposition is practically inconceivable. That physics will absorb more of human attention in the future than its ally is, I think, probable ; nor need we deprecate such an event. I however agree with you so far, that I think our scientists are daily becoming more dogmatic ; thus, reproducing the very fault which they usually find mo^t reason to repre- hend in metaphysics. HARRINGTON. Returning to Pomponazzi I was struck by the fact of his sincerity, so atfectingly disclosed in the com- General Causes and Leaders. 241 parison of himself and his lot to Prometheus. It would appear that there were problems of which he could not accept ' Two- fold Truth ' as an adequate solution. This sufficed when he dealt with the dogmas of the Church ; but when he came to antinomies inherent in the constitution of the universe when it was no longer 'Philosophy versus Theology,' but 'Philosophy versus itself ' then he found himself foiled and vanquished. ARUNDEL. If his end was accelerated in the way Trevor suggested, by opposing his finite intellect to the insolubilities of the universe, I think I can supply you with a better illus- tration of his fate than the comparison of sea waves vainly dashing themselves against a rock. I heard a story the other day of a Wiltshire farmer of the olden time, when land was cheap and corn dear, and agriculture was pursued in the happy- go-lucky manner which such circumstances might be expected to produce. His name was Dobbs. and he used to live in this neighbourhood. When Dobbs grew old he was compelled to seek for assistance in his farm work; so he brought home from Salisbury fair one day a stalwart ploughman whom, on the morrow, he sent into a field to plough. Alas ! before din- ner time the new man returned from his work bringing with him a broken ploughshare, and told Dobbs he had broken it while ploughing into a large dock-root which stood in the middle of the field. His master, after eyeing him for a moment with supreme contempt, broke out, 'Ah, I zee thee'rt only a fule after all. Why, I've ploughed round thik old dock every year for this vifty year and never broke a sheer in my life. Thee'd best go about thy business.' It seems to me that Pomponazzi is like the ploughshare, which snapped because it would persist in encountering the hard root which lay directly in its path. TREVOR. But you see it is not every ploughman who has learnt, or is able to appreciate, Dobbs' method of ploughing round an obstacle. Some intellects must, at whatever cost, plough a straight furrow. Miss LEYCESTER. Besides which, Mr. Arundel, the dock had no business there ; and the ploughshare broke in doing its duty. ARUNDEL. In an universe so full of tough problems as ours, a field without its ancient and indestructible dock-root might be considered an anomaly. VOL. i. * * * * R GIORDANO BRUNO. ' Veritas, a quocunque dicatur, a Spiritu Sancto eat.'' St. Ambrose. Die wenigen, die was davon erkannt Die thSricht g'nug ihr voiles Herz nicht wahrten Dem Pobel ihr Gefuhl, ihr Schauen offenbarten Hat man von je gekreuzigt und verbrannt.' 1 Goethe, Faust. ' Religious disbelief and philosophical skepticism are not merely not the same but have no natural connection.' Sir "Wm. Hamilton, Appendix to Lectures, i. 394. ' Why first, you don't believe, you don't and can't, (Not statedly, that is, and fixedly, And absolutely and exclusively') In any Revelation called Divine. No dogmas nail your faith, and what remains ; But say so, like the honest man you are ? ' Browning, Works, vol. v. p. 267. 244 CHAPTER IV. GIORDANO BRUNO. HARRINGTON. We discuss to-night a name of rare interest. We may mark it with red letters in our calendar of Free- thought, as Giordano Bruno, Apostle and Martyr. 1 1 The following are the works and authorities cited in this chapter : Jordani Bruni, Opera Latine conscripta, 8 vols., Naples 1879-1891. This is the elaborate Edition of his whole works which is now being published at the expense of the Italian government. As yet (1892) only the Latin works have appeared. Jordani Bruni, Nolani Scripta quce Latine confecit, edidit. A. Fr. Gfrorer. Stuttgard 1835. Opere di Giordano Bruno, da Adolfo Wagner, 2 vols. Lipsia 1830. This edition of Bruno's Italian works is now superseded by the critical text of P. de Lagarde, Gottingen 1888. 2 vols. 8vo. Vita di Giordano Bruno da Nola, da Domenico Berti, 1868. Giordano Bruno o La Religione del Pensiero, da David Levi. Torino 1887. Jordano Bruno, par Christian Bartholmess, 2 vols., 8vo. Par. 1846. Giordano Bruno's Weltanschauung und Verhangniss, etc., von Dr. H. Brunn- liofer. 1883. Gli eretici d? Italia, Discorsi da Csesare Cantu,' 3 vols. Torino 1868. Die philosophiache Weltanschauung, von M. Carriere. 1847, pp. 365-494. Leben und Lehrmeinungen beruhmter Physiker, von Rixner und Siber. Heft v. 1824. Life of Giordano Bruno, by I. Frith, London. Triibner, 1887. Copernico e vicende del Sistema Copernicano in Italia. Berti, 1876. B. Telesio ossia studi storici su V Idea della Natura nel resorgimento Italiano, di Francesco Fiorentino. Vol. ii. pp. 41-111. Giordano Bruno wnd Nicolaus von Cusa, von Dr. F. J. Clemens. 1817. Saggi di Critica, di Bertando Spaventa. Vol. i. 139-256. Giordano Bruno la vita e V uomo, di K. Mariano. Koma 1881. Libri, G., Histoire des Sciences Mathematiques en Italic. Vol. iv. Die Lebensgeschichte Giordano Bruno's, von Dr. C. Sigwart. 1880. Tiraboschi, Storia di Letteratura Italiana. vii. pt. 2, p. 689, etc. Storia della Letteratura Italiana nel Secolo XVI, di U. A. Canello. 1880. Ginguene, Histoire Litteraire d 1 Italic. Vol. vii. chap. xxxi. Settembrini, Lezioni di Letteratura Italiana. ii. p. 400. Bruno's chief Lullian Treatises are quoted from Lulli opera. Argentorati 1651. Grundlinien einer Ethik bei Giordano Brtino, von E. B. Hartung. 1878. 215 246 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. AKUNDEL. Yes, when we want to start a new Secular Calen- dar of Saints and Martyrs after the model of Auguste Comte's. Miss LEYCESTER. I object altogether to the distinction between secular and sacred as a definition of martyrdom. Every genuine martyrdom the sacrifice of life for truth is sacred. Sokrates and Giordano Bruno are, in my estima- tion, just as sacred as any martyr in the Christian calendar. ARUNDEL. But surely the kind of truth for which the martyr suffers must enter as a prime consideration into the meritoriousness of the act. The distinction must be enormous between a death endured for the noblest and highest truth, and for some trivial distinction or petty belief it may even be a falsehood or an emanation of the grossest ignorance or superstition. Miss LEYCESTER. From the sufferer's own point of view there can be no such distinction ; and it is that, I apprehend, which determines the fact of his martyrdom. What you con- sider a petty belief, he evidently regards as a matter of the greatest moment. He attests his conviction in the most solemn and authentic manner by sealing it with his death. ARUNDEL. Your apprehension, Miss Leycester, is, I conceive, a misapprehension. Take the derivation of the word martyr. It means simply a witness, i.e. an attestator of some truth : the stress being evidently placed upon the truth so attested. For truth, in the sense of a verity which is eternal, must always be of greater importance than the witness who pleads it as his own personal conviction. It is the holiness or truth of the cause that elevates what might otherwise be merely an act of fanaticism and perversity, to the sublime category of self-sacrifice and martyrdom. There are people in this country, for instance, who still persist in believing that the earth is fiat, or who are fully persuaded of the supernatural power of witches. Suppose them ready to suffer death for their The last named brochure is one of the many monographs on detached portions of Bruno's works and teaching which have appeared in Germany, as well as in France and Italy, during the last half century. It would be obviously impossible to enumerate here even their titles. Of Bruno's works there is a fair Bibliography appended to Miss Frith's Life, pp. 310-377. Also a list of Bruno authorities. Giordano Bruno. 247 beliefs, we could scarcely dignify them with the name of martyrs. Miss LEYCESTER. I am not so sure of that. Suppose e.g. they desired to test liberty of thought and speculation, they would then be martyrs of Free-thought. No one has a right to interdict beliefs, however absurd, if they are conscientiously held and do no harm to the rest of the community. I am by no means a believer in Spiritualism ; but if I were, and in con- sequence were compelled to endure social penalties, I should consider myself a confessor. HARRINGTON. But a confessor for what ? for Spiritualism, or for freedom of speculation ? In your reply to Arundel you adroitly contrived to confuse the main motive of the martyr- dom with incidental considerations not immediately pertaining to it. If a man is benighted enough to be ready to suffer for the sake of witchcraft, we cannot easily credit him with the enlightenment which could alone make Free- thought a pre- ponderating motive for self-denial. But all the special plead- ing in the world cannot make the real cause for which a man suffers anything else but a matter of profound importance. We cannot for a moment dispute the immense disparity, as to the moral value of the act, between a man who dies fighting in a drunken brawl, and the patriot who falls in defending his country. The test is the worth of the deed its ethical or other value to humanity not the persuasion of the doer. The Hindoo widow when she mounts the p3 7 re and sacrifices her life to her deceased husband, and Giordano Bruno when he goes manfully to the stake, are both animated by a principle of duty ; though, judged ab extra, and by high social and moral standards, one is an act of debasing superstition, the other of noble heroism. As to the relative merits of martyrs of reli- gion and those of Free-thought, they may, I think, be allocated in this way. All conscientious sufferers for what they be- lieve to be truth, leaving out fools and fanatics, are in reality e.g. Christian martyrs. Those who take part in producing their sufferings, no matter what their creed, are veritable Anti- christs. Thus Pope Clement VIII., with a few more of his Pontifical brethren, and Philip II., may be coupled with Nero 248 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. and Domitian ; while those holy butchers Torquemada and Sanseverina have their true prototypes in the executioners of the early Christians perhaps in the starved and raging beasts which devoured them in the Roman amphitheatre. Miss LEYCESTER. Romanism, if it were honest, ought to have two calendars of Confessors and Martyrs a Creditor and a Debtor calendar martyrs who suffered for Romanism, or for the spurious Christianity of which it is the development, and martyrs by Romanism. Perhaps it would not be prudent to ask which would be the longer ; and a close comparison of the two might be invidious ; but a list comprising such men as Paleario, Carnesecchi, Bruno, Galileo, Vico, Valdes, Campanella, Vanini, would require some strong names to match them. ARUNDEL. Cordially as we all detest religious tyranny and intolerance, we must, I think, confess there are precedents for it in nature. I was reading, the other day, of certain savages who, when a member of the tribe falls sick, gather about him and beat out his brains with their clubs. ' Behold,' I said to myself, ' a parallel to the fate of Bruno and Vanini.' Physical infirmities in the one case, and what are assumed to be mental diseases in the other, are both thought worthy of death, though it must be admitted the diagnosis of the latter is neither so easy nor certain as that of the former. TREVOR. A complimentary comparison, Arundel. The savages of the Fiji Islands (let us say) paralleled with supreme Pontiffs, Ecclesiastical Councils, and the Holy Office. But you might have penetrated still lower strata of the animal kingdom for precedents of that kind. Herds of wild animals will gather round a sick member and gore and trample it to death ; while bees will destroy every individual of a whole brood when born with an imperfect organization. It is merely the operation of the sublime law the survival of the fittest effected in this instance by means of their own exertions in murdering the unfit. An application of this principle of survivals to dog- matic development would be interesting both as regards indi- viduals and beliefs. Thus Arius must succumb while Athana- sius triumphs. Nestorius must suffer while Cyril remains dominant. Savonarola is burnt while Borgia survives as Giordano Bruno. 249 Pope. Bruno is martyred while Mocenigo and Sanseverina remain flourishing. Or, applying the principle to dogmas the Copernican system is suppressed, that the historical truth of the 1st chapter of Genesis may be saved. The numberless worlds of Bruno are tabooed, in order that the veracious doc- trines of purgatory, transubstantiation, the perpetual Vir- ginity of Mary may flourish in their stead. Miss LEYCESTEE. Well, we must not forget that doctrines or mental survivals, have the whole future in which to develop. With the leading thinkers of our own day the starry world of Bruno, e.g., is a much more indisputable truth than transubstantiation. In order to justify our appli- cation of the law of ' the survival of the fittest ' to dogmas, we ought to know what the ' survivals ' of 500 years hence are destined to be. HARRINGTON. What is remarkable in Bruno's countless worlds is the rapidity with which he evolved them from the newer astronomy. He made the Copernican system the Pegasus of transcendental idealism. Never was there a more abrupt transition from physics to metaphysics. The fact of the earth being a planet, and the existence of innumerable suns and planetary systems, was the Jacob's ladder by which he scaled, or tried to scale, infinity. Hence Bruno is the father of all modern idealists and pantheists ; beginning with Spinoza and ending with the latest development of Hegelianism. ARUNDEL. I confess it taxes my patience to observe how readily and ungratefully such idealists as a rule ignore the ordinary means and aids by which they have achieved their exalted position. They remind me of those unhappy wretches who having induced by opium smoking a condition of rapture, are inclined to regard their temporary exhilaration as if it were their normal state of existence, and ignore the material means of drug and pipe by which it was in reality produced ; or men who, by the help of ladders, having scaled some lofty tower, immediately proceed to thrust down their means of ascent, and rejoicing in their elevation, regard it as their natural destiny, and proceed to affirm the non-existence of all ladders. The question to ask in such a case is : either ladders 250 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. exist, or how came you there ? To the idealist the objection is fatal : your abstraction has been gained by means of concretes. The lowest rung of your metaphysical ladder is placed on Terra Firma. By no other means could you have attained your sublime and ethereal position. TREVOR. Not so fatal as you suppose. The idealist might say, what Plato and many of his disciples did say, that his sublime creations as you would call them, were not in reality originated by themselves ; but on the contrary were inborn or intuitive, all that their senses did being merely to call their attention to the fact. They might therefore plead that they knew nothing of concretes or of Terra Firma as starting points or conditions of knowledge. The inspired vision of the mystic is to him a much more infallible basis of conviction than his physical senses can be to the natural philosopher. Miss LEYCESTER. I think you are really too hard on Idealists, Mr. Arundel. For my part I quite sympathize with Bruno and his abstractions ; so far at least as I understand them. His ' Infinite ' and ' One ' I regard as a kind of intel- lectual crucible, or witches' cauldron, into which he threw all divisions, contradictions, mutations in time and space, what- ever, in short, conflicted with his philosophical sense of all- completeness and inclusiveness ; and in which, by the magic power of the fancy, they were transmuted and etherealized into the purest and most rarefied of all conceivable abstractions. In his case as in others, idealism is the imagination of philosophy, and it seems to me both arbitrary and unjust to exclude ' lovers of wisdom ' any more than poets and painters from weaving the web of a brightly coloured fancy. I can imagine philosophers getting just as tired of the poverty, monotony and slavish restrictions imposed on them by their senses, by the inevitable conditions of terrestrial existence, or by ordinary human opinion, as poets are supposed to be by their humble and prosaic surroundings. Why should not the philosopher in the words of Keats '. . . Let the winged Fancy wander Though the thought still spread beyond her.' TREVOR (with enthusiasm). "Well said, Miss Leycester. Giordano Bruno. 251 ' Oh, sweet Fancy, let her loose, Phenomena are spoilt by use. Where's the sense that doth not fade, Too much questioned ? Where's the . . .* (pauses suddenly.) HARRINGTON (laughing). Gro on, Doctor. You are leaving your adaptation at its most interesting point. I am anxious to hear what philosophical turn you can give to Keats' next enquiry. TKEVOR. The trochaics of Keats do not easily accommodate themselves to philosophy. Poetry, as you know, came into the field of language before philosophy, and appropriated all the simple and easy terms to her own use, leaving to her learned successor nothing but the dry stubble of the harvest. ARUNDEL. True, Doctor ; but please to remember that phi- losophy has made amends for her tardiness by taking measures to secure a private linguistic harvest of her own ; though, judging by the crop, I should not augur favourably of the seed. MRS. HARRINGTON. This comes of discussing a poet-philoso- pher like Bruno. You are all in danger of being carried away on the wings of imagination and similitude. In order to bring you down once more to the Terra Firma, which Mr. Arundel says is the starting-point of all idealism, allow me to ask what are the best authorities for Bruno's life. Charles gave Florence and myself a French work by M. Bartholmess to get up the subject ; telling us that it was good for the man and his character, but valueless for the events and dates of his life. TREVOR. I would not go so far as to say that Bartholmess is valueless for the events of Bruno's life ; though no doubt his dates are incorrect. The main incidents of Bruno's life have long been the common property of all his biographers who have studied his extant works, in which they are occasionally mentioned. Bartholmess's merit is to have done this with a fulness and exactitude which have been excelled by no writer on the subject. His work has also other claims on every student of Bruno. He writes in a tender sympathetic manner 252 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. of the poor martyr-philosopher, and yet does not allow com- miseration for his fate to warp his critical estimate of his teachings. He also possesses an enormous command of the literature German, Italian, Spanish and English, as well as his native French needed to elucidate the subject. That, in point of chronological correctness his work is inferior to that of Professor Berti, is not his own fault. The latter was fortunate enough to discover a quantity of documents, origi- nally belonging to the Archives of Venice, and which contain the various interrogatories to which Bruno was subjected before he was delivered by the authorities at Venice to the Inquisition at Rome. The most important discovery revealed by these precious records is the duration of Bruno's imprison- ment, which all his biographers had previously thought lasted for about two years, but which were really protracted for a period of eight years. If we could only obtain access to all the records of the Holy Office at Home, we should probably find other important documents, as well as seveia.1 of Bruno's lost works. But that is " a find " which I fear the history of modern philosophy is not destined to realize for some time. The Inquisition, like every vulgar murderer, is fully alive to the expediency of destroying or suppressing so far as possible, all records or mementoes by which its nefarious deeds might be brought to fuller light. To the discovery of the Venetian papers we must ascribe the suggestion of Professor Berti's work ; for he himself tells us that he would never have under- taken a task so well performed by Bartholmess, had it not been for the large fund of fresh information, including what might be called an autobiography of Bruno, which those docu- ments disclosed. Perhaps I ought, in enumerating original authorities, to add the name of Scioppius. This man was a pervert from Protestantism ; and like all perverts, a zealous enthusiast on behalf of his adopted faith. His testimony is of some importance in the case of Bruno ; for he was an eye- witness of his death. On the evening of the 17th of February, 1600, and not many hours after Bruno's ashes had been scattered to the winds, Scioppius wrote a full acount of the event to Conrad Rittershausen, a German friend. The letter Giordano Bruno. 253 is valuable for several reasons, as we shall find when we come to the last melancholy page of Bruno's life. Miss LEYCESTER. Melancholy, in one sense no doubt; but gloriously triumphant in another. Bruno, like Campanella and Vanini, seems to have foreseen the stake and the faggot as the probable, and even fitting, consummation of a life-long struggle against dogmatic intolerance and oppression. What to outsiders might well have appeared a lurid and terrible flame of punishment, those heroic spirits regarded but as the candle which lit them to bed. They manifest not only a contempt for torture, but even a kind of greediness of it such as we read of in early Christian martyrology. In the enthu- siasm of liberty they are like people intoxicated with an over- mastering passion, entirely insensible to bodily pain. I wonder, by the way, if this stern, earnestly thoughtful, intellectual face, prefixed to Bartholmess's Life and Wagner's Works, was really Bruno's: if so, one might easily comprehend his life, if not, in the sixteenth century, predict his death. TREVOR. I am sorry to say that the traditional portrait (of which you may see three different impressions in these books on the table) is not well authenticated. Professor Berti dis- trusts it, though all his researches have hitherto failed in discovering a more genuine likeness. He gives this description of Bruno : ' short in stature, agile in frame, of meagre body, a thin and pallid face, thoughtful expression ; a glance both piercing and melancholy ; hair and beard between black and chestnut ; a ready, rapid, imaginative tongue, accompanied by vivacious gestures, a manner courteous and gentle. Sociable, amiable and pleasant in conversation, like the Italians of the south ; adapting himself without difficulty to the tastes, usages and habits of another; open and candid, both with friends and foes, and as far from rancour, and revenge, as he was quickly moved to anger.' * The Professor adds in a note that this description does not fully harmonize with the tradi- tional portrait. I am inclined to differ from him on this point. Allowing a few years further thought and development to 1 Berti, Vita di Giordano Bruno, p. 296. 254 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. have passed over his head, deepening somewhat the lines in his face (for the portrait is evidently that of a young man), and adding the dark- brown beard of his later years, we shall have a very adequate representation of the lineaments and character Professor Berti has given us. HARRINGTON. But on what authority does this traditional portrait rest ? TREVOR. So far as I have been able to trace it, I find it first in Bixner and Siber's volume on Giordano Bruno, which forms part of their interesting collection: Leben und Lehr- meinungen beriihmter Physiker am Ende des XVI. und am Anfange des XVII. Jahrhunderts. This was published in 1824, and the authors tell us that they took the portrait from the ' interesting collection of Herr Wirthmann in Munich.' x The form of the likeness was small 8vo, and the name of the engraver was erased. They add that it probably was once a title plate to one of Bruno's works. We shall find that Bruno enjoyed considerable celebrity for some years both in Paris and London, which would make his portrait a matter of public interest. Some day, perhaps, the original engraving and date may be discovered. MRS. HARRINGTON. I have been trying to make out what dress Bruno is represented in, but have quite failed. TREVOR. That is the white cowl or hood of the Dominican order, a garment like the domino still worn in masquerades. At that time it was common both to laymen and clerics, whence the proverb ' the hood does not make the monk.' 2 Miss LEYCESTER. The more I gaze upon his noble but somewhat sad and stern face, 3 the more reason do I find for regarding it as an authentic likeness of Bruno. At least I should never give up this portrait, which I have long admired, 1 Rixner und Siber, Heft. v. p. iv. 2 Comp. Rixner und Siber, loc. cit., p. iv. 3 Mr. Maurice, in his Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy (Modern Part, p. 165), ascribes to his physical beauty some of the enormous influence which Bruno wielded. ' Grace and beauty of every kind speak to his soul, and exer- cise a dominion over him which one would fear must have often been too much for his judgment, and his loftier aspirations. His countenance testifies how mightily he must have been attracted, and how many he must have attracted.' Giordano Bruno. 255 for any other even though better authenticated, if the latter did not convey with equal distinctness my ideal of the man. Among my many notions which Charles there is pleased to call paradoxical, I entertain a strong feeling that the highest kind of portraiture is that which gives the man's mind, his intellect, his spiritual character ; unless the facial lineaments clearly and fully indicate this, I think their precise configu- ration a matter of secondary importance. A portrait should be a likeness of a man's soul, not merely of his body, as Napoleon once remarked to the painter David, ' No one cares whether the likeness of a great man resembles him or not, if only his spirit lives in it.' Hence all portrait-painters ought to have the fullest and most intimate acquaintance with their subject's mental characteristics, as well as the art of transferr- ing mind to canvass or paper. Of course every genuine artist should be both a philosopher and an idealist. ... I do not know a more painful disappointment than that which one feels when, after ideally constructing a likeness of some one of the world's greatest minds, we are shown as its authentic physical counterpart an ordinary expressionless face which perhaps does not suggest a single one of the attributes with which we have mentally invested it. I have never yet seen a single portrait of Shakespeare which at all conveys my notion of him. ARUNDEL. But suppose, Miss Leycester, that the subject of the portrait has no superior mental characteristics to boast of ; you would not, I presume, interdict the representation of homely features conjoined to qualities which, though just as ordinary, may to acquaintances and intimate associates be of sterling worth? Moreover Nature, in the manifold products of her laboratory, displays a capricious disregard of idealist notions and wishes. How often e.g. do the features of a man of genius suggest rather a commonplace character ; and on the other hand striking features are sometimes found allied with an ordinary or even inferior type of character. I know a remarkable instance in a clergyman of high social, but inferior intellectual status, who possesses all the external attributes of genius, but apparently none of its real properties. As a 256 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. mutual friend says of him, he always looks as if lie were on the point of saying or doing something wonderful, but it never comes. Miss LEYCESTER. Of course if a man has no great or strik- ing mental characteristics, and possesses no public but merely domestic virtues, he has no business to have his portrait published to the world. The world has no more concern with his face than it has with the quality of his clothes or the price of the tea he drinks. As to the statement that intellectual features are often found in combination with a commonplace character, I am not at all inclined to admit it. Men of real mental power cannot help betraying the fact in their physi- ogonomy. Such at least is my experience, judging from living men. HARRINGTON. To an idealist nothing is impossible. Take this portrait of Bruno for instance. The chief characteristics it suggests to me are audacity and determination. It is a vivid impersonation of the quality indicated by his favourite maxim Tu ne cede mails sed contra audentior ito.' If his features were not so refined I could imagine him a leader of Communists or Socialists. The face is that of a man at war with the convictions, laws, or social usages of the world. Hence your ideal portrait-painting, Florence, must needs be an art confined to yourself ; no one can possibly share in it. Your picture-gallery of the great minds of the world is solely and absolutely yours; and as such it is beyond both discussion and criticism. You conceive the lineaments ; you define, if definition can be used of such a process, the expres- sions ; you shape, contour, and no doubt modify them after your fancy ; you make the finished product when it is finished, for idealists who do not stereotype their creations on canvas or paper are perpetually remoulding, and recolouring their productions the representation of what you conceive to be striking qualities. But such a portrait, if made perceptible to others, might be far from resembling not only the particular individual it purported to depict, but every other man that ever lived. The reductio ad absurdum of your art would be Giordano Bruno. 257 achieved when you joined together a number of attributes and requested a painter to embody them in an ideal impersonation. Take Shakespeare, for instance, whose likeness you say you have never yet seen. You might give your enumeration of the qualities which you think compose his myriad-mindedness, to some great painter, and say, Paint me a vivid and life-like embodiment of all these varied attributes. Miss LEYCESTER. A proceeding of which I should take care not to be guilty, even if I could find a competent artist who would be willing to engage in such a task. I should fear the almost inevitable discrepancy between his creation and my own. As to such a commission being a reductio ad dbsurdum of idealism, my conceptions are formed in precisely the same way as all ideas are engendered, viz. by the plastic power of intellect or imagination. Every mind worthy of the name is an ideal picture gallery, the slow and sometimes expensive accumulation of much time and labour, possibly containing like all such collections, some few good pictures, together with a large proportion of rubbish ; but all so far valuable and unique that they bear the indelible impress of one's own individuality. The main difference between myself and other people is that they are ready to exchange at a moment's notice their idealizations, no matter how carefully constructed, for any realization submitted to them with some pretext of authority. Tell them, e.g. this is an undoubtedly authentic likeness of Shakspeare, or Bruno, or Augustine, or any other of the world's worthies, and they immediately hasten to remove their own mental creation, perhaps the most valuable in their whole gallery, in order to make room for the new comer. Now this sacrifice of mind to matter, of faith to sight, I am only willing to make when the visible picture is, as is this traditional Bruno-likeness, the best conceivable rendering of my conception of the man's spiritual qualities. An ideal truth, or what appears such to you, is greatly preferable to an actuality which you are not only unable to approve, but which is directly opposed to your most cherished convictions. My experience has long taught me that artistic realism fre- quently serves the confiding idealist the trick of ' old lamps for VOL. I. 258 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. new. For myself I know the wonderful virtues of the ' old lamp,' and I decline to make the exchange. MRS. HARRINGTON. We are, I think, wandering somewhat from Bruno. Among other qualities, his portrait suggests to me the idea of a man fated to die a martyr's death, as Lavater is said to have remarked of Vandyke's likeness of Charles I. After all, the crown and halo of martyrdom are not the un- meaning insignia which some people suppose. Who would not rather have been Bruno, even with that hour of excruciat- ing agony, than his judges and executioners, destined to the eternal execration of all tolerant and Christ- like minds. HARRINGTON. Natural as may be our feelings of anger and disgust at such inhuman and intolerant proceedings as the martyrdom of Bruno, they ought not, I think, to be totally devoid of pity for the poor misguided wretches who could so far misinterpret the spirit and life of Christianity. To expend unconditional, or perpetual, hatred on deeds motived by pro- found ignorance, and a perverted conception of duty, seems to me unjust. A court of the Inquisition, sentencing a heretic to torture and death, I place in the same category as a secular court of the same period gravely deliberating on the character- istics of witchcraft, and committing perhaps some tender and delicate woman, like La Esmeralda of Victor Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris, to the rack, and the stake or gibbet. I at least strive, though not always successfully, to share the mournful calm with which a similar mockery of justice and humanity is contemplated by Christ. ' The days will come when whoso- ever killeth you will think that he doeth God service, but these things will they do unto you because they have not known the Father nor Me.' Trevor then began his paper : v v $ In the century that elapsed between Pomponazzi and Bruno, momen- tous changes were taking place in the mental history of Italy. Partly these were continuations of the intellectual movements we have ex- amined on former occasions, partly the result of fresh motive forces. As to the first, the general progress of the Renaissance, which we saw in full flow during the former epoch, may be said to have reached, for the time, its greatest height ; and in Italy to betray some symptoms of Giordano Bruno. 259 retreating. But in other countries France, Germany, England the tidal wave is still acquiring greater volume and momentum, besides imparting a reciprocal reflex agitation to the impulse which first put it in motion ; just as the wave circlets, when a stone is thrown into a pond, reach the shore, and then run back to their primal centre of motion. The opposition to Aristotle and scholasticism, of which we have seen traces in Ockam, Petrarca and Pomponazzi, continues to be asserted by the free spirits of Prance and Italy as an essential pre- requisite of philosophic freedom. The German Reformation, though its leaders are now disappearing from the scene, is still further extend- ing its influence. It is the fortune of Bruno to come in successive contact with the three chief types of sixteenth-century Protestant- ism. 1 As Englishmen, we have no cause for self-congratulation in his experience that Wittenberg was more favourable than Oxford to freedom of thought ; and, as Protestants, we may admit that its various systems, and the characters it sometimes evolved, gave too much room for Bruno's nicknaming Reformers, Deformers. One effect of this increasing development of Free-thought, both religious and secular, was to add a new source of suspicion and terror to the hierarchy of the Romish Church. Proscription and per- secution took the place of the half contemptuous, half sympathetic toleration of Free-thought, which marked the leaders of the Church in the preceding century. The enthusiasm with which classical Re- vivalism was first received by liberal and enlightened Romanists, died away, as its effects on the creed and polity of the Church began to be more fully developed and appreciated. The formation of the Jesuits and other religious bodies, designed to counteract the floods of heresy and Free-thought which were spreading over Europe, and to institute a new and more vigorous propaganda than Romanism had ever yet attempted, was a proof that a reaction against liberal culture had set in and added a new element of danger to Free-thinkers. Our subject presents us with one victim of this ecclesiastical alarm and intoler- ance ; and we shall shortly have another before us, in Vanini. The growth of the sympathy with and affection for Nature, the commencement of which we have already noticed, is another prominent feature of the period we are about to consider. This is only another mode of affirming the continued development of the Naturalism we have already noticed ; and which was partly the cause, partly the effect, of the decline of ecclesiastical influence which constituted the chief feature of the Italian Renaissance. But in the fifteenth century this Naturalism assumes a broader and more multiform character. 1 I.e. Calvinism at Geneva, Lutheranism at "Wittenberg, and Anglicanism at Oxford and London. 26o The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. Nature is not now regarded, as it was by Petrarca and succeeding poets, from a merely aesthetic point of view as an object of wonder and admiration a fitting subject for picturesque word-painting and tender, graceful poetry ; nor only as by Boccaccio and other Free-thinkers, as a standard for human conduct a plea for genuine liberty to be sub- stituted for the depraved morals and excessive licence of the Church ; nor again was it contemplated only from a theological point of view, whether as represented by the pantheism of Nicolas of Cusa and others, or by the natural theology of Raymund of Sabiende, or by the theo?ophy and magic of such men as Telesius and Cardan. Thinkers were now coming to regard Nature not as a divinity, to be distantly contemplated and reverently worshipped, but as an object of investigation and research not as a verbal abstraction, but as an assemblage of numerous allied concretes, each inviting, to a certain extent, experiment and analysis. In other words, Nature hitherto conjoined with poetry, theology, theosophy and magic, is now becoming allied with experimental science. It is this alliance, recognized almost simultaneously by leading thinkers in France, Germany and England, as well as in Italy, that I have termed the newer motive force by which Bruno was stirred. 1 The earliest experimental science in Italy was the legitimate new birth of the bastard science Astrology. Our subject was among the first who comprehended the enormous import, not only for science, but for theology, of the Coperni- can system. It is not too much to say that it completely inverted the relative positions hitherto maintained of earth and heaven. All former systems had declared the earth to be the centre of the universe, not only in astronomy, but in philosophy and theology as well. Now the earth was reduced to a secondary and tributary position. The degradation could hardly have been pleasing to those who had arro- gated to themselves excessive earthly dominion ; and who had affirmed the supposed centre of the universe to contain central and universal beliefs for every portion of its unbounded circumference. The states- men and functionaries of a power suddenly reduced from absolute supremacy to subjection, must of course share the degradation of their state ; and the fates of Bruno, Galileo and Campauella, not to mention numerous predecessors and successors, attest the fearful vengeance which such officials would be prepared to exact from the authors of a change so ruinous to themselves. Such was the intellectual environment into which Giordano Bruno was born. We shall find that his imagination, and many-sided intel- lectual sympathies reflect every phase of the great mental movements of his time ; excepting the superstitious reverence for antiquity which 1 Cf. Libri, Ilittoire des Sciences Matliematiques in Italic, vol. iv. p. 28, etc. Giordano Bruno. 261 still characterized some Italian humanists. The pantheistic teach- ings of Avicenna and Cardinal de Cusa the skeptical teaching of the latter, and generally of all the leading spirits of the Italian Renaissance the hostility to Aristotelianism and scholasticism of Petrarca the varied study of Nature initiated by different schools of prior speculation the mystical superstition of Rayrnund Lulli all find a place and an eager response in the large intellect and fervid imagination of Bruno. Hence few thinkers can be named whose works and speculations cover so large a chronological area. On the one hand, his thoughts stretch themselves into the darkness of the middle ages ; on the other hand, they embrace some of the latest phases of German transcendentalism. No other fifteenth-century thinker has sown a harvest which is not all housed even in our day ; and the abundant gleanings of which will no doubt occupy kindred spirits for centuries to come. Bruno was born at Nola in 1548 or 1550; of noble lineage, say both Bartholmess and Berti ; of poor parents, rejoin other biographers. 1 The former is, I think, the more probable, though the matter is of no great consequence ; and it is not the only point in Bruno's life which we must leave in uncertainty. The house in which he was brought up was situate at the foot of Mount Cicala, 2 noted for its wine, its fertility and genial climate. There he was probably also born ; but that we have no means of ascertaining. His father's name was Giovanni, and his profession a soldier ; his mother's name was Fraulissa Savolina. His own baptismal name was Filippo, which he changed into Giordano when he assumed a religious habit. 3 The natural environment of the young child curiously corresponds with his disposition and his destiny in after life. Bartholmess indeed ap- plies the maxim of Tasso, ' La Terra . . . Simili a sfe gli abitator, produce,' to all the inhabitants of the district round Nola and Naples. The soil of Nola,' he says, ' is volcanic, as is its atmosphere, its water, its black and thick wine, which has the significant name of Mangia guerra ' (the Fire-eater). 4 However true this may be of the general population of Naples, it certainly is true of more than one eminent name connected with the district. In ditferent degrees it is true of Vanini, Valdes, Telesius, Campanella and Ochino, but truest of all of Giordano Bruno. 5 His excitable disposition, fervid imagination, un- 1 B -rti, p. 36, note 2. 2 Op. Ital., ii. p. 152 ; Barti, Vila, p. 37. 3 Berti, Vita, p. 35. 4 Bartholmess, i. p. 26. 5 Cf. Berti, Vita, p. 41, who says that in Nola, of all the cities of Magna Graecia, the culture and general refining influences of the Greek-Latin civiliza- 262 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. tiring restlessness, may well be called volcanic ; while his works, poured forth under the influence of intense feeling, and carrying de- struction to much of the assumed learning, and settled convictions of the time, may be likened to so many streams of lava. Of his youth we know scarce anything reliable ; nothing more, in fact, than the occasional retrospect which he furnishes in later works, especially in the Venetian documents published by Berti. Two pro- minent characteristics marked it. (1) A strong feeling for Nature, and an imaginative interpretation of her facts and processes. (2) A skeptical distrust of his senses ; and probably of some of the beliefs which were sought to be impressed on his youthful intellect. With these germs of Free-thought was combined, somewhat later, a dread of, and contempt for, political tyranny and ambition, and an unquench- able thirst for freedom the natural product of the scenes of cruelty and oppression which marked the government of Naples in those days. 1 Where Bruno acquired his early education we are not told. Pro- bably in the school of some convent, either in Nola or in the imme- diate neighbourhood ; but at the age of ten or eleven years, having perhaps exhausted these educational resources, he departed for Naples to complete his education in logic and humane letters. As the next step in his career, we hear of his entering the convent of St. Domenico Maggiore in Naples. 2 The motives which induced him to take this step are not easy to ascertain. The only openings for ambitious young men in the Naples of the sixteenth century were the army, the law, and the Church. Bruno's preference for the last may have been dictated by his love of learned leisure and contempla- tion. 3 This was no doubt the motive which actuated so many of the thinkers of that period to join one or other of the monastic orders. Telesius e.g. early retired into a convent of Benedictines ; and Cam- panella, his more famous pupil, became a member of the Dominican tion were most powerful. What is more remarkable, on the common theory which makes Bruno the father of modern Idealism, is that its birthplace was so near the native home of Greek Idealism the far-famed Elea which gave to Greek philosophy Xenophanes, Parmenides and Zeno. This local connexion with some of the greatest thinkers of antiquity was duly prized by Bruno, who frequently dwells with complacency on the similarity of his speculations to those of the Eleatics (Comp. Bartholmess, ii. p. 310). See also a work on this very subject that has recently appeared, DeW Essere e del Conoscere, studi su Parmenide Platone e Rosmini di Giuseppi Burom. Torino 1878. 1 On the state of Naples in Bruno's youthful days, compare Bartholmess, i. p. 27, etc. 2 This is still one of the most remarkable religious houses in Naples. See Prof. Berti's description, p. 48. 3 Eroici Furori, op. Ital., Ed. Wagner, ii. p. 313. Giordano Bruno. 263 order. Besides, Bruno's instructors from his earliest years had been the monks ; and it is not wonderful if they imbued his young mind with a liking for their own profession. Professor Berti supposes that the fame and influence of Aquinas in Naples may also have contri- buted somewhat to his decision, as it did to the similar resolve of Campanella. 1 Not the least remarkable feature in Bruno's conduct, so far as we are now able to judge it, is his choice of the Dominican order as his own; for, as Bartholmess reminds us, this order, together with the Augustins, was particularly commissioned to use its utmost efforts to extinguish the new lights of Protestantism and Free-thought. The irony of human destiny certainly seems to have presided at the admission of the freest thinker of the thirteenth century into the ranks of the Obscurants (obscuri viri). Bruno's cloistral existence has received important elucidations from the Venetian documents. It comprehended altogether a period of thirteen years. The date of his full orders as priest is given as 1572. 2 But, previous to his taking this final step, Bruno's intellect had begun to display those qualities which made him one of the greatest philosophers of the Italian Renaissance ; or rather the restlessness, independence of thought and vigorous imagination, which marked even his childhood, began to assert them- selves with increasing vigour and persistency. All his biographers are agreed, and it is itself transparently obvious, that Bruno was utterly unsuited for a monastic life. The first and chief quality of the monk is submission; and intellectual submission was a duty which Bruno was utterly incapable of understanding, and therefore quite incompetent to render. During the thirteen years of his cloister life no less than two processes were issued against him for open and avowed heresy for his was not the mutely secretive nature which could meditate and doubt in silence. We see therefore that his education, though conducted by Dominicans, was by no means a passive and obsequious receptivity. He might have said of his train- ing in the words of an English poet, to whom he bears no small degree of similarity, I mean Shelley : ' . . . From that hour did I with earnest thought Heap knowledge from forbidden mines of lore, 1 Campanella, De propriis Libris, Art. I. 2 Berti, Fito, p. 50, who gives the chronology of Bruno's cloister life as follows : 1563, Assumes the religious dress. 1564. Profession. 1569, Sub-deacon. 1570, Deacon. 1572, Priest. 264 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. Yet nothing that my tyrants knew or taught I cared to learn, but from that secret store Wrought linked armour for my soul, before It might walk forth to war among mankind.' l The dogmas against which Bruno's youthful but precocious intellect first stumbled were those of the Trinity, Transubstantiation and the Immaculate Conception. These would seem to have come into direct conflict with the opinions he had already formed as to the unvarying law and order of all natural processes, as well as with the spiritual idealistic character of his general mode of thought. Other and extraneous causes also conspired to force these subjects on Bruno's attention. The kingdom of Naples in the sixteenth century was famous for its Anti-trinitarianism. It was the home of Socinus, Ochino, Vermigli, and other Protestants of a more or less Free-think- ing type. The different modes of interpreting the doctrine formed, we are told, a favourite topic of conversation in Neapolitan convents and monasteries. In the spacious garden walks and secluded arbours of the convent of St. Domenico Maggiore the subject was no doubt frequently debated by Bruno and his brother monks. Throughout his life he was passionately fond of controversy ; and was accustomed to put forth his views freely and without reserve. The persuasion that truth must be the outcome of all full and impartial discussion was as deeply engrained in his mind as in that of Milton. 2 The freedom of his Trinitarian speculations, and what to the hyper-sensitive ears of his brethren sounded like an indirect defence of Arianism, subjected him to the charge of heresy. Whatever may have been Bruno's exact views on the subject at this early period of his life, both his own confession and the direction of his subsequent intellectual develop- ment combine to assure us that they were considerably removed from the narrow path of orthodoxy. He refused to allow in God any other distinction but the rational or logical one of His own attributes. In the person of the Son he recognized the intellect of the Father, and in that of the Holy Grhost, the Father's Love, or the Soul of the universe. As he held that the Divinity by its infinite nature could not be joined 1 Revolt of Islam, Dedic. v. 3 'Egli,' says Prof. Berti of Bruno, 'e pieno di fede nel trionfo della verita, nonostante la guerra accanita che a lei muovono i genii maligni, nonostante che egli sia lasciato solo sulla breccia a pugnare.' Vita, p. 200. The English reader need hardly be reminded of the noble confidence in the inherent sove- reignty of truth which marks Milton's Areopayitica. ' Though all the winds of Doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously ... to misdoubt her strength. Let her and falsehood grapple, who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter ? ' Areopagitica, Prose Works, Bohn's Ed., ii. p. 96. Giordano Bruno. 265 with the finite nature of humanity, his speculations on the Trinity induced him to deny the doctrine of the Incarnation, 1 at least in the grossly materialistic sense in which it had been affirmed by the mediaeval Church. The name of Person he declared inapplicable both to the Son and to the Holy Ghost ; and he further based his rejection of it on St. Augustine, who admitted that the term was not ancient, but novel and of his own time. 2 Such were the thoughts and specu- lations of the young idealist on the most profound of all mysteries. Whatever their intrinsic value or demerit, we must acknowledge their complete congruity with the theories and conclusions of his later life. The first process to which Bruno was subjected occurred during his Noviciate, and was undertaken by the master of the Novices. His second process befell him after he was in fall orders, and was insti- gated by the Father Provincial. 3 The former transgression might have been regarded by the authorities as an ebullition of youthful waywardness. The latter was more serious, as the lapse of a heretic, already once arraigned if not convicted. The inculpated opinions, moreover, affected dogmas which, though not found in the actual teaching of Christ, the Church had long declared to be of supreme importance. Bruno recognized the danger. He departed secretly from his beloved Naples, never more to see it ; and took the road to Home, where he arrived in 1576. But he was not allowed to escape thus easily. His superiors, with the keen dogmatic apprehension of bigots, which is often in exactly inverse ratio to their dull intellectual comprehension, had clearly discovered Bruno's abilities. Even had they not ascertained the weakness of some of the links in his chain of dogmas, his originality and independence of mind would have sufficed to stamp him as ' dangerous.' Accordingly, Bruno had not been long at Rome before he learnt that the process he had left behind was soon 1 Berti, Vita, p. 56. 2 Ibid., p. 56, note 2. The passage to which Bruno referred is probably from Book vii. of the De Trinitate. ' Hoc utcumque simile est quia et veteres qui latine locuti sunt, antequam haberent ista nomina (scilicet personarum vel substantiarum), quae non diu est nt in usum venerunt, pro his naturam dice- bant.' August., Op. om., Par. 1694, vol. ii. p. 852. 8 The ostensible causes of these process is are described by Bruno in words which strikingly exemplify the atmosphere of suspicion and repression which pervaded a mediaeval convent : ' A Napoli era stato processato duo volte, prima per haver dato via certe figure e irnagini de Santi, e ritenuto un crucefisso solo, essendo per questo imputato de sprezzar le imagini de Santi, e anco per haver detto a un novitio che leggeva la historia delle sette alegrezze in versi, che cosa voleva far di quel libro, che lo gettasse via, e leggesse piu presto qualche altro libro, come e la vita de Santi Padri 1 Document!, vii., Berti, Vita, etc., pp. 341-2. 266 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. to follow him. Indeed, his case had assumed a worse aspect since he left Naples; for among the personal effects he abandoned in his hurried flight, his enemies discovered certain books of Jerome and Chrysostom which had been prohibited, as annotated by the heretic Erasmus. 1 This secret intelligence alarmed Bruno, who took an early opportunity of quitting Rome, having first divested himself of his friar's habit, and again assumed his baptismal name of Philip. Professor Berti thinks that his flight may have been accelerated by witnessing the abjuration of Carranza, 2 Archbishop of Toledo, and of Bruno's own order of Dominicans, who had ventured to protest against the worship of images and other doctrines of Romanism, as human inventions. However this may be, Bruno directed his steps to Genoa. Here he established a school for boys ; and also commenced private readings with a few adult pupils of the better class, on the Sphere, i.e. Celestial Geography. He also wrote a treatise on that subject which is now lost, as well as another work also lost, which seems to have borne some resemblance in style and subject to his later Dialogues. This production was called Noah's Ark. 3 It was probably during this period that Bruno pursued those studies of the Copernican astronomy which he afterwards incorporated into his system. He did not re- main long in Genoa : some unknown reason, perhaps the unsatis- factory nature of his surroundings, or his own inborn restlessness, impelled him to recommence his wanderings. He repaired first to the small sea-port Savona; and from thence to Turin. There his arrival chanced to be about the same time that Tasso paid his memor- able visit to that town, ' a broken down and prematurely aged man, sorrow in his heart, disease in his limbs, and rags on his back, and was imprisoned by the Turin authorities on suspicion of being infected with the plague.' Professor Berti has a brief contrast of the different dispositions and destinies of the two men, Tasso a Christian and poet of the Cross, Bruno opposed to every religious symbol. The former, wearied and disillusionized with the world, ends his days in the retire- ment of a convent. The latter, starting from a convent, dies on the scaffold, with eyes averted from the crucifix. 1 Comp. Berti, Vita, p. 56, note 2. 2 For some account of this confessor to Protestantism, see Berti, Vita, p. 57, note 2. Fuller information may be found in De Castro, Historia de los Protes- tants Espagnoles, pp. 192-242; Cesare Cantu, Gli Eretici ci' Italia, ii. p. 324, etc.; Llorente, Histoire de V Inquisition, iii. 183-315. 8 Professor Berti thinks that this work, L 1 area di Noe, which was dedicated to Pope Pius V., consisted of a symbolical representation of human society by means of the animals collected in the ark. It is easy to see what scope such a subject afforded for Bruno's imagination, as well as for his humour and Giordano Bruno. 267 Bruno tells us that he did not find Turin to his satisfaction. He therefore left it and came to Venice. Here he wrote another work, The Signs of the Times, which he submitted before publication to a learned and pious Dominican who enjoyed high esteem in Venice. As the work met with his approval, there was probably nothing in it very startling or contrary to the received tenets of Romanism. This work is not alluded to in Bruno's subsequent writings. After a stay of two months he left Venice and came to Padua. Here he fell in with certain former acquaintances of his own order, who urged on him the expediency of again adopting the Dominican habit with- out re-entering the order. This appears to have been no uncommon custom in those days, when we are told that in Italy were some 40,000 monks who lived outside their convents. Bruno did not follow the advice then ; but he did so shortly after, as we shall learn. From Padua he journeyed to Brescia, where a curious event befel him. A certain monk had suddenly and unexpectedly become a prophet, a great theologian, and skilful in languages. His companions, ascrib- ing such unwonted erudition to diabolical influences, shut the poor man in prison. Bruno relates, sarcastically, that he cured the man of his acute attack of learning, and restored him to his former asinine condition, by means of a draught which purged his melancholic humours. During a short visit to Bergamo, Bruno again adopted the Dominican habit, and wore on it his scapular, which he had carefully preserved. The incident is worth a passing notice as a proof, which may be extended to his after life, that he had no wish, and saw no necessity to openly sever himself from his religious order. Bruno's next remove was to Milan, where he probably made the acquaintance of Sir Philip Sidney, whom he afterwards knew under brighter auspices in England. From Milan he once more returned to Turin ; and from thence he crossed the Alps and came to Chambery. His first plan was to pursue his road to Lyons ; but hearing an indifferent account of French convents, he altered his mind, and arrived at Geneva in the year 1576. ' The tracks of many proscribed teachers,' says Bartholmess, ' led Bruno to Geneva.' No doubt the Swiss state had afforded a welcome sanctuary to independent thinkers. As such it was a ' colluvies hsereticorum ' to the Romanist, and the Canaan of Protestants. But the genuine sympathies of Geneva were, as Bruno soon experienced, as narrowly exclusive in one direction as those of extreme Romanism in another. Bartholmess says, 1 ' The two Churches were governed by the same principle of jurisdiction the criminality of heresies. 1 Vol. i. p. 59. 268 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. Whoever believed wrongly, that is to say, otherwise than the Holy Office or the Venerable Consistory, believed nothing; and he who believed not, committed the crime of treason to God, and deserved capital punishment. Persecution hence became a sacred duty, an act agreeable to God. The greater its intolerance the greater its value.' We shall presently see, in the case of Ramus, something of this intolerance on the part of Theodore Beza. Indeed, that great reformer was convinced that the toleration of alien, i.e. un-German opinions was nothing less than a devilish dogma (diabolicum dogma). A Church administered on these principles was not likely to prove a haven of rest to our unquiet and free-spirited philosopher. It seems probable that Bruno had for some reason misapprehended the nature of Genevan freedom ; for according to his own statement his chief motive in coming thither was a wish ' to live quietly and securely.' Such was his answer to a famous Neapolitan refugee of high standing in Geneva (Caracciolo Marquis of Vico ] ), who sought him a few days after his arrival, for the purpose of ascertaining his religious opinions, and his reasons for coming to the head quarters of Calvinism. The measure of religious liberty he was likely to enjoy there was foreshadowed in this interview, which must have opened his eyes to the fact that the Inquisition of the Holy Office was not the only court of the kind in Christendom. The propriety of becoming a disciple of John Calvin was im- mediately urged on him. On Bruno's excusing himself, the suggestion was proffered that he had better put off his Dominican habit and dress like a layman. This he was enabled to do by the efforts of a few Italian refugees, who clubbed together to procure him a suit of clothes, with a sword, etc. For the space of two and a half months Bruno obtained a precarious livelihood by correcting for the press, living all the while quite aloof from the narrow and bigoted society 1 Galeazzo Caracciolo was one of the most remarkable converts to Calvinism in the sixteenth century. The only son of one of the noblest families in Naples, the nephew of a Pope (Paul IV.), the darling child of his father, who cherished on his behalf the most ambitious views, the husband of a noble and wealthy lady. The father of six children, Chamberlain at the Court of Naples, Cavalier of the Empire, in which his father held a distinguished position, the idol of his many and influential friends, he forsook all his honours and emoluments, abandoned his parents, wife and children, all of whom he tenderly loved, surrendered his brilliant prospects, and fled to Geneva and Calvin in in 1551, being at the time only thirty-five years of age, Few biographies of the period are more interesting ; and few it may be added exhibit more pain- fully the mischievous effects of a perverted view of religious duty. Cf. Birti, p. 98, note 2. C. Cantu, Gli Eretici d" 1 Italia, ii. p. 11. Herzog, Seal EncyldopUdie, vol. ii., voce Caraccioli. Giordano Bruno. 269 of Geneva. At the end of that period, finding the alternative of starvation or an open profession of Calvinism staring him in the face, he took his leave, quietly, and started for Lyons. Such was the first of several experiences of Protestant liberty which induced him to regard the Reformation as a deformation. At Lyons Bruno stayed only ten or twelve days. He next turned his steps to Toulouse. Professor Berti supposes that Bruno might here have come in contact with Sanchez, who settled in Toulouse, according to my calculations, in the very year of Bruno's arrival thither. Neither of the two skeptics seems to have mentioned the other ; though they had not a few opinions in common as well as a large fund of general sympathy for intellectual and spiritual freedom. Here Bruno applied for the place of Ordinary Reader of Philosophy in the university. But in order to obtain it he was compelled to undergo an examination for a Doctor's degree. He did so; and, vanquishing his competitors re- ceived the appointment ; thus becoming by dint of superior abilities and erudition a professor in the second university of France, where, as Professor Berti remarks, he was quite unknown. Bruno b )gan lecturing on the De Anima of Aristotle ; a subject which aforded free play for the particular bent of his studies, and was probably employed for inculcating indirectly some of the principles of his Pantheistic Idealism. The topic was further suitable on account of its popularity. We have seen l how the Immortality of the Soul was the great theme of controversy in the preceding century. Though the interest it then excited had now begun to wane it was still a prominent subject of debate in Italian and French seats of learning. For the next two years Bruno continued to lecture at Toulouse. During this time he wrote several works, one on the the soul the subject of his early lectures which is lost Probably its contents are, as Professor Berti surmises, to be found in the third part of his treatise De umbris idearum. He also wrote the first of his many works on the mystical philosophy of Raymund Lulli, which is also lost. Besides his literary and professorial work he held public disputations, after the fashion of the time, on certain propositions or theses, which he announced from time to time as being prepared to defend against all comers. But notwithstanding the publicity of his teachings it does not appear that Bruno was subjected to harsh treatment at Toulouse. It is true that he classes this city with Oxford and Paris as places where he had to encounter the fury of scholasticism, 2 and Bartholmess, with his paucity of materials, infers 1 See Chapter on Pomponazzi, above, p. 197, and compare Berti, Vita, p. 114. * ' Scholasticum f urorem.' Op. Lat., p. 624. 270 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. from these words that Bruno was compelled to make a hasty flight from Toulouse to escape the fate of Vauini and a few more martyrs of free-thought, who had fallen, or were destined to fall, victims to its notorious intolerance. 1 But the enmity he thus mentions, as having stirred among schoolmen and Peripatetics, was probably confined to a small circle, for we now know that Bruno's stay in Toulouse extended to two years and six months (not a few months only, as Bartholmess supposed) ; and that he departed thence of his own free will. More- over on his removal to Paris in 1579, the fame he had acquired by his Toulouse teachings, and the letters of recommendation he took with him from that seat of learning, enabled him to introduce himself to the city and university of Paris under very favourable auspices ; for he tells us that his Doctor's degree, and his appointment as Ordinary Lecturer in the former university, gave him the privilege of teaching publicly in the university of the capital. 2 For the first year after his arrival at Paris Bruno took no part in public teaching; being probably deterred by the plague which then ravaged the city. Several of his books were however written about this time; and perhaps formed the occupation of that leisure interval. But Bruno was not a mere student philosopher. The life of the recluse thinker was irksome to him. He craved the open arena of free teaching and discussion interchange of thought with the world's foremost thinkers. This constituted in his case, as in that of Lessing, the very oxygen of his intellectual being. He accordingly began teaching on his own private account in the Sorbonne, in order, as he says, to bring himself to notice. ' Bruno was,' says Professor Berti, 3 ' the genuine type, the true ideal of the free professor of those times. In Toulouse, Paris, London, Oxford, Wittenberg, Prague, Zurich, Frankfort, he mounted the professor's rostrum, and lectured, without asking the protection or favour of any one. He goes from one university to the next, he opens one school against another ; and when he encounters an obstacle, as he does at Marburg, he scornfully turns his steps in another direction. . . . Happily,' continues the Professor, ' the university in those days was not as yet guarded, confined, the fief of a privileged few. Bruno and others like him could enter it freely, could challenge its professors to single combat, and could lecture and dispute before scholars assembled from every 1 Cf. the next chapter on Vanini, and on Sanchez see the Skeptics of the French Renaissance. 2 It is unfortunate that in his picturesque chapter on Bruno, Mr. G. H. Lewes still adheres mainly to the narrative of Bartholomess. Hence his account of Bruno is sorely deficient in chronological exactness. See Hist, of Philosophy, Edition iii., vol. ii. p. 91. 3 Vita, p. 121. Giordano Bruno. 271 part of Europe. Thus were developed, by intellectual gymnastics and emulation, those strong and laborious teachers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, to whom modern nations are indebted for their literary and scientific advancement. Lecturing at the Sorbonne, it was natural that Bruno should select a theological subject. He chose the thirty divine attributes contained in the first part of the Summa of Aquinas. This theme allowed considerable scope for the discussion of a semi-Pantheistic theology, of which no doubt Bruno availed himself ; nor is this, as we already know, the only instance in which the wide intellectual success, the combined originality and profundity of the angel of schools found a sympathetic appreciation at the hands of philosophic Free-thinkers. His lectures, or it may have been notes of them, Bruno subsequently published under the title of Dei Predicamenti di Dio. By means of these and similar public teachings, Bruno's fame extended to the court of Henri III., where Italians were at that time in especial favour. The king is said to have expressed a wish to know Bruno ; and, having made his acquaintance, consulted him on a subject of a Memoria Technica, which he professed to teach on the principles of Lulli's philosophy. As a token of the royal favour, Bruno was offered an Ordinary Lectureship in the university of Paris, which he refused on the ground of the obligation it entailed of attending mass. Some writers have thought that Bruno's refusal on this ground must have exposed him to the hazard of martyrdom ; but in the comparatively peaceful circumstances of Prance and Paris in 1580-81, he ran no present risk of coming in contact with the fearful alternative, ' Le Messe ou la Mort.' When he was subsequently offered a chair as extraordinary reader in philosophy, which was free from this obligation, Bruno accepted it. In return for the king's favour he dedicated to him his treatise, De umbris idearum, which contains the germs of his system, he also published a satire, Cantu Circeo, and a book written to elucidate and simplify Lulli's Art, but which a modern reader must admit stands itself in need both of elucidation and simplification. Bruno's successful lectures, court patronage, and influential society, made his first residence in Paris an agreeable episode in his career, and it was gratefully remembered by him in after life. At the end of 1583 Bruno came to England. He brought with him letters of introduction from Henri III. to the French ambassador at the court of Elizabeth. This was Castelnuovo di Mauvissiere, an Berti, p. 128. 3 ' De compendiosa architecture et complemente Artis Lulli.' 272 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. enlightened, tolerant, and generous man. He welcomed Bruno with great cordiality, and made him reside as a private gentleman in his own house. This was by far the happiest period in Bruno's life. He now enjoyed for the first time the libertas philosophandi 1 a formula he is said to have originated while, of the thing so defined, he certainly is, in Europe, one of the earliest and freest exponents. He could write and publish his philosophical works without let or hindrance. Enjoying the personal friendship of Castelnuovo, living on terms of affectionate intimacy with his family, preserving withal so much of his old independence that he was not even expected to attend mass, though -the ambassador and his household were ex- tremely punctilious in their devotional duties, Bruno had most of his time at his own command, and was able to pursue his studies without being harassed by the fear of poverty or the necessity of earning his bread. It is no marvel, says Professor Berti, if he called Castelnuovo his defence, his only refuge ; and that in gratitude for the manifold favours of being housed, nourished, defended, freed, preserved in safety, he dedicated to him four of his writings, in order to proclaim to the world that to his patron alone is due, ' that the new-born philosophy of the Nolan muse is not dead amidst its swaddling-clothes.' As it was, ' the offspring of the Nolan muse ' during this period was both numerous and robust, and attained an early and flourishing maturity. Some of Bruno's chief works were written and published while enjoying the dignified leisure of Castelnuovo's hospitality. 2 Nor was Bruno's undoubted genius for verbal discussion allowed to remain idle. The house of the French ambassador was the resort of a select few of the best contemporary representatives of English culture. There Bruno met Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Fulke Greville, Dyer, Harvey, the poet Spenser, Temple the translator of Ramus's Dialectic, and others who took an interest in literature and philosophy. In this congenial society the opinions 1 ' Libertas philosophical Bruno, de Lampade conibinatoria. Op. Lat., Ed. Gfrorer, p. 624. " La liberta filosqfica, questa frase che egli adopera forse per il primo tra gli scrittori a lui coevi, significava un concetto quanto novo per il tempo tan to famigliare e commune per il Bruno, cioe, che la filosofia, la scienza non era sindacabile." Berti, p. 211. Bartholmess, i. p. 153, note 2. 2 They are thus enumerated by Berti, p. 185 : 1. Explicata triginta sigillorum, etc., dedicated to Castelnuovo. 2. La Cena delle Ceneri ,, 1584. 3. De la Causa, principio et uno 1584. 4. De I 1 Infinite, universe e mondi 1584. 5. Spaccio de la Bestia trionfante, dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney, 1584. 6. Cabala del Cavallo Pegaseo, 1585. 7. De Gli eroici furori, dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney, 1585. Giordano Bruno. 273 and theories of the foremost spirits of the age, continental as well as English, were debated with freedom, sympathy, and intelligence. Bruno's work, the Cena delle Ceneri, is an offspring of these philo- sophical reunions a reminiscence of ancient symposia; 1 and conveys a pleasing impression of the social urbanity, the varied learning, the profound thought and philosophical acuteness which characterized them. The religious questions which were then agitating Europe come in for their share of attention ; and are debated with marvellous freedom from the prepossessions of Romanism, on the one hand, and Protestantism on the other, Professor Berti observes that these meetings of free-thinkers with their disputations on religion, under his own roof, afford a striking proof of the tolerance of Castelnuovo, who, judging from his opinion of the colloquy of Passy, disliked religious controversy, for the reason that religion ' Ne se peut bien entendre que par la foy et par humilite.' * As a distinguished guest of the French ambassador, and also as a thinker of considerable reputation, Bruno was presented to Queen Elizabeth; who, as usual with learned foreigners, seems to have left a favourable impression on him. 3 The eulogistic terms in which he was accustomed to speak of the English queen, and other heretic princes, formed one item in the charges which the Inquisition proffered against him. But there is one episode in Bruno's English life which we must not pass over; and that is his brief connexion with Oxford. In addition to his craving for intellectual notoriety, he was possessed of the conviction that Providence destined him to be one of those ' mercurial spirits 'occasionally sent from heaven to enlighten mankind. 4 Hence he was always desirous of some prominent position as a public teacher. This was probably the feeling that induced him to address the authorities of the University of Oxford, which he did in a letter to the Vice-Chancellor, prefixed to the work he first published after his arrival in this country Spiegazione di trenta sigilli. This 1 Barth., i. p. 131, compares the contemporary and more celebrated club of the ' Mermaid Tavern.' 2 Berti, p. 160, note 3. 3 He calls her ' grande Anfitrite, Diana, nume della Terra.' Comp. what Berti truly calls the excessive eulogies of Elizabeth in Op. Ital., i. pp. 144 and 230. 4 De Umbris Idearum, p. 13. 'Non cessat providentia Deorum (dixerunt ^Egyptii sacerdotes) statutis quibusdam temporibus mittere hominibus Mer- curios quosdam etiamsi eosdem minime vel male receptum iri praecognoscant.' That Bruno considered himself one of these ' mercurial spirits ' is clear from other passages in his works. Mocenigo, in his denunciation, affirmed that Bruno had confessed to him that he wished to make himself the author of a new sect, under the name of the New Philosophy. Cf. Birti, p. 138, note. VOL. I. T 274 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. letter is a very curious production. 1 Indeed, its vainglorious language is only explicable on the writer's profound conviction of his heaven- inspired philosophical mission. Either this epistle, or the credentials Bruno brought with him from Paris, or else his general fame as a philosopher, procured for him the coveted permission to lecture in the university. Accordingly, he lectured on the ' immortality of the soul;' and on 'the five- fold sphere;' 2 in other words, on subjects allied to his theological metaphysics and his Copernican astronomy. It is needless to state that the Oxford of 1583 did not evince very warm sympathies with a theology so far removed both from Romanist and Anglican creeds, nor with a physical science not to be found in Aristotle. Bruno, who was so well acquainted with continental universities, estimates the scientific and philosophical acquirements of Oxford at an extremely low rate. He calls it ' una costellazione di pedantesca ostinatissima ignoranza e presunzione mista con una rustica incivilita, che farebbe prevaricar la pazienza di Giobbe.' 3 Bruno clearly was far from possessing the patience of Job ; and a short experience enabled him to perceive the futility of continuing to pay unwelcome addresses to the ' widow of sound learning,' 4 as he wittily nicknamed our great university. Bruno was at Oxford during the festivities and intellectual tourna- ments with which the university celebrated the arrival of the Polish Prince Alasco, in 1583. He took a public part in the contests, as the defender of the Copernican sj'stem, against the Ptolemaic ; and as the implacable foe of the Peripateticism then rampant at Oxford. Fifteen times, Bruno assures us, he closed the mouth of the unfortunate Doctor whom the university had selected as the Groliath of their Philistinism, 5 to maintain the dogmas of the immobility of the earth and the moveableness of the heavens. The dispute grew warm. Bruno complains of the incivility and discourtesy of ' the Pig' chosen to oppose him ; and lauds the patience and humanity with which he 1 See it quoted by Berti, p. 167, note 1. It is translated, but not very correctly, by Bartholmess, i. p. 122, note 1, e.g. describing his 'general philanthropy,' Bruno says, ' Qui non magis Italum quam Britannum, marem quam foeminam, mitratum quam coronatum, togatum quam armatum cucul- laturn hominem quam sine cuculla virum . . . diligit,' which Bartholmess renders, 'qui aime d'une egale affection Italiens et Anglais, meres et jeunes epouses!' etc. 2 Opera Ital., i. 179. Ed. Wagner. 3 Op. Ital., i. 179. 4 'Vedova de le buone lettere, per quanto appartiene a la professione di filosofia e reali matematiche ne le quali mentre sono tutti ciechi, vengono questi asini, e ne si vendono per oculati.' etc., etc. Op. Ital., i. p. 123. 5 This was a certain Dr. Lyson, as appears from Wood's Antiq. Oxon. Giordano Bruno. 275 repelled his swinish attacks, as a proof of his Neapolitan origin, and his nurture under a brighter sky. It is of course too much to expect of the controversialist of the time, even when, like Brnno, he is a native of the genial south, that he should exercise the same courtesy in recounting, as in performing his deeds of intellectual prowess. The biographer of Bruno, who knows what disasters are still in store for him, feels a natural repugnance at quitting this peaceful and happy period of his life. Professor Berti speculates on what would have been Bruno's future intellectual development had he continued to live in England. His general lot would have been very different ; he would have escaped at least the fate which ultimately befel him; 1 though his own restlessness would in all likelihood have exposed him to difficulties. The lesson of toleration was as yet very imperfectly acquired in this country ; and Bruno's philosophy, which he must needs have taught with his usual courage and unreserve, was both too opposed to generally received forms of Christianity, and too alien from the practical genius of Englishmen, to be acceptable to more than the narrow circles of thinkers who had imbibed the broader culture of continental, and especially Italian universities. With all the felicitous circumstances of his situation as an esteemed inmate of Castelnuovo's house, there were intermingled some few drawbacks to his happiness. The climate of England was such a wretched contrast to that of his beloved Naples ; the coarse, almost brutal manners of Englishmen, their insular arrogance and ignorance, their insuperable dislike of foreigners, differed so completely from the refinement and gentle courtesy of his own countrymen, that Bruno's complete acclimatization would have been a protracted, if not impossible process. England in the sixteenth century was, we must remember, far behind Italy in knowledge and culture as well as in other elements of civilization. The combined pedantry and ignor- ance that Bruno found in Oxford, and which he castigated so vigor- ously in La Cena de la Ceneri, was only the academic maturity of defects which characterized the average English gentleman. Under all the circumstances of the case I am of opinion that Bruno was unsuited by birth, temperament and intellect to lead a genuinely happy life in our cold, gloomy, and dull island. Some foretaste of the difficulties continued residence here would have occasioned, was afforded by the outcry which assailed him on account of his free criticism of Oxford ignorance, and English ill-manners, in the Cena de 1 Hallam, who also speculates on the same contingency, observes: 'It had been well for Bruno if he had kept himself under the protection of Diana (Queen Elizabeth). The "chaste beams of that watery moon" were less scorching than the fires of the Inquisition.' Literature of Europe, ii. p. 191. 276 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. la Ceneri. His remarks gave such umbrage, that Bruno found it expedient to give a modified version of his criticism in his next published work, the De la Causa principio et uno. l Towards the close of 1585 Bruno returned to Paris in the suite of Castelnuovo. Soon after his arrival he resumed his occupation of lecturing and disputing in the Sorbonne. This his Doctor's degree from Toulouse, as well as his former position as Extraordinary Reader of Philosophy, enabled him to do without requiring the permission of the authorities. He selected, to defend his theses, an enthusiastic disciple called Hennequin, who afterwards edited and published his defence. Bruno's contests during this second sojourn in Paris were with the Peripatetics, and seem to have excited both attention and some degree of animosity. Nevertheless, it was not on account of this excitement that he left the French capital in the early part of 1586 ; but rather because of the civil discords which were then agitating France, and in accordance with a determination he had some time previously expressed of visiting other continental uni- versities. This resolution he carried into effect by visiting Marburg, where he arrived in July, 1586. One of his first acts at Marburg was the inscription of his name among the scholars of the university as ' Jordanus Nolanus Neapolitanus, Theologise Doctor Romanensis.' Having thus asserted his membership, he demanded of the Rector permission to lecture publicly. This that functionary, after con- sultation with the faculty of philosophy, thought proper to refuse ' for grave reasons.' Bruno was so indignant at this treatment so different from all his prior experience of university usages that he went to the Rector's house and rated him soundly for acting in contravention to the rights of nations, the customs of all the German universities, and all human studies. Bruno's biographers have been puzzled to discover the ' grave reasons ' which induced the authorities of Marburg to act as they did. Professor Berti is probably right in supposing that their Protestant sensitiveness took alarm at the designation, Doctor in Roman Theology, which he appended to his name; though that was the sole title by which he could claim to lecture in any university in Europe. Bruno immediately left Marburg, and after a few days' stay at Mayence, arrived at Wittenberg. Here he was received with courtesy. He was immediately allowed to lecture, without any inquiry into his religious or philosophical creed, and without the production of any letters of recommendation which he had received from different princes and universities. 2 His lecture-room was speedily crowded, and now, 1 Op. Ital., i. Comp. Berti, p. 178. 2 In a valedictory oration which Bruno addrtss.d to the university autho- Giordano Bruno. 277 before a Lutheran audience, Bruno set forth his sublime speculations on the Infinite just as he had before the Romanists of Toulon and Paris, and the Anglicans of Oxford. The first year of his Wittenberg residence he devoted to these metaphysical speculations, which also gave rise to two treatises on Lulli's system. During the second year, 1588, he lectured on Aristotle's Organon, probably employing it as a basis for inculcating Lulli's logic. Bruno stayed at Wittenberg two years, and would probably have stayed longer, but a change on the throne of Saxony, by which Christian I. became Elector in name, and Casimir, his relative, a jealous Calvinist, Elector in reality, threatened to give Calvinists a superiority over Lutherans in the University of Wittenberg. His Genevan experiences had taught Bruno the peculiarly harsh and bitter nature of Calvinistic intolerance. He therefore took his leave of Wittenberg and the Lutheran friends he had formed there, with much regret on both sides. So cordial had been his relations with the tolerant Lutheranism which, under Melanchthon's benign influence, at that time reigned in Wittenberg, that the rumour was circulated that he had joined the Lutheran Church. He had no doubt manifested his appreciation of the anti- papal traditions of Wittenberg, and concurred in the Lutheran definition of the Pope as Antichrist ; but it does not appear, as was afterwards alleged, that he wrote a panegyric of Satan as a praise- worthy contrast to the Vicar of Christ. From Wittenberg Bruno went to Prague. On his arrival here he published two works which he dedicated to the Spanish ambassador at the court of Rudolf II. This monarch, the patron of Kepler and Tycho Brahe was a devout believer in occult science. He spent his days in searching for the philosopher's stone, and his nights in surveying the stars for astrological purposes. Bruno might have expected to find him a patron of the Lullian Cabbala, to which he was himself becoming more and more addicted. The works he had dedicated to the Spanish ambassador having failed of their purpose, i.e. to bring him into notice, Bruno determined to address the Emperor himself. For this purpose he composed a work with the striking title, One Hundred and Sixty Articles against the Mathe- maticians and Philosophers of the Present Time. To this he pre- fixed a dedication, in which he claims the utmost liberty of judgment in the liberal sciences, affirming that in these matters he does not riti&s of Wittenberg, he thus recounts their frank and generous reception of him : ' Non nasum introsistis, lion sannas exacuistis, bucca non sunt inflatse pulpita non strepuerunt, in me non est scholasticus furor (as at Toulouse) incitatus . . . Interim et philosophicam Hbertatem illibatam conservatis.' OP. Lat., p 624. Compare Bartholmess, i. 155. 278 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. allow the authority of parents, of masters, of traditions or of customs. In philosophy, truth must be beheld with one's own eyes, not with those of another. He avows that his independence and devotion to truth have cost him much ; nevertheless he has come victoriously out of every struggle, sustained by a conviction of truth, and guided by a divine and superior light. 1 The Emperor accepted the book, and sent 300 thalers, as a present, to Bruno. The money was most acceptable, for his circumstances were now in a very straitened condition. But though he was thus enabled to subsist and pay his way for the time, his position at Prague was unsatisfactory. He lacked what had become to him the essential of a happy existence public lectures and disputings, the encouragement and excitement produced by the applause of enthusiastic pupils. Again Bruno moved and this time to Helmstadt ; where under the patronage of the House of Brunswick, the new university founded in 1576 was rising into fame. Bartholmess and other biographers of Bruno have asserted that he left Prague with letters of recommendation to the court of Brunswick, which obtained for him the education of the young Duke Henry Julius ; but neither in his known works nor in the Venice documents is there anything to support this assertion. Equally devoid of foundation is another report concerning Bruno's Helmstadt life, viz. that he was chosen by the university to deliver an oration at the funeral of the reigning Duke. That he read an oration on the occasion is certain ; but it was not at the solicitation of the university, or of any portion of it. It was merely the exercise he, as usual, set himself on arriving at a new university, to elicit public attention. In this he succeeded. The young Duke read Bruno's speech ; and was so pleased with it that he bestowed on him great commendations, as well as the more tangible recognition of a sum of money. Bruno might, after such an auspicious beginning, have expected a long and peaceful career in the Helmstadt University ; but a dispute with Boetius, the superintendent of the Evangelical Church, led to his excommunication by that functionary. Bruno appealed against the judgment; but probably mistrusting the issue of the appeal against such a potentate, he left Helmstadt quietly, and in April, 1590, we find him at Frankfort, whence he issued (without naming them) a decree of fulmination against the Brunswick theologians. At Frankfort Bruno became acquainted with the celebrated pub- lishers Wechel, worthy successors of the Aldii and Stephens of a preceding age. Their house was the resort of all the learning and culture which came to Frankfort. These estimable persons received 1 Berti, p. 223. Giordano Bruno. 279 Bruno with great cordiality, and procured him lodgings in a Car- melite convent at their own expense. Frankfort was then celebrated for its fairs, which took place twice a year, and drew together merchants and traders from every countr}' in Europe. Among the rest who visited it on these occasions were learned men who came to inspect the wares of its numerous book-shops, and to exchange literary and philosophical news. At one or other of the principal book marts these men, representatives of most of the universities in Europe, were in the habit of congregating and discussing different learned subjects, as mathematics, astronomy, theology and philosophy. The book-shops thus subserved the ends which are now attained by literary clubs and newspapers, and the meetings of learned societies. They were intellectual stock-exchanges, centres for the intercommuni- cation and diffusion of different literary products. These reunions we may well suppose were admirably suited to our skeptic's taste ; and he took part in them with his usual enthusiasm. Among those who came to the spring fair of 1591 were two Venetian booksellers, Ciotto and Britanno, the former of whom kept a well- known book-store in Venice at the sign of the Minerva. They took lodgings near the Carmelite monastery, where Bruno had taken up his quarters. They fell in with him on several occasions, and the discourse, as was inevitable, turned on Bruno's varied contributions to philosophical literature, and his opinions. On their return to Venice they took with them one of Bruno's works just published in Frankfort, probably (so Professor Berti thinks) the work De Monade Numero et Figura. This work Ciotto showed to a young Venetian of noble family, but of superstitious and weak intellect, who used to frequent his shop. It would appear that this man had dabbled in some branch of the sciences known as occult ; and he inferred from Bruno's book that he had in reserve a large amount of esoteric lore, which the work only hinted at. Bruno thus seemed to be a teacher precisely adapted for himself. He prevailed on his friend Ciotto to forward a letter, begging him to come to Venice to instruct him. He himself followed up Giotto's espistle by a missive of his own, addressed directly to Bruno, and requesting him to come to him with all convenient speed. Fifteen years' wandering over Europe had only intensified the love that Bruno always cherished for Italy. He regarded the invitation of Mocenigo as a providential call homewards to the sunny skies, the genial climate, the gentler and more cultured people of his native land. It is possible, though his parents were both dead, that some friend or relative may have still been living in the well-remembered neighbourhood of Mount Cicala, whence he had wandered into a 280 7 he Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. world which, to his passionate longing after freedom, had been little else than Egyptian bondage, or the narrow confines of a gaol cell. For a moment was forgotten, or perhaps unseen, like a viper lurking behind flowers, the authority of the Inquisition, the racks and pinions of the Holy Office, the processes for heresy which so many years before had driven him from his home, the martyrdoms for free-thought, of which not a few must have been within his own personal knowledge. He only saw the fascinating aspects of his early and only love. He therefore immediately closed with Mocenigo's offer. Not only so, but he departed from Frankfort in such haste that he left uncorrected the last few pages of a book which the brothers Wechel were publishing for him. Bruno arrived at Venice in 1592, and placed himself at the dis- posal of his new patron and pupil. The connexion was ill-omened in every respect. Mocenigo was the complete antipodes of his master in mental qualities, education and disposition; indeed, he was a gloomy, superstitious, mistrustful fanatic. It is difficult at first sight to conceive what Bruno could find to teach such an unpromising pupil. But in the Venetian documents he says that what Mocenigo wished to learn, and what he therefore imparted, consisted of his Lullian Cabbala, together with his method of artificial memory. But whatever the tuition, it would seem that it was not at first of a nature calculated to arouse Mocenigo's extreme orthodox sensitive- ness. The intercourse of master and pupil assumed such an amicable character, that Bruno was prevailed upon to take up his abode in Mocenigo's house. Meanwhile he followed his usual avocations ; for in addition to his stipulated converse with his pupil, he was engaged in superintending the publication of new works ; while he spent much of his leisure in the different bookshops, especially in that of Giotto, and held controversies with those who frequented these literary lounges. Nor were these the only opportunities which Bruno enjoyed for free discussion, and of which he availed himself with a readiness which under the circumstances betrays a want of ordinary caution. In Venice, as in other Italian towns, the spirit of the Renaissance, and the momentous and interesting questions it started, gave rise to the formation of private debating clubs, in which the varied topics then agitating the mind of Europe, were discussed with more or less freedom and completeness. There were two resorts of this kind in Venice, one, in the house of an opulent merchant, Secchini, the other in that of Morosini, a man of culture and learning, who occupied the important post of chief historiographer of Venice. The reunions at Secchini's occupied themselves chiefly with scientific discoveries, while those at Morosini's discussed Giordano Bruno. 281 questions of literature and philosophy. To Morosini's seances Bruno was introduced by Giotto soon after his arrival, and was received with great cordiality. The part which Bruno took in the discussions there was afterwards borne witness to before the Venetian inquisitors by Morosini himself, as having been of a literary and philosophical character, and having nothing to do with religion, whence we may note that the complete severance between philosophy and theology, which was an axiom with the free-thinkers of the Renaissance, was an admitted principle with these private discussion clubs; nay, it probably constituted their chief raison d'etre, During this time Bruno paid occasional visits to the neighbouring university of Padua, and gave private lectures to some German students. The longest stay he made there did not however exceed two months, so that those writers are in error who affirm that he resided in Padua for some time, and became acquainted with Galileo. The chronology of Bruno's life, as finally determined by the Venetian documents, proves that he could have had no personal acquaintance with Galileo, who did not commence lecturing at Padua until some months after his long incarceration had begun. The only traceable point of contact between the two men consists in the fact that the extradition decree which surrendered Bruno to the Inquisition at Rome was signed by the same official who invited Galileo to lecture at Padua. Between his occupations at Venice and occasional visits to Padua, Bruno passed some seven or eight months. All the while the manifold and radical dissimilarities between himself and Mocenigo were growing to an- open rupture. Portions of the master's teaching had aroused the suspicion of the mistrustful and narrow-minded pupil, who perhaps took ' omne ignotum pro hseretico.' He confided his suspicions to his confessor ; and received in return the advice to ascertain Bruno's errors more fully, and then to denounce him to the Inquisition. From this time Mocenigo acted the degrading part of a spy on his poor unsuspicious tutor; whom he had invited from Frankfort, into whose confidence he had wound himself, and who by his own desire was the inmate of his house and the companion of his leisure hours. He seems to have used the knowledge he had acquired of the susceptible points of Bruno's enthusiastic temperament to draw him out, as De Francon did Vanini, and make him commit himself. Ultimately, having procured sufficient materials for the accusation, he determined to denounce his guest to the Inquisition ; impelled thereto, as he himself says, by the advice of his confessor, and the bidding of his conscience. The denunciation was formally made by a letter dated the 23rd of May. Meanwhile Bruno discovered, by the altered demeanour of his 282 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. pupil, and by questions proposed witu the obvious purpose of con- victing him of heresy, the secret conspiracy that was being formed against him. Accordingly he determined to return to Frankfort. He sent all his MSS. already completed to the press, put his other affairs in order, and attempted, not very wisely it may be said, to take leave of his treacherous pupil on the 21st of May. Mocenigo, however, would not part with him. First with persuasions, then with threats, he endeavoured to persuade Bruno to remain. Finding his efforts ineffectual, he resolved to anticipate the action of the Inquisition, and even his own denunciation, by making him a prisoner. This he effected in a way which proves his own transformation, not an uncommon one, from the superstitious weakling to the blood- thirsty zealot. Towards midnight of Friday, the 22nd of May, he entered the bedchamber where Bruno was asleep, accompanied by his servant and five or six gondoliers of the neighbourhood, and on the pretext of wishing to converse with him conducted him to a garret, and then locked him in. The next day Mocenigo forwarded his denunciation to the Inquisitors 1 who immediately sent an officer to his house. He took formal possession of the prisoner, brought him down from the garret, and locked him up in a warehouse on the ground floor of the house, whence he was removed on the night of Saturday, the 23rd of May, into the prison of the Inquisition. With this ill-omened event ends the free life cf our unhappy free-thinker. Henceforth there remains for him a cruel imprisonment of eight long years, terminating with the stake. Bruno's trial before the Venetian Inquisitors began on the 2Gth of May. The booksellers Giotto and Britanno, who had known him in Frankfort, were cited to bear evidence concerning him. Answer- ing the interrogatories of his judges, Bruno explained the reason why he had left Frankfort and come to Venice. He then proceeded to recount in order the chief events of his life. For several days he con- tinued his narrative, and this autobiography, preserved in the Venetian documents, now constitutes the sole authority for most of his life. Coming to his opinions, he laid stress on the doctrine of Twofold Truth, then so generally recognized in Italy. He said that he was a Philosopher, not a Theologian ; as such he claimed a freedom of inquiry and exposition to which he confessed a theologian would have had no claim. This is the key-note of his defence, and he repeatedly recurs to it. He admitted that indirectly his doctrine might come into conflict with the Christian faith just as it might with the teaching of Aristotle or Plato. He denied that he had ever 1 Documenti interno a Giordano Bruno. Borne, 1880. They are translated in Miss Frith's History, pp. 262-265. Giordano Bruno. 283 taught or written anything directly contrary to Christianity. He then proceeded to expound his philosophical creed, without trying, as Professor Berti well remarks, to minimize or hide its implication. He distinctly avowed that he believed in an universe infinite in extent, and infinite also as consisting of innumerable worlds. He maintained that these worlds, scattered through space, were like our own. This universe, he believed, was governed by a general and constant law, which he termed Providence, by means of which every- thing lives, grows, moves, and attains its perfection. The Divine Being possesses those principal attributes, power, wisdom, and good- ness, in other words, mind, intellect, and love. 1 The first of these is the source of general existence, the second is the cause of particular or distinct existence, while the concord or harmony be- tween these two is sustained by the third, or love. The word creation expressed, he said, the dependence of the world on its first cause ; which is true whether we conceive it to be eternal, or created. He freely admitted having doubted, in terms of the natural reason, the Incarnation of the Word, called by philosophers the Intellect, or son of the mind ; so also the Holy Spirit, or, according to theologians, the third Person of the Trinity was by him regarded and defined as the soul of the universe, in harmony with the doctrine expressed in Virgil's verses : ' Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus, Mens agitat molem,' or in accordance with the passage of Solomon, 'Spiritus Domini replevit orbem terrarum.' a The Inquisitors, probably puzzled at a scheme of theology, which, preserving the terms of Christian orthodoxy, interpreted them in a manner so novel, requested Bruno to repeat the outlines of his system. He readily consented, using nearly the same terms. They suggested that he had been accused of Arianism, to which he immediately answered, that in conversation he had more than once avouched his opinion that the doctrine of Arius was less pernicious than was com- monly supposed. With equal readiness he replied to other allegations respecting his relation to the Church ; maintaining that he held what the Church taught, at the same time admitting that he was to blame for not observing her rules more precisely ; and promised amendment for the time to come. Being asked his opinion respecting miracles, he answered that he had always believed the miracles of Christ were 1 Comp. Op. Ital., ii. 279. 2 Berti, Vita, p. 259. Comp., Book of Wisdom i. 7. Hvevfj-a. Kvpiov rrjv olKOv/jitvrjv, /ecu rb avvt'xov TO. Trdvra yv^fftv &x l 284 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. divine, true, real, and not pretended consequently a secondary testimony of His divinit}', as its higher attestation is the Law of the Gospels. He said he believed in the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ really and substantially ; only he excused himself for not attending mass, assigning as an impediment his excommunication. To the same impediment he ascribed his neglect of confession for sixteen years ; although he held that the Sacrament of Penance was ordained to purge our sins, and he believed that every man dying in mortal sin would be damned. Bruno's defence had already comprehended some of the counts of Mocenigo's indictment ; but more alarming ones still remained. Among other strange allegations, Mocenigo said, Bruno had told him that Jesus was a crafty personage, who might easily have fore- seen His crucifixion, because He did crafty deeds to deceive the people that He was a magician and performed apparent miracles, and so also did the apostles that he himself had a mind to perform as many, and even more than they did. That there was no punishment for sin. That souls passed from one body into another, and are begotten of corruption as all other animals. That our faith is full of blasphemies that the monks are apes. That St. Thomas and all the doctors are ignoramuses ; and that he knew enough to put all the theologians in the world to silence that he intended to apply himself to the Art of Divination so that all nations should run after him. That the usages of the Church then were not those the apostles employed. That the world could not last much longer as it was that a general reform was needful that on this point he hoped great things of the king of Navarre that he was therefore anxious to publish his works so as to bring himself into credit, because he was sure of a place at the head of this reform, and would enjoy the treasures of others that he was fond of women, and thought it no sin to obey the impulses of Nature. Such an imbroglio of accusations, probable, specious and utterly absurd could only have occurred to a mind like Mocenigo's, a com- bination of intellectual imbecility and gloomy fanaticism. To all these allegations Bruno gave a distinct and even vehement denial. When e.g. he was confronted with the charge of calling Jesus crafty, a doer of cunning works, his features assumed an expression of deep pain, while he exclaimed he did not know how such a thing could have been imputed to him. When he was further charged with terming Christ a magician, and saying he was confident he could do the same miracles that Christ and His apostles had done, he lifted his hand to heaven, and in a passionate tone of voice said, ' What thing is this ? Who has invented this devilish accusation ? Giordano Bruno. 285 Not only have I never uttered such things, but they have never even crossed my imagination. God, what does this mean ? I would rather die than say such a thing.' He had himself given a list of his works to the tribunal. Of these he fully admitted the author- ship and accepted the responsibility. He gave reasons why some, which were printed in London bore Venice or Paris on their title- pages. He added not the least mark of the bond fides and candour which characterize Bruno in these trying scenes that his writings sufficiently demonstrated the measure of his excellence ; and that no examination of them would discover that he had sought to bring the Catholic religion into contempt. Assuming the right of the tribunal to inquire into the religious opinions of Bruno, it cannot be said that he was treated with undue harshness by the Venetian Inquisition. Partly this was owing to the independent status of the Holy Office in that city, 1 a reflex of her free institutions, which induced a more cautious and impartial treat- ment of those who came before it. Partly it may be ascribed to the subtle policy of pretended kindness and sympathy by which the un- wary victims were further entangled in the toils the Inquisition spread around them. On this occasion they seem to have treated Bruno's assumed errors almost as if they were the inevitable aberrations of one who starting from Philosophy had accidentally come into conflict with Theology. They passed over those points in his confession in which the divergency from orthodox belief was most clearly marked, and dwelt on those on which he himself had expressed something like a regret for such a seeming antagonism. This was precisely the seductive method best adapted for Bruno's warm and enthusiastic temperament. Easily hardened by opposition and abuse, he was evidently amenable to the milder treatment of gentle remonstrance, semi-acquiescent protests and persuasive reasoning. There is at least no doubt that, like his contemporary Galileo, Bruno yielded to the hypocritical blandishments of the Holy Office, and fell a victim to its unholy cunning in discovering the more easily accessible or assailable points in the characters of the unhappy beings brought within its jurisdiction. At the end of his second examination (May 30th) he expressed some regret that in his works he had discoursed too much as a philosopher and not sufficiently as a good Christian. On the 3rd of June he told his judges that he ' detested and abhorred all the errors he had com- 1 Probably this did not differ greatly from what it was a century later in 1685, when the complete subordination of the Inquisition to the Deputies of the Senate was observed, and described by Bishop Burnet in his work, Some Letters from Switzerland and Italy, pp. 1545. 286 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. mitted up to the present time against the Catholic faith, all the heresies he had held, and the doubts he had entertained respecting the belief and dogmas of holy Church,' adding, ' I repent of having done, held, said, believed, or doubted things not Catholic, and I implore this sacred tribunal, in pity to my infirmity, to receive me into the Church, providing for me remedies useful for my salvation, and to have mercy upon me.' On the 30th of July, when brought before the Venetian Inquisitors for the last time, he renewed his protestations of penitence. ' It may be,' he said to the judges, ' that in such a long course of time I have erred and strayed from holy Church in other ways than those I have already indicated, and am thereby entangled in other censures ; but so far as I know, and I have thought much concerning the matter, I am quite unaware of it ; I have confessed and do now readily confess my errors, and I put myself in the hands of your most illustrious tribunal to receive a remedy on behalf of my salvation. As to my sorrow for my misdeeds, I am unable to say how great it is, nor can I adequately express my feelings.' Having uttered these words he fell on his knees and continued : ' I humbly ask par- don of the Lord God, and of your most illustrious tribunal, for all the errors I have committed, and am ready to endure what your prudence may prescribe for me, and what you deem expedient for my soul. I further entreat that you will immediately award me a punishment, whose excess may be a public notification in due proportion to the disgrace I may have brought on my sacred habit as a monk. And if by the mercy of God, and of your most illustrious tribunal, my life shall be granted, I promise to effect such a marked reformation of it, as shall recompense for the scandal I have given.' 1 With the exception of distinct and repeated refusals to recant, and the defiant utterance with which he met his final sentence, nearly eight years after, these are Bruno's last authentic words. They serve to show that the infamous methods of the Inquisition had suc- ceeded in temporarily humbling one of the most daring spirits that ever lived. How long the humiliation really lasted, by what means it was effected, how far its form was suggested by the officers of the Inquisition, or was the ex animo confession of Bruno himself, we shall never know. Remembering Bruno's undaunted spirit, I incline to the belief that it was extorted from the poor wretch by a promise of liberty, or by the tortures of the rack ; or it may have, been induced by the debilitating effect of a dreary imprisonment on such a freedom- loving spirit, or by some other of the iniquitous means by which the Holy Office induced false confessions when they were unable to obtain true. 1 Berti, p. 264, and documents in the same work, pp. 384-5. Giordano Bruno. 287 After this examination and recantation, Bruno was remitted to his prison ; where for some inexplicable reason he remained for seven or eight weeks, without, so far as is known, any further proceedings being taken respecting him. At the end of that period the acts of his process were forwarded to Rome ; and Cardinal Sanseverino, the chief Inquisitor, wrote in September requiring Bruno's extradition. The Venetian authorities seem to have treated the request with some coldness, whether as evincing their customary jealousy of foreign interference, or as seems to me not unlikely, Bruno found some secret support, either among his judges or among persons able to influence them. More than once Sanseverino, already thirsting for the blood of our poor skeptic, had to repeat his demand. Special grounds were urged for the request. Thus he was claimed as having been a native of Naples, and because, in early years, he had been implicated in other processes for heresy. It was also alleged that Bruno was not an ordinary heretic ; he was a monk, nay, more, he was an heresiarch monk ; it was precisely one of those extraordinary cases which all the Inquisition tribunals had been accustomed to resign to the jurisdiction of the chief office at Rome. At last, as an act of personal favour to the Pope, whom it was desirable to conciliate, it was deemed politic to yield to the request. The Venetian authorities gave up Bruno; who was forwarded to Rome in January, 1593. 1 to meet the terrible doom which there awaited him. Never did the malignant destiny which has so often dogged the course of Free-thinkers provide a fate so atrocious and pitiless as that which thus befel Bruno. Never was the irony of existence more painfully exemplified. A martyr's death immediately following his trial, and only some months after his first apprehension, would no doubt have seemed a sufficiently bitter fate for an earnest truth- seeker like Bruno ; but in itself death had for him, as we shall find, no terrors. A few agonizing tortures at the stake, his ashes scattered to the four winds, the consequent commingling of his being, physical and mental, with the infinities of Nature and of God, which he re- garded as the highest destiny of a sentient creature, would have hardly caused him a .momentary pang of regret. Something, as we know, he was willing to concede to his foes for the sake of the re- stricted liberty he had hitherto enjoyed. But, from the point of view of his speculations and aspirations, it is evident that Bruno must have had a surfeit of existence. He found it incompatible with the wild, 1 He was committed to the Inquisition prison at Rome, on the 27th of Feb- ruary, 1593, as appears by a list of prisoners in the custody of the Holy Office, drawn up on the 5th of April, 1599. See Koman Documents, collected by Prof. Barti, Copernico, etc., p. 224. 288 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. passionate freedom, the unrestrained liberty of thought, feeling, and in some degree of action, on which alone he could bestow the name of freedom. His whole life had been a warfare with restriction: in his youth, moral and social ; in manhood, religious and philosophical. The limits of earth itself were too narrow for his soaring intellect. Death was but the deliverance from this enforced servitude the commence- ment of a new and wider experience, the dawning of a new era of liberty. But incarceration for seven long years in dark and loathsome dungeons, for a man whose every breath was an aspiration for free- dom, whose every thought centred in her divine attributes, and whose every act was part of a life-long struggle to possess her, imparts to his lot a peculiar aspect of intense harshness and grim irony. No doubt history presents us with other examples of still longer imprison- ments; in which disciples of liberty have been immured in the Bastilles of religious and political tyranny for nearly their whole lives. The singular aggravation of Bruno's destiny lay in his overpowering passion for freedom, and in his conviction of her unlimited character. A prison may well be a cruel confinement to a man who is not im- patient of the ordinary restraits of human existence, but must be immeasurably more galling to one for whom earth itself is a mere prison cell. To a bird of moderate flight and aspiration the bounds of a cage will still seem intolerable, but to catch a skylark at the very highest point of its soaring and tuneful flight, to entrap an eagle in his lofty eyrie and immure it in a narrow, dark cage, would be a punishment more cruel than death. Over nearly the whole of that seven years' incarceration in the Inquisition prison at Rome, a darkness and stillness more profound than those of the grave are still suspended like a dreary funeral-pall. What Bruno's trials were ; how often his limbs were stretched on the rack, what other tortures, mental and physical, he was compelled to endure, what cunning and ruthless efforts were made by his gaolers to break down his indomitable spirit, to crush fully and finally his irrepressible yearnings after freedom, to transform the free-thinker into the religious slave of a creed blasphemously called Christian, we shall never know. The long duration of his imprisonment * seems to imply that unusual pains were taken to convert a heresiarch whose fame was European, or at least to present him in his last hours in the penitent state of mind which would reflect so much lustre on his holy tormentors and be such an edifying spectacle to the faithful. 1 Comp. the list of Inquisition prisoners above mentioned, from which it appears that Bruno was in 1599 the only prisoner in charge of the Roman In- quisition whose incarceration commenced in 1593. Cf. Berti, Copernico, etc., p 227. Giordano Bruno. 289 His Venice recantation, if genuine and unforced, is a proof that Bruno was not insensible to some of the motive forces which the Inquisition knew how to bring to bear upon heretics, and it is quite conceivable that during his long incarceration at Rome his mind may have wavered occasionally under the debilitating effects of torture and privation on the one hand, or flattery and indulgence on the other; but one thing at least is certain, these fluctuations were only temporary; Bruno's general and final attitude of mind, as we shall see when we come to the last scenes of his life, was one of heroic and adamantine firmness. Meanwhile we may take advantage of Bruno's imprisonment to consider the general character of his philosophy, and the influence to be allotted to Skepticism, both in its origin and in the shape it finally appeared. But, as a necessary preliminary to this enquiry, it will be as well to cast a brief glance at a few of his works, which have an especial reference to our subject. The earliest of these and one of the first of his extant works is his comedy II Canddajo. This drama marks the young skeptic at a stage of his intellectual development when he has discerned the utter vanity and falsehood of much that holds a high place in human con- viction, or established usages. Its chief characters represent the prevalent ignorance, pedantry, and superstition, with which he waged war for the greater part of his life ; nor unhappily is this the only particular in which it is a reflex of Bruno's age ; for the licence of its language and manners reminds us only too faithfully of features common to most of the literature of the Renaissance. But its main interest centres in its unconscious portrayal of the mind of its author. Thus the wild chaotic disorder depicted in its pages, indicates a mind in which principles and opinions of the most contradictory kind had made a battle-field for their fiercest struggles ; while the tout ensemble of the work, as well as the author's profession of faith in the introduc- tion, shows that he had already learnt to reconcile the antimonies of the universe, to neutralize its contradictions by means of juxtaposition and subordination, to merge varying elements in an all-inclusive one- ness, and by the fiery glow of his potent fancy to fuse the pettiness and limitations of finite things in an unbounded and inscrutable infinite. Thus he declares his philosophy in his dedication to La Signora Mor- gana perhaps a real personage elevated to a noble and picturesque ideal, like the Beatrice of Dante or the Laura of Petrarca ' Bear in mind, Lady, my Credo, which I need not teach you : Time takes away everything, and gives everything. All things change, nothing is annihilated. One thing only exists which is unchangeable. Only the One is eternal and abides eternally one, the same, and identical. VOL. i. u 290 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance, With this philosophy I enlarge my mind and magnify my intellect.' * Of still more importance for our purpose is the celebrated work Spaccio della Bestia Trionfante. Few literary productions of the sixteenth century have raised more controversy than this. By some writers it has been held to be the original of the notorious but mythical work De Tribus Impostoribus. The Triumphant Beast to be expelled, variously interpreted as Christianity or the Romish Church, is in reality Dogma, peripatetic and scholastic as well as religious. The aim of the work is mainly rationalistic and skeptical. Bruno declares war to the knife against unveracities of every kind. He would dethrone all authorities and powers which have usurped wrongful dominion over men, and replace them by more genial and humane duties. The plan of this remarkable work is this : Jupiter, the chief of the Olympian court, is represented as an old man, who, having exhausted the pleasures and dissipations of youth, is now willing to reform. Having tired out the flesh he is desirous of living to the Spirit. Like the royal Jewish libertine, he is inclined to pro- nounce on all human delights and pursuits the verdict : ' Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.' To stimulate his new-born zeal for reforma- tion, he observes that mortals manifest a growing disinclination to render to himself and the different members of his court the worship they consider their due. One great obstacle to the execution of his resolve is the actual state of heaven itself. The different constellations and heavenly bodies are but records of the infamy, lust and ambition of the inhabitants of Olympus, not unfrequently of himself, its supreme lord. He resolves accordingly to sweep the heavens of these unworthy deities and hated memorials, and establish in their room those virtues and duties most conducive to the real welfare of humanity. So far, Bruno's conception is symbolical of the general movement we term the Renaissance, indeed it is signified in the very word. Jupiter, the symbol of humanity as well as its creator and ruler, was then undergoing a regenerating process. Older beliefs and convictions, the prolific brood of hierarchical ambition and popular ignorance were being, so far as reformers like Bruno had their way, gradiially swept from the firmament of the human intellect. No longer did the ancient incense rise to heaven, no longer were sacri- fices offered on the old altars, no longer was worship rendered to the tyrants and despots who had so long enslaved humanity. The millennium of liberty was drawing nigh. The Beast of Dogma once triumphant, but whose triumph had been purchased with the tears and groans of men, was now to be expelled. 1 Op. Ital., i. p. 5. Giordano Bruno. 291 This reconstitution of the heavenly constellations 1 is made the subject of these dialogues, and the mode in which it is effected is related with a grotesque mixture of satire and humour which sometimes borders on blasphemy, and with a redundancy of metaphor, simile and allusion which is quite overwhelming. Jupiter proposes his reforms in an animated speech. He does not scruple to reproach his courtiers with their evil examples to men. ' It is you,' he says, ' who have offered to mortals the sight and example of misconduct extending to the most revolting vices. Yes, my friends, to perpetuate our shame we have rendered our dwelling the monument of our crimes. Instead of bestowing immortality on real virtues, on faith, justice and temperance, we have honoured by our preference all errors and villanies. We have consecrated scandals and sins both mortal and venial. What, in short, are the signs of the Zodiac ? What are the constellations, but striking evidences of our depravity and abase- ment ? ' He suggests an immediate and thorough reform. ' Truth,' he says, ' if we return to her service will break the chains with which error has bound us. Let us then at once repent. Let us cleanse the heavens of every object which may recall our transgres- sions. Heaven is twofold. It is first within ourselves : let us extirpate our ill' tendencies. It is also outside us : let us replace the images and statues which fill our apartments by other paintings and figures of an opposite kind.' The proposal is received with acclamations by the assembled gods and goddesses. A few days after this assembly another is convoked for the purpose of carrying out the resolutions of Olympus. The actual substitution of new virtues for ancient and venerable falsities gives rise to much discussion of a free sort. The process takes some time, for it involves forty-eight changes. We need not recapitulate what is in effect only a dry list of names. To give an idea of the celestial reformation I will only say that for the Great Bear is substituted truth; for the Dragon, prudence; for Cepheus, wisdom ; for Pegasus, poetic inspiration ; for the Virgin, chastity ; 1 It is possible that Bruno may have been indebted for his idea of the refor- mation of the heavens to the similar attempts of Bede and other theologians. They also proposed to change the names and arrangements of the constella- tions, e.g. they put St. Peter in the place of the Ham, St. Andrew instead of the Bull, etc. In more recent calendars David, Solomon, the Magi, and other New and Old Testament characters were placed in the heavens instead of the former constellations. Of. Flammarion, Astronomical Myths, p. 57. But while their proposed reformation was ecclesiastical, Bruno's was philosophical and ethical. Conceding however as obvious the ethical significance of the Spaccio, the attempt to extort from it a formal system of moral teaching, such as that made by Dr. Hartung, must be pronounced extremely rash. 292 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. for the Balance, equity, etc. The god Momus fittingly discharges the part of the skeptic, who is apparently as indifferent to the qualities of the new possessors as to those of the dispossessed provided only that virtue has her inherent supremacy conceded. For instance, the disposition of the Northern Crown is debated in the assembly. The occasion serves to evoke Bruno's most scathing sarcasm on the immorality of the Church. Minerva thinks that the Crown was in- tended for some valiant prince, and that Jupiter should assign it to the most deserving. 'Let it remain in heaven,' answers Jupiter, ' until it can become the recompense of an invincible hero who, armed with club and fire, may give to miserable Europe the peace it so earnestly desires, and break the numberless heads of a monster worse than that of Lernea, which diffuses through the veins of that un- happy continent the fatal poison of a heresy possessing a thousand diverse forms. ' It is enough,' rejoins Momus, ' to merit the Crown that this hero should put an end to the cowardly set of pedants who, without doing any good, claim to be reverenced as pious people and pleasing to God ; who say that to do good is right, and to do ill is wrong, but whatever good one does, or ill one avoids, one is no worthier nor more agreeable to God ; and that in order to become so nothing more is needed than to believe and hope according to their formulse and their catechism. Was there ever, ye gods ! a perversity more manifest ? ' ' Certainly,' said Mercury, ' he who is not aware of this does not know what villainy means ; for this is the mother of all vice. Were we to propound such a rule for men we should be hated worse than death.' ' The worst of it is,' adds Momus, ' that they dishonour us by saying this is the command of the gods ; nay, more, they stigmatize moral effects and fruits by entitling them defects and vices. But while they say no one works for them, and they labour for no one (for all their work consists in vilifying the works of others) they neverthe- less live by the works of those who have laboured for others as well as for themselves, who have erected for others churches and chapels, hospitals and alms' houses, colleges and universities. They are then, plainly, thieves ; they have usurped the goods due to others, i.e. to those who are really useful to the state because they give themselves to speculative sciences, to virtuous manners, to the .love of the Res publica, to the maintenance of civil and social laws. Whereas if you listen to the former, they are occupied only with things invisible,' etc. Thus vigorously does Bruno castigate the immoral orthodoxy of Romanism, and the faith without works of Calvinism ; thus energetic- Giordano Bruno. 293 ally does he protest against the dogmatic presumption which both at Rome and Geneva was suffered to override the most obvious and elementary dictates of justice and humanity ; and proves that in his earnest struggle for freedom he was by no means indifferent to the claims of morality, or to the requirements of social and political life. As the common bane of these dogmatists is hatred of work and practice, they are finally condemned, on the suggestion of Mercury, to transmigrate into the bodies of asses. This is but one episode in the long process of the reformation of heaven. Another treats of the necessity of special providence as an attribute of the Infinite. Bruno also insists on his utilitarian basis of religion. The gods, he says, do not ask to be loved or feared except as a benefit to humanity, and to prevent the vices which would otherwise destroy it. Hence religions and churches should be dis- tinguished neither by external symbols nor particular vestments, but by talents and virtues. Like Pomponazzi, Bruno makes no distinc- tion in kind between Christianity and other religions or divine laws. He arraigns one and all at the bar of reason, which is the supreme arbiter of the qualities and excellencies of each. At the same time he is, as we shall find, quite alive to the merits which, on the basis of reason, must be assigned to Christianity. It is impossible to enumerate in this brief sketch the varied points discussed in this remarkable work. The substantial identity of the principle of life in all its many forms is distinctly proclaimed ; and the correlated belief in transmigration is also affirmed. Occasionally, too, Bruno's intense passion for freedom seems to assert itself in questionable forms, for he is inclined to pronounce in favour of polygamy as well as to advocate some species of socialism. But we must remember, in reading his works, that his impetuosity and impatience of restraint of every kind, as well as the crude appeal common to him with other free-thinkers of the time, to what appeared natural laws, lead him occasionally to propound as tentative and hasty opinions, ideas which he probably would not have entertained as practical propositions. I may add that Momus, the representative in the Spaccio of the skeptical rationalist, is finally commanded by Jupiter to be silent, and to believe what he cannot comprehend. The wild guerilla warfare with dogma, superstition and ignorance, which forms the subject matter of the work now considered, is con- tinued in Bruno's Cabala del Cavallo Pegasco, which may be regarded as its appendix. This is a treatise on the different species of ignor- ance or Asinity, whether dogmatic and pedantic, or purely skeptical and unenquiring. It thus resembles Erasmus's well-known Encomium Morice, and its particular object, like the De Docta Ignorantia of 294 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. Cardinal de Cusa, is to stimulate men to free and enlightened enquiry. Of all Bruno's writings this appears to me one of the most character- istic. It has not the exuberant and far-reaching imagination, the wild ebullient recklessness of the Spaccio, but it possesses that indefinable blending of philosophy and humour, of serious gravity and sardonic mockery, of light pleasantry and bitter sarcasm, which makes our skeptic the Lucian of modern philosophy and his Italian works unique in its Literature. Bruno's position as a moderate skeptic is indicated in this work by his including under the same category of Asinity, the complete negation of the mystic, the unenquir- ing suspense of the Pyrrhonist, and the devout ignorance of the religionist. It is on the last, as the special epidemic of his age, that his satire and ridicule fall most heavily. He brings together the chief places in the Old and New Testaments, as well as other ancient authors, in which asses are mentioned, and finds the various uses to which the animal has been put, together with its well-known attri- butes, symbolical of the qualities of its human relatives. His satirical conclusion is that Asinity comprehends the chief human duty. To it is assigned Divine favour, both in this world and in the next. The terrible energy which marks his satire is shown in his conclusion of the Preliminary Declamation, addressed ' to the curious, devout and pious reader,' of which I translate a few sentences : ' There is not, there is not, I say, a better mirror placed before human eyes than Asinity and the ass ; or which demonstrates more clearly the duty of that man who, labouring in the vineyard of the Lord, looks for the reward of the final judgment, the enjoyment of the heavenly supper, the repose which follows this transitory life. No plan is better or even equal to lead, guide and conduct us with all possible convenience to eternal salvation than the power of that true wisdom approved by the Divine voice. On the other hand, nothing is more effective to engulf us in the abyss of Tartarus than philosophical and rational speculations, which born of the senses, grow with the discursive faculty, and ripen in the developed human intellect. Try, try therefore to be asses all ye who are men ; and you who are already asses, study, plan and endeavour always to proceed from good to better, so that you may arrive at that end and dignity which is attained, not by knowledge and effort however great, but by faith ; and which is lost, not by ignorance and misdoing however enor- mous, but by unbelief. If by this conduct you are found written in the book of life x you will obtain grace in the Church militant and 1 It is on this reductio ad absurdum that the stress of Bruno's irony must be regarded as placed. The words in the original are ' Se cosl vi disporrete, se tali aarete, e talmente vi governarete, vi trovarete scritti net libra de la vita.' 1 etc., etc. Giordano Bruno. 295 glory in the Church triumphant, in which God lives and reigns through all ages. Amen.' * In the same spirit of fierce cynical mockery, he erects Asinity into a saint or goddess, 2 and sings her praises in a sonnet, of which I here attempt a free translation : O sainted Asinity. Ignorance most holy ! Stupidity most sacred! Devotion most profound Thou alone can'st make us learned, good and sound, While human thought and study are void of value wholly. Little availeth the search that men so fully Employ by every art or science-operation, Little availeth their sky-ward contemplation, To gain the heavenly seat which is thy object solely. What boots then, ye curious, your persistent exploration ? The wish to learn the secret of nature's laws and ways, If the stars be water, earth, or fiery exhalation ? Holy Asinity despises wisdom's rays. Folded hands and knees form her sole occupation, Expecting from Providence the luck of better days, All passes, nothing stays, Save the fruition of that eternal peace, Which God will give her after her decease. 3 If these lines evince a spirit of Mephistophilean mockery, we must remember that the asinine piety, against which Bruno inveighs so vehemently, was that which opposed itself to all culture and enlighten- ment, as well as to every rational and humane type of religion. In the sturm und drang of unwisdom and intolerance which then raged, some justification undoubtedly existed for a violence which at first sight might appear directed against every form of piety without distinction. We are too apt to forget in our reverence for religion, that a conviction 1 Op. Ital., ii. 264, Ed. Wagner ; vol. ii. p. 572, Ed. de Lagarde. 2 It is possible that this apotheosis of Asinity was suggested to Bruno (it was at least fully justified) by the celebration of asinine virtues that took place during the well-known ' Festival of Fools.' The following verse, e.g. is taken from the ' Processional ' sung during the march of the ass and its motley attendants to the grand altar in the cathedral of Sens. The irony is as bitter as in Bruno's sonnet : ' Aurum de Arabia Thus et myrrham de Saba Tulit in ecclesia Virtus asinaria." 1 See on this subject, Le Bas, Allemagne, i. p. 486. 3 Op. Ital., ii. 257, Ed. Wagner ; p. 564, de Lagarde. 296 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. just as profound of the sacredness and divine character of his object of worship, may animate the searcher after truth, so that scientific and philosophical enquiry will to him assume the aspect of a grave, imperious, religious duty. This was undoubtedly Bruno's opinion. An opposition to knowledge and intellectual progress, to religious and mental freedom, no matter on what sanctions present or future it was attempted to be based, was nothing else in his eyes but a monstrous perversion of human duty, to be attacked and exposed without hesitation or remorse. These extracts also point out how vigorously Bruno protested against the excessive other-worldliness of the middle ages, when the plea of a future world was put forth to excuse the grossest negligence of duty in this ; and when supposed service to God was impiously regarded as a complete exoneration from obvious obligation to man. But though Bruno is thus severe on religious ignorance, he also lashes the self-satisfied disclaimer of knowledge which marks the acquiescent and negative skeptic the agnostic of our own day. With his own insatiable eagerness in every species of knowledge- pursuit, he cannot comprehend a point of view which appears to him absolute indifference to all progress and possible attainment. Skeptics therefore are, in this sense, just as much asses as the stolidly ignorant among religious people. Their only distinction is, that they are asses of another species. Thus mystical scepticism or pure negation is a young ass, given to stray and wander. Pyrrhonic skepticism is an ass, like the more famous one of Buridanus, which stands firmly planted between two roads in the most abject perplexity as to which it shall take, 1 while Christian asinity is represented by the ass and colt in the well-known narrative of the Gospels. Bruno is clear- sighted enough to perceive that the skepticism of the mystic, and the voluntary ignorance of the pietist, are really akin. His treatment of Pyrrhonism is, however, both summary and superficial. The utmost he can allege against it is its supposed indifference to progress. 2 Could Bruno have known not only that a disinclination to dogmatize might advance step by step with progressive science, but that the Greek word skeptic denotes especially the persistent enquirer, he 1 Op. Ital., ii. 272, ' la seconda par un' asina, che sta fitta tra due vie, dal mezzo di quali mai si parte, non possendosi risolvere, per quale de le due piu tosto debba muovere i passi.' 2 Cf. De Lamp. Comb. Lull., Opera Lulli, p. 732, when after speaking of a true confession of ignorance, which is not incompatible with the fullest and most anxious search after truth, he proceeds : ' Mitto eos qui veritatem in densissima caligine consistentem definientes, tune 33 maxime cognovisse, et culmen atti- gisse philosophise existimabant cum suam ignorantiam non ignorare sibi viderentur.' Giordano Bruno. 297 might have found occasion to commend it here, as in effect he does in others of his works. Besides his criticism of religious and skeptical Asinity, this work also contains some strictures on dogmatic Asinity in the form then most preponderant and obstructive, viz. Peripateticism. One of the interlocutors in the conversation is a certain Onorius, whose soul in past times has undergone a variety of transformations. Originally it animated the body of a Theban gardener's ass, next it became the living principle of a horse like Pegasus, and had to labour in the service of Apollo and his court on Mount Parnassus. Afterwards it transmigrated into the body of Aristotle. In this form he set himself up as a reformer of science an enterprise so much the more easy since Socrates was dead, Plato proscribed, and he alone was left like a one-eyed among the blind. He drew up random reports of the opinions of the ancients in a childish and unworthy language. He taught under the portico of the Lyceum at Athens, styled himself the prince of Peripatetics, etc. Thus the ass, concludes Bruno, bears sway not only in the schools. Everywhere we see it installed, in courts and tribunals, in churches and chapels, as well as in academies and universities. It invades every career and every occupation of the human mind. One might say that there are more asses among men than men among asses, and that the greater part of mankind are members of the university, citizens of the State of Asinity. The ass resembles that soul of the world which animates and sustains the universe, and which is every- where important and everywhere worshipped. It is the Triumphant Beast of Dogma in veritable flesh and bone. Hence is explained why the spiritual and moral ass is everywhere as much esteemed as the physical and material ass is appreciated by particular communities. This is why the ideal and cabalistic ass, that animal of all others most noble, the symbol and type of intellectual perfection, deserves to have a place in the sky not far from truth, and to become a con- stellation. But though the three works to which I have thus briefly alluded represent Bruno's most free-thinking productions, they by no means exhaust the subject of his skepticism. We have no record of any external impulse or prompting which first started our skeptic on the path of free thought. His early surroundings at Nola and Naples were of a free kind, as we have already observed. But the chief predisposing cause we must probably assign to his own analytical intellect and vigorous imagination combined with the strong indepen- dence of character, without which no mental excellencies are of much avail. He seems to have learnt early in life to distrust the powers 298 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. of his senses, and to compare the suggestions of imagination with the outcome of his actual experience. When a child, he was accustomed to survey from the humble house of his parents at the foot of Mount Cicala the black top and barren ridge of Vesuvius. To his childish imagination this appeared the final limit of the world, and it seemed impossible that the smoking and burning mountain should be enli- vened by trees or fruits. What was his surprise on afterwards visiting the environs of Vesuvius to find the country full of orchards, vineyards and gardens ; to use his own words, ' Attonitus novitate meos tune arguo primum Mendaces oculos.' ' Cosi,' says Professor Florentine, 1 recounting the anecdote, ' escla- mava il poeta e nell' animo giovanile entrava la prima volta il dubbio.' Alas! the disillusionizing that Bruno underwent on that occasion was but the first of a long series of corrections of the imagination by experience, all tending however in a contrary direction to this first dream of childish fancy not the transmutation of the distant black and arid mountain region into a country of vineyards and gardens, but the shadowy prospect of beauty and fertility changed into actual blackness and barrenness, into smoke and devastating fire. Later in life we find that Bruno did not carry his distrust of sense-impressions to the extreme which characterizes some of his fellow-skeptics. The senses, he thinks, must be confined to their own peculiar jurisdiction : they only inform us of matters within their sphere. They are merely instruments of the understanding. Hence the contradiction assumed to exist between the senses and the reason is only a vain objection of Pyrrhonism. The contradiction is only apparent. When e.g. our eyes assure us that the sun moves and the earth is immovable, they bear witness only of what they see, and are so far right. But when the eyes of the mind affirm that it is the earth that revolves round the sun, they testify what they know, and within their sphere they are also correct. Of course the inference from this reasoning is that sense impressions are unreliable until their evidence is confirmed by the intellect, and therefore the distinction between Bruno and other skeptics is on this point only one of degree. His own tendency to idealistic construction would also have the effect of suggesting a distrust of sense-deliverances. Indeed, his language on this subject is worthy of a disciple of Plato or Plotinos, for he compares sense- perception to an eye surveying from a dark prison the colours and forms of things as if through holes and crannies. 2 This union of 1 B. Telesio, ossia studi storici su V idea della Natura nel Risorgimento Italiano, vol. ii. p. 49. 2 'Sensus est oculus in carcere tenebrarum, rerum colores et superficiem Giordano Bruno. 299 transcendentalism and skepticism Bruno may have derived from his master, the Cardinal di Cusa, and the author of the work De Docta Ignorantia, in whom it forms the leading characteristic. Doubt is therefore, with Bruno, the starting-point of all reasoning, and of all philosophy. This is affirmed again and again in various parts of his works, as well as exemplified in his own career; of which skepticism is the first authentic recorded fact we possess, whatever mystical certainties and Lullian conclusions he attained in after life. How- ever much the abstractions of the Infinite and the One satisfied for the time his intellect, and soothed his emotional needs, there was a prior stage of doubt, and doubt of a sweeping and comprehensive character. He who wishes to philosophize, says Bruno, must begin by doubting of all things. 1 Nay, he must continue in this path, for destruction must go hand in hand with construction, analysis with synthesis ; at least until reason, the free light from heaven, sees her path clear and open before her. But this undoubted prerogative of reason to be the higher tribunal for the adjudication of truth must not be taken to imply that all her apparent dictates and judgments must be accepted without reservation. For oftentimes they may be the result of bias or imperfect information, or an undue stress on a merely external authority. They can only be accepted as indisput- ably true when each rational judgment is consistent, both with itself and with other things which stand in correlation with it. 2 Still, with all his large distrust of sense perceptions, and his more qualified distrust of reason, Bruno was by no means a complete skeptic. His doubt, like that of Descartes and so many others, is but the requisite preliminary to conviction. What his opinion of Pyrrhonism, regard- ing it as immovable suspense, was, we have already seen ; so defined it was a mere tissue of puerilities worthy of a place in the same category with the philosopher's stone and the quadrature of the circle. Although truth was hard to come by, he did not doubt (on a priori grounds), either the possibility of finding it or its reality when found. He did not distrust the human mind considered apart from its false methods and unworthy prepossessions. In its origin it was divine; in its nature and tendencies, it was part of the Infinite itself; veluti per cancellos et foramina, prospiciens, Hatio tanquam per fenestram lumen a sole derivans, et ad solem repercussum, quemadmodum in corpore lunse speculatur.' De Triplici Minima, Frankfort, 1581, p. 7. 1 'Qui philosophari concupiscit, de omnibus principio dubitans non prius de altera contradictionis parte definiat quam altercantes audierit,' etc. De Triplici Minima, p. 8. 2 ' Non ex auditu, fama, multitudine, longaevitate, titulis et ornatu, sed de constantis sibi atque rebus doctrinae vigore, sed de rationis lumine veritate inspicua judicet et definiat.' De Trip. Min., p. 8. 300 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. therefore, in its own uncorrupted instincts and yearnings, in its own unbiassed judgments and wise determinations, it was the veritable home of truth. I need not add that, like that of all idealists, Bruno's final conception of truth makes it a pure intuitional and personal entity, though allied with and forming part of the universal and infinite truth which embraces all others as the whole comprehends its parts. The goal at which he arrives is therefore faith, not that of tradition and external authority, which he stigmatizes as that most vile habit of credulity (vilissima consuetudo credendi), but the personal conviction which comes of the full and free exercise of a man's own intellect. But the real extent and significance of Bruno's methodical skepti- cism we shall only be able adequately to appreciate by a cursory glance at his systematic thought, Although I agree in the ordinary estimate which connects Bruno's Idealism with Copernicus's Astronomy, I think it is easy to exag- gerate the influence he thence derived. Under any hypothesis of the relation of earth and heavens, Bruno must have excogitated a mode of thought whose tendencies would be towards the Infinite. Common intellects, with suggestions of infinity on every side, are only conscious of limitation. Others, placed in the narrowest environment will infer even from surroundings so unfavourable the absolute and unbotanded. Had Bruno been born and brought up in a prison cell he would have deduced infinity from his narrow confines. The innate vigour of his imagination, and his impatience of all restraints, would have rendered any ideal limits short of the illimitable insufferably tedious and oppressive. But this being granted, we may allow that his metaphysical interpretation of Nature, first suggested perhaps by the inexhaustible fulness and extent of mere terrestrial phenomena, received a firm foundation and renewed stimulus from Copernicus's discoveries. As Bartholmess well notes, his theology might afterwards be called by the title of Derham's Book, ' Astro- Theology.' The main article of his creed was a primary and immedi- ate inference from the new astronomy, i.e. The Infinite. This was the point of view from which he contemplated everything, heaven, earth, humanity, religion. This was the standard by which he assessed their value, the approximation to which constituted the measure of their truth and validity. When the conviction burst on him that truth, religion and morality had their roots in the Infinite and Eternal, when he began to weary of the limits of earth, the bounded and partial character of the traditional verities most widely embraced by his fellow-men, when he stretched forth the wings of imagination and spiritual yearning to worlds which filled the measureless expanse above him and in comparison with which our Giordano Bruno. 301 globe is but a tiny speck, we are not told, but he describes the event as comparable to the escape of a man from prison. These are his words : ' Away from the prison-cell narrow and gloomy, Where so many years error closely hath bound me, Leaving the fetters and chains which around me My foe's cruel hand hath entwined to entomb me.' And in other lines, which we may accept as his own description of his mental career, he says : ' Securely to the air my pinions I extend, Fearless of all harriers feigned by men of old The heavens I freely cleave to the Infinite I tend. ' So leaving this, to other worlds my upward flight I wend, Ethereal fields I penetrate, with dauntless heart and bold And leave behind what others deem, a prospect without end.' 1 As Bruno thus inferred the Infinite from Nature, especially in the larger acceptation which modern astronomy had imparted to the term, so the qualities with which he endued it were similarly derived from the contents of Nature's boundlessness and variety. Chiefest among these was the Union of Contraries. This is in truth, the key to Bruno's system. In its very idea the Infinite will be complex and differentiated, not simple and uniform. This com- plexity Bruno discerned everywhere. It was the common attribute both of mind and matter, the chief quality of the primary substance underlying both. Discernible in the Infinite of Nature, it also characterized the Infinite of human reason. What to some thinkers might seem contradictions and antagonisms mutually destructive of each other, he regarded only as different musical notes, which com- bined make up a broad and rich harmony (symphonia). In every- thing existed its own contrary which its development must inevit- ably generate and bring into clear and obvious manifestation. There is therefore, as you may observe, a close approximation in Bruno's idealism to modern German transcendentalism, which accounts for the peculiar fascination he exercised on all its great luminaries from Jacobi to Hegel. 2 1 ' . . . L' ale sicure a 1' aria porgo Ne temo intoppo di cristallo o vetro Ma fendo i cieli, e a 1' Infinite m' ergo E mentre dal mio globo agli altri sorgo E per 1' etereo campo oltre penetro Quel ch' altri lungi vede, lascio al tergo.' 2 This aspect of Bruno's teaching has been so often commented on, both by his biographers and by historians of philosophy, that it seems needless to give 302 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. It is instructive to observe how this composite nature of the Infinite falls in with Bruno's skepticism. The apparent warfare of varying principles and laws in Nature, 1 the progress by antagonism, is only the outward reflexion of the divine motions and impulses, doubts and opinions he found within his own being. By means of this perpetual differentiation no wise man is satisfied with a static or immoveable condition. The more vigorous his intellectual develop- ment, the more conscious is he of the conflict of contradictions of which it consists, the less disturbed by the contemplation of their adverse relations, and the more skill and experience does he acquire in neutralizing their varying aspects by merging them in wider generalizations. Man in a state of ignorance has no perception of contrariety, 2 a fact which is signified by the prominent part which division occupies in every system of logic, and which is symbolized by the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Hence also it comes that ignorance is the mother of sensual felicity ; and that, as Solomon says, ' He that increaseth wisdom increaseth sorrow.' Another correlative form of the idea of Infinity, Bruno denotes by the metaphysical concept of the One. Like the early Greek thinkers, he proclaimed as the issue of his investigations, ' The whole is one.' ' Oneness,' verified the term of existence, as ' the Infinite ' character- ized its immeasurable variety and extent, as ' the Absolute,' concluded all its limitations and conditions. Here again the thought was suggested by Bruno's Nature-investigations in combination with his powerful imagination. The convergence of multifarious natural opera- tions in the production of a single result is a fact frequently dwelt upon by evidential theology as a proof of the one mind or will which governs the universe. Bruno does not directly employ the argument for monotheistic purposes, though indirectly his reasoning points in the same direction. Oneness, like the Infinite, the Absolute, is merely a final term of his philosophy, the goal of his speculations. By its means he is able to overcome incongruities in the history of philo- a list of such authorities, most of which are easily accessible. Carriere has some useful remarks on the subject in his Philosophische Weltanschauung, etc., p. 470, etc., etc. See also Brunhofer's G. Bruno's Weltanschauung, pp. 151-154. 1 Op. Ital., i. p. 276. 2 Comp. Spaventa (Professor), Saggi di critica, etc., vol. i., Napoli, 1867. ' Per la composizione della cose avviene, che nessuno si appaga del suo stato, eccetto qualche insensate e stolto, il quale ha poca o nulla apprensione del suo male ; gode P essere presente senza temer del futuro, gioisce di quel che e e per quello in che si trova e non rimorso o cura di quel che e o puo essere ; e in fine non ha senso della contrarieta, la quale e figurata per Palbero della scienza del bene e del male.' P. 184. Giordano Bruno. 303 sophy, as well as to harmonize dissonances in the investigation of Nature. Preceding philosophers as, e.g. Aristotle, had asserted the operation of diverse general principles ; as for instance, form and matter, and left them as unreconciled discrepancies in the universe. 1 Bruno felt himself compelled to find a concept, or generalization, capable of embracing both. In this higher stage of thought, matter and form, cause and principle (i.e. according to Bruno the extraneous and inherent cause) are completely identical. Hence the knowledge of that supreme unity is the object of all philosophy, and of every true science of Nature. He describes the extent, power and excellence of the Oneness in the enthusiastic terms which he lavishes on all his ideal abstractions : 2 ' There is only one absolute possibility, one only reality, one only activity. Whether it be form or soul, matter or body, it is but one one only Being, one sole existence. Unity is therefore perfection, its character is impossibility of being comprehended, in other words to possess neither limit, bound, nor definitive determination. The One is infinite and immense, and therefore immoveable ; it cannot change its place, because outside of it there is no space ; it is not engendered, because all existence is only its own existence; it cannot perish, because it can neither pass into nor transform itself into anything else. It cannot increase nor diminish, because the Infinite is susceptible neither of augmentation nor of diminution. It is liable to alteration neither from without, because nothing exists outside of it, nor from within, because it is at once and the same time every- thing it can become. Its harmony is an eternal harmony since it is unity itself. . . . Because it is self-identical, it cannot form two beings ; it has not two kinds of existence, because it has not two modes of being ; it has not different parts, for it is not composite. It is in the same manner, the whole and parts, all and one, limited and unlimited, formal and informal, matter and void, animate and inani- mate. ... In the universe, solid body does not differ from a mathematical point, nor the centre from the circumference, nor the finite from the infinite, nor the infinitely great from the infinitely little. The Universe is only a centre, or rather its centre is every- where, its circumference nowhere. We therefore do well to say that Jupiter fills all things, remains in each part of the world, is the centre of every being, one in the whole and by whom all is one. Individuals who continually change do not assume a new existence, but only another mode of being ; they are all they can be, but not all in reality and at one time. The disposition of matter for example 1 Cf. Florentine, B. Telesio, etc., vol. ii. p. 64. 2 See De La Causa Principio et Uno (Op. Ital., ii. p. 261, etc.) passim. 304 T/ie Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. which determines the form of a horse cannot determine at the same time the form of a man or of a plant. But all individuals, though in different ways, participate in one and the same being. The universe, on the other hand, comprises not only all beings, but all modes of being ; it is, it comprehends, all modification of the substance which in itself remains always the same. It is in this sense that Solomon has said, " There is nothing new under the sun." ' The Absolute is another favourite abstraction by which Bruno endeavours to express a totality of being which is opposed to every limit, and which excludes every particular or individual character- istic. Though applied sometimes to the supreme energy dominating Nature, Bruno generally employs it of the unconditional Being of God, which makes the ascription of names, definitions and attributes, as conceptions or entities external to His Being, almost an act of im- piety. It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that these abstractions, though they form final determinations in Bruno's creed, were held by him as articles of belief within the limits of his knowledge or reason. They merely indicated tendencies pointing in the direction of truth, the truth itself being both unattainable and incomprehen- sible. That he found not only complete satisfaction in them as such, but contemplated their excellencies with a fervent enthusiasm he can scarce find words to express, assimilates therefore his position to that of so many skeptics who, distrustful of attaining truth, still persist in searching for it. If therefore Bruno found rest in his Idealism it was not the death-like repose of the dogmatist, it partook rather of the placidly energising ataraxia of the skeptic. Indeed, complete ideal- ism can never be more than a condition of unstable equilibrium. ' The mental rest or peace won from The cold and formless absolute,' will generally be as devoid of vital warmth' and definite form as itself, nor can it well be otherwise ; for however carefully we con- struct our idealization, however complete appears the series of abstractions by which we ascend to the Infinite or Absolute, however diligently we merge like Bruno all contradictions and incongruities in the unifying concept of the One, or going to the extreme conclusion the vanishing point of idealism, however determinately we assert the identity of thought and being, there will always lurk a suspicion that our processes are not so irrefragable as we would willingly believe them. Nominalism will perhaps suggest that we have been performing an ingenious hocus pocus, and deluding ourselves with inane and barren verbosities. Experience will obtrude the possi- Giordano Bruno. 305 bility that thought and being are not altogether identical, and that the mental condition which affirms the identity is more or less arti- ficial and unreal ; at least there will occur an occasional distrust of conclusions which, however valuable or convenient, stand so far aloof from the petty affairs, the sensible restrictions, the ordinary atti- tude of mind in which the daily life of most of us is passed. In other words, there will occur a philosophical counterpart to the religious conflict described by St. Paul, in which ' the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.' The degree of strength and coherence which metaphysical abstractions possess depends mainly on the vigour of imagination employed in their excogitation. Hence every scheme of transcendentalism contains in itself germs of skepticism, possibly destined sooner or later to come to ripeness. This truth is amply attested both by individual cases, and by the cycles, and reactions, observable in the history of philosophy. Bruno again and again confesses that his abstractions are incompre- hensible. We cannot tell what the Infinite is in itself, we can only discern how the different aspects and modes of the Finite seem to converge like the different radii of an illimitable circle in the Infinite. The One is equally unknowable ; all our experience being related to the complexity and variety of which it is composed. As to the Absolute, to attempt to attain it were as fatuous as to run round the circum- ference of a circle in order to find the centre. 1 ' Our reason,' he says, ' is incapable of comprehending that faculty which is at the same time absolutely active and absolutely passive, it cannot conceive how one thing may be all, nor how, as ultimate Reality, it is all. All our knowledge reposes on analogies and relations ; and cannot apply itself except in a tentative and imperfect manner, to what is incomparable, immeasurable and unique. We have no eye for a light so high, for an abyss so profound ; and Holy Scripture joining tha two extremes, says sublimely: The darkness is no darkness to Thee, but the night is as clear as the day. The darkness and light to Thee are both alike.' 2 On the other hand, whatever may be said of the danger pertaining to metaphysical abstractions especially as tending to generate vague- ness of conception, a disposition to accept words for things, etc., I do not think any philosophic mind would question their imperative character as universal concepts, or would deny their special useful- ness in the case of intellects like Bruno's. Brought forcefully into contact with the antinomies of the universe, finding them in his specu- lations, whether as objective discrepancies forcing themselves on his consciousness from without, or as contradictions evolved subjectively 1 Op. Ital., ii. p. 343. Comp. Florentine, B. Telesio, ii. p. 60. 2 Op. Ital., i. p. 263. Bartholmess, ii. p. 140. VOL. I. X 306 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. by the natural operations of his own intellect, coming in contact with them in religion, in politics, in social life it was surely advantageous to find, or at any rate assume, a centre in which all these various differences finally converged ; to discover a metaphysical ark which might carry him safely over the boisterous waves and conflicting currents of human beliefs and opinions. In the Infinite, the Absolute, and the One, as into the measureless ocean wherein the numberless myriads of rivers and streams in every country and from every direction are finally absorbed and lost, he was able to concentrate the different attributes of Deity, the varying aspects of Nature, the mani- fold and diverse conclusions of the human reason. Here Liberty and Necessity abandoned their ancient enmity and became reconciled. Here divine justice and mercy, immutable law and personal volition, became united. Here evil was no longer the irreconcilable opponent of good ; it was rather its privation, or possibly its necessary com- plement. Here the Finite was not the contradiction, but a part, infinitesimal though it might be, of the Infinite. The space occupied by a single human being or the insect crawling at his feet, formed a portion of Immensity. The smallest division of time was an in- dissoluble fraction of eternity. 1 In a word, the temple of the Infinite, with Bruno for its high priest, witnessed the union of many meta- physical and ethical couples which at first sight might seem, if not wholly incompatible, at least very ill-assorted. But leaving these abstractions it is time to enquire what are the exact relations they bear (1) to God, (2) to Nature. As to the first, they are merely designations of the Supreme Being. They serve to express not so much His attributes as His essence His only conceivable existence. He alone is the Infinite, the One, and the Absolute the universal existence filling all space and all time, manifesting itself in all motion, life and activity the cause, principle and sustainer of Nature, nay the spiritual expression or definition of Nature itself. In theology, as in philosophy and physical science, Bruno's conceptions are all infinite, illimitable. A personal Deity extramundane and apart from Nature, he could not understand. All the attributes of Deity in his Theodicee are as infinite and compre- hensive as Deity itself nay, they are only varying aspects denomi- nations of the self-same universal Essence. It was because the ordinary definition of the Trinity involved the idea of division in the one indissoluble unity of God, that Bruno re- fused to accept it in that sense, and adopted a more metaphysical method of explaining it. ' The supreme Being is the substance of the universe, the pure essence of all life and reality, the source of all 1 Comp. Bartholm6ss, ii. 354 Giordano Bruno. 307 being, the force of all forces, the virtue of all virtues. ... If Nature is the outward originating cause of all existence, Divinity is its deeper foundation, and the more profound basis both of Nature and of each individual. 1 God being the cause of all causes, the ruling principle of all existence, may become everything, being also perfect He is every- thing. In Him existence and power, reality and activity, are inse- parably united, indeed they cannot be conceived separately and apart from Him. Not only is He alone the external cause of all things, He is also the inherent principle which maintains them in life. By means of His omnipresence and His boundless activity the existence and motion of all beings constitute but one sole life, one immense and inexhaustible reality. The cause of all causation, the supreme Being is at once the formal, material, efficient and final cause of all that exists. He is the Nature of all Nature. 2 Being thus the universal cause and in perpetual action, He is the universal reason, in other words, the intelligence which conceives all and produces all. Being also the universal power that which determines and differentiates everything the world contains the Supreme Being is the soul of the world, the spirit of the universe, the hidden life of every form of existence. The infinity of God, His presence and activity in every part of creation, as well as in its immeasurable totality, His omnipresence and persistent energy constitute the most wonderful character of His Being. To be in all things, and not above or outside of all, this is His exclusive privilege. It is impossible that essence should be above or outside of Being, that Nature should be superior or external to natural things ; that goodness and unity should be divorced from the Good and the One. Now the Being of Beings constitutes clearly the essence, the nature, the goodness, the unity of all beings. The presence and the influence of God in His vast empire are shown by the beauty and perfection of the world. This perfection consists ill the fact that all possible forms throughout creation attain actual existence and fulfil their proper destiny. From the infinitely varied modes in which the Divine unity is presented in creation, we must not conclude, that in Himself, He is not one and absolutely simple. It is rather by means of this indivisibility, this identity with Him- self, that He forms part of all created things. It is because He does not Himself cease to exist, that existence enjoys perpetuity and life. 1 ' Profundius natures uniuscujusque fundamentum est Deus.' Op. Lat., p. 473. Comp. Op. Ital., i. p. 130. 8 ' Natura naturans. Deus in rebus, in creaturis expressus ' ' in Natura ex vi mentis ordinatricis.' Op. Lat., p. 47. ' Mens super omnia Deus est, Mens insita omnibus Natura, Mens omnia per- vadens ratio.' De triplici Min., p. 7. 308 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. The unity, identity and simplicity of the Supreme Being is blended with His truth and His goodness. His truth is of such a nature, that if it did not exist nothing would be true. The nearer any being approximates to the Infinite the more truth he has. The same rule holds good of his goodness, whether moral or natural. Everything good that Nature possesses comes from God. Whatsoever is good morally and spiritually has been inspired or established by God. God is the legislator of the physical and moral law of the universe because He is the author of all the principles which control both force and intelligence. By virtue of His truth and goodness God is more than the Creator of the world He is its judge and its benefactor. His wisdom and knowledge are not less than His truth and good- ness. Not only does He behold all things, but He makes all visible things to be seen. He is therefore both the eye which discerns all things, and the light which illumines all eyes and all objects. Here Bruno touches the philosophy both of Malebranche and Berkeley, and gives expression to one of the profound thoughts of the Old Testa- ment, ' In Thy light shall we see light.' The will of God, i.e. His providence, which is inseparable from His prescience, conducts and directs all thoughts to the best possible end. The will of a Being who is almighty and omniscient triumphs over all things. One effect of the Divine will is the revelation of it we have in Nature. Other effects are the beauty and harmony which mark creation. By its very perfection the will of God is at once necessity and absolute liberty, in the same way that in every moral man liberty and necessity are identical. 1 Thus the essence of God comprehends all things, without itself being capable of being com- prehended. It includes all duration and all space. It is the end and term of all things. It is both at the base and the summit of the scale of beings without the power of self-definition or determination. The source and plenitude of all perfections, He cannot be adequately con- ceived by beings as imperfect as ourselves. God cannot properly be named ; or rather, He ought to receive ever} 7 name which can express supreme grandeur and superiority. The designation most suitable to Him is ' the Being of Beings.' God is ' He who is,' or ' That which is' (qui est vel quod est), a possible reminiscence, it may be added, of the ' I am that I am ' of the third chapter of Exodus. As God is the theological expression of the Infinite and the One, so the concrete form of these abstractions is found in Nature. Nature was Bruno's school from which he drew his physics and metaphysics : his conclusions from the seen, and his speculations on the unseen. From its extent, especially as revealed by the new astronomy, he 1 Comp. Spaventa, op. cit., p. 145. Giordano Bruno. 309 inferred the Infinite. From the universality and variety of its activity he deduced the immanence and omnipresence of Divine energy. From the unity of design pervading its multifarious opera- tions, from the oneness and identity of the substance which assumed so many forms, he concluded the oneness of its Author. Nature was therefore regarded by him as the incarnation or materialization of the Divine Being. To Bruno, as to Raymund of Sabieude, it was, in its own province, a complete Revelation, the first unfolding of the Divine mind. Not only does it reveal its Creator, but it is the only mode by which His existence and attributes can become manifest to men. It is in and by Nature that God recognizes His own being and perfection, and by the same means only are we able to comprehend Him. It should be added that Bruno is not always consistent in his meta- physical interpretation of Nature ; sometimes he employs the tran- scendentalism of the Neo-Platonists, according to which God may be conceived without Nature, though Nature is inconceivable without God. At other times, and most generally, he adopts the pure naturalism of Spinoza, which limits the divinity by the bounds of actual existence. But whatever the point of view, Bruno is an ardent worshipper of Nature. In this respect he yields to none of the votaries of naturalism that belong to the Renaissance. He describes her charms in the amorous language a passionate lover might employ of his mistress. Professor Fiorentino l is so affected by Bruno's ardour that he appears ready to share it : ' Questa vaga donna, bella, nuda, schietta raggiante, amorosa, carezzovole e la philosophia per Giordano Bruno, qual meraviglia s' ei se ne sente prof ondamente innamorato ? ' But it is not Nature in her static, materialistic aspects with which Bruno is enamoured. In that sense indeed she had for him no existence. It is Nature, moving, energizing, fluctuating, changing, instinct with life and energy, that is the object of Bruno's adoration. This was the ' Anima Mundi,' or Nature-soul, which as we have seen he identified with the third person of the Trinity. For if on the one hand Nature is an instrument of Divine Providence, she is also a living power, a creative faculty standing in the same relation to inert matter as a sculptor does to his marble, or a painter to his canvas. Hence the visible creation is only an image, an idolon of that incomprehensible spirit which fills and animates all things. Bruno thus shares with his compatriots Telesio, Vanini and Campanella the idea of Nature as a colossal animal, a living being of infinite extent and most elaborate organization, which engenders and nourishes, and in turn destroys and devours, all subordinate beings the common source of life and of death and of every other movement and energy in creation. 1 B. Telesio, op. cit,, p. 48, 310 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. Such is Nature in her totality grasped, as Bruno loved to grasp all such concepts, from the point of view of the Infinite. What Nature is in detail in the relation of single parts to the enormous and com- posite whole he tells us in his Doctrine of Monads. These spiritual atoms stand in the same relation to the Infinite as a material atom stands to the physical universe. They constitute principles of con- tinuity which underlie all transitory existence the minute indestruct- ible bases on which all individual beings are founded, and of which they are so many superstructures and developments. The monad is the centre of all activity in living beings, and of mere existence in inanimate things. Without itself possessing those attributes, it is the basis of everything that has movement, figure or extension. By its self-multiplication and division, by its countlessly diverse co-ordina- tions and associations, it becomes the actual cause of all the varied processes and phenomena we see in Nature. The analogy on which Bruno founds and by which he explains his Monad Theory is the property of Numbers. 1 The unit must needs enter into every possible combination of number, as its initial basis, its final constituent and its absolute measure. Similarly into all the different products of Nature, endlessly various as they are, enters the monad as the eternal unit of each. All beings, in whatever scale of existence, are only different aggregates of monads, and all natural processes, simple or complex, are only varied transformations and modifications of these primary units, just as all the operations of arithmetic start from the numerical unit. There will of course be a hierarchy among monads as in numbers. Highly endowed and complex beings such as man will consist of a far greater number of monads than beings of a lower order. Every species of being may be represented by its own lowest determination, which thereby becomes its own special monad, just as in arithmetic the number ten is taken as the basis or unit of the decimal system. Throughout the whole of creation, entering into every process and every form of existence, runs this chain of monads, as a permanent and living principle, ultimately ending where it begins with the Supreme Being. The root-thought of Bruno's monad-speculations is easily perceived. He makes the law and order of numbers subserve the same purpose in his scheme of philosophy as Spinoza's universal substance does in his own system ; the same office in point of fact which numbers have continually discharged in the history of philosophy from, the time of Pythagoras downwards. It is his principle of cohesion and 1 'Numerus est accidens monad is, et monas est essentia numeri: sic com- positio accidit atomo, et atomus est essentia compositi,' etc. De Trip. Mai., etc., p. 10. Giordano Bruno. 311 uniformity applied to the details of nature-products and processes : hence it is only a crude mode of explaining such truths as are expressed by the correlation and conservation of forces, the perpetuity of energy, the laws of causation, gravitation, chemical affinity, and other formulas of the same kind with which modern science abounds. Perhaps we may go even further, and may regard the return to atoms and molecules which distinguishes some departments of modern thought, as a reproduction to a certain extent of such theories as Bruno's monads; nor is it difficult to foresee that a still greater scope for speculations of a similar kind will inevitably mark the science of the future. The actual practical value of Bruno's theories is of course nil ; but the monads both of his own philosophy and that of Leibnitz, their descendants, will always retain historical interest, as connecting the speculations of Demokritus and the Greek atomists with those of scientists of our own day. But, besides the order of natural processes, Bruno's monads help to explain, at least to illustrate, the unifying or merging all contra- rieties in an absolute oneness. Just as infinite number comprehends every conceivable numerical quantity, no matter how divergent from each other, so does the One include and involve every imaginable discrepancy and contradiction; however great their mutual differences. By this means, as we have observed, Nature loses all her antinomies ; corruption and production, progress and regress, death and life, good and evil, beauty and ugliness, perfection and imperfection, form com- ponent elements, unit-sums of varying amounts, of the same absolute innumerable whole. As also all numbers form a series leading from one to infinity, so do the processes of Nature, in harmony with our own instincts, tend towards the Infinite : Bruno's conception thus harmonizing with St. Paul's words, ' The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together.' That these speculations point in the direction of Pantheism is clear; but that Bruno was an undoubted Pantheist is not so obvious. Nothing is easier than to discover in the ideas of comprehensive and imaginative thinkers when applied to the infinitive existence and omnipresent energy of the Supreme Being, traces of Pantheism ; as we have already noticed. Bruno's metaphysical intellect and poetic imagination rendered him peculiarly liable to excesses of this kind. The very attempt to set bounds to the Infinite, to bring it, in other words, within the limits of our own narrow and finite existence, would have seemed to him both false and impious, false as contravening the witness afforded by Nature of its Author's infinity ; impious as placing a limit, for our personal convenience, to the illimitable. Hence many are the passages in his works in which he seems to confound the 312 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. Creator with His creation the material with the efficient cause the living force with its physical manifestation. In the same general direction of Pantheism point also his views of the necessity of creation, his definition of the Creator as ' .Naturizing nature ' (natura naturans), his doctrine of monads, and of the ' Anima mundi.' On the other hand must be taken into account the mode in which he fre- quently describes the Deity as possessing a separate Being and personality, distinct from the universe of His creation, terming him the Creator, the mind and orderer of all things. On a complete view of the question, we may pronounce the evidence for Bruno's Pan- theism doubtful, and this is the conclusion to which the most impartial of his biographers and critics have also arrived. But though I admit Bruno's Pantheistic leanings, and his fre- quently expressed affection for the Divine which exists in Nature, neither this nor the cognate abstractions of the Infinite and Absolute, so far as they express definite and final attainment, are the supreme objects of his passionate love. Of all of these he admits the inherent incomprehensibility. Like Lessing, he prefers search for truth to discovered truth ; or as he is a poet almost more than a philosopher, we may compare him to Sir John Suckling and his preference for desire as superior to fruition. In this respect Bruno is, as I have already hinted, a complete skeptic; as one who loves and searches for what he is aware he cannot attain. Bruno's mistress, like that of so many platonizing thinkers, is ' intellectual Beauty' the passion rather than its object, or the passion transformed and elevated to an object. 1 He describes her charms with an ardent tenderness and ecstatic rapture which a material and human object of passion could hardly have inspired. The work in which he does this is called Gli eroici furori, and we may take it, I think, as a philosophical ' sursum corda ' ! the point where his idealism becomes sublimated and con- secrated into a cultus. M. Bartholmess has well observed how Bruno attempted in this work to bring about a revolution in Italian ideas respecting love. The poetry of the Troubadours, of Dante and Petrarca, had, while eliminating, or at least refining, the more sensual elements of the earthly passion, exalted it to an extravagant and absurd excess. Treading in the steps of Plato and Plotinus, Bruno wished to divert the sentiment in another direction, and to another object not the human form, with its attributes of perishable- ness and mortality, ought to be the object of the wise man's affections; but divine beauty and spiritual wisdom, which is invisible, unchange- able, and imperishable, nay, which is but one aspect of God Himself. 1 See this especially brought out in the commentary to his De Immenso : "Works, national edition, vol. i. p. 203. Giordano Bruno. 313 Dearer than any earthly mistress to the impassioned lover ought to be Divine wisdom to the thinker. Not that he can expect to gain full possession of the object of his passion. He is aware that his knowledge, his powers, are finite, though his desires may be infinite. Sofia, like truth, is to be courted and pursued, never fully achieved. Still some progress may be made by the earnest lover : there are degrees of even infinity and corresponding powers of those who pursue it. Man pursuing Divine wisdom can approximate to what he cannot reach. Though he cannot fully apprehend God, he can gradually become more God-like ; though he cannot grasp truth, he can become truthful ; though he may not possess supreme wisdom, he may become wiser. Thus the career of the intellectual man becomes an enthu- siasm of devotion ; an appetite, a longing, a perpetual yearning and striving for Divine wisdom ; and Bruno employs all the images and parables of spiritual and mystic longing he can find in holy writ or elsewhere to illustrate the power and sublimity of his sacred pro- pension. We may here observe that Bruno, like Pascal and Hirnhaym passes, at least he evinces a strong desire to pass, from skepticism to mysticism, from the attitude of the searcher to the ecstatic rapture of the intuitionist. It is indeed evident that this was the direction which his intellect had come to take during the latter part of his life; and which his Lullian tendencies so clearly exemplify; though I do not think it correct to say with Hitter, that Bruno passes through skepticism and enquiry into religious faith, in the common acceptation of the term. On the other hand, the point of importance in Bruno's mystic tendencies, and in his devotion to supreme wisdom, is that he thereby finds an object of worship which is not divorced from human reason and enquiry ; and therefore different from the common faith both of Catholics and Protestants. A religious Belief and worship into which reason did not enter as its primary con- stituent, which did not embrace to the fullest extent the results of human learning and investigation, was one Bruno could not under- stand. We have already noticed the bitter contempt he displays for the holy Asinity, which in his opinion had seduced mankind, and withdrawn them from their true allegiance to the God of wisdom and truth. The enthusiastic adoration of Sophia (wisdom) formed the opposite pole in his religious philosophy to Ass-worship. The Infinite he learnt to adore in the sublime temple of Nature, whose holy of holies it occupied with its awful and illimitable presence ; and he bestowed upon it all the powers of his reason and intelligence, as well as the love and worship of his religious sentiment. Reading Bruno's Eroici furori, one is forcibly reminded of Schleier- macher's glowing description of Spinoza as a ' God-intoxicated man ' : 3 1 4 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. ' Ihn durchdrang der hohe Weltgeist ; das Unendliche war sein Anfang und sein Ende, das Universum seine einzige und ewige Liebe ; in heiliger Unschuld und tiefer Derauth spiegelte er sich in der ewiger Welt : Voller Religion war er und voll heiligen Geistes ; und darum steht er auch da allein und unereicht, Meister in seiner Kunst, aber erhaben iiber die profane Zunft, ohne Jxinger und ohne Biirgerreclit ! ' With a trifling modification of one or two terms, this magnificent eulogy is as applicable to Bruno as to Spinoza. Indeed, of the two I think the author of Gli croici furori is a few stages further advanced in God-intoxication than even Spinoza. That a man capable of conceiving such a noble and elevated object for human affections, of being permeated by such a divine passion, 1 should have actually suffered death as an atheist, must be pronounced one of the most monstrous perversions of justice which defile the pages of history. Unhappily, it is not a solitary instance of the irony which occasionally overrules human destinies, and with diabolical humour prescribes slavery as the lot of lovers of liberty, compulsory falsehood or the stake as the destiny of lovers of truth ; as well as persecution and death as an atheist for the God-intoxicated enthusiast. 2 The relation which Bruno's idealism bears to his free-thought, and his vehement vindication of the rights of the human conscience, both public and private, is a distinguishing feature of his speculations. Man's reason being an integral part of the universal reason, partakes also of its qualities ; it is therefore both necessary and absolute. As such it forms the true basis both of morality and of speculative freedom. Bruno thus anticipates Descartes in laying stress on the reason, or consciousness, as the supreme principle of knowledge. Both reason as the intellectual, and conscience as the ethical, organ of truth are free and autonomous, partaking as they do of the unre- stricted liberty of their Creator. Indeed, the knower and the thing known do not exist, except so far as God knows them. All clearness, all evidence emanates from Him. Senses, conscience, reflexion, reason, all the modes and stages of intelligence, the different branches of knowledge, all the efforts of mind and of wisdom, need that divine 1 Few things in Bruno's works are more remarkable than the depth and sincerity of his God-passion. The title which next to Philosophus he most affected is Theophilus (lover of God). From his point of view no doubt the terms are synonymous. 2 'Bruno e stato bruciato vivo a Roma come sprezzatore della religione e di Dio. Oramai sappiamo che cosa importano questo accuse, e possiamo dire anche noi con tutta ragione. H Eh! Prole dolor! res eo jam pervenit ut qui assertefatentur, se Dei ideam non liabere, et Dtum non nisi per res creatas (quorum causas ignorant) coynoscere, non erultescant philosophos atheismi accusare." ' Spa- venta, Saggi, p. 167, quoting Spinoza, Tract. Tkeo. Pol., om op., ii. p. 32. Giordano Bruno. 315 light, which, itself inaccessible like the sun, still irradiates all objects within its luminous sphere. It is because every perception, every knowledge, whether of the senses or the mind, has God for its first source, for its principal organ, that man ought to rely implicitly upon verifiable evidence. God does not deceive, nor can He be deceived. He cannot deceive because he is unable to will deception, His will being as perfect as His knowledge. Truth therefore, so far as attainable, is manifested by enquiry and research ; and all reasonable methods of pursuing it are to be followed freely and fearlessly, with the con- viction that whatever deficiency may arise from the inevitable limita- tions of our senses and knowledge, is not to be compared with the dense ignorance which must result from their entire disuse. Bruno therefore concludes that the human mind, by its native instincts and operations, is made for knowledge and for freedom. No bounds indeed can be rightly placed to the speculative and imagina- tive powers of man. In this respect the microcosm is a reflection of the macrocosm, sharing its most peculiar attribute of infinity. Hence any repression of research is an indignity offered, through man, to the Highest Reason which he shares. He lays it down that thought, by its own free spiritual nature, cannot be the object of punitive justice ; for if sincere it can be no offence to God or to human law. Thus personal, and in a considerable degree, political freedom, is the outcome, the dictate, of his own mental constitution. The limitless character of his thoughts and speculations he transferred, as far as possible, to his practical and political life. The process no doubt was, or might have been, somewhat dangerous; but political liberty in the sixteenth century was by no means sufficiently advanced to run the risk of encountering such dangers. Nor was Bruno unaware that the social and political condition of men necessitated some limitations ; though to every concession in this direction he is careful to add the proviso that the philosophical and religious freedom of the individual should be as much as possible respected. Having thus brought before you a few of the salient points in the philosophy of this most remarkable thinker, it is time to sum up this part of my subject. Bruno was one of those gigantic intellects, those myriad-minded men whose multifarious erudition, eclectic methods, and many-sided sympathies render a summary of their operation very difficult, if not impossible. Like a survey of a widely-extended landscape, or an enormous building, the conspectus will only be a piecing, more or less rude and imperfect, of separate and fragmentary points of view. Employing his own illustration of the infinite powers and feelings of the human mind, we might almost say, of his own intellect, that its 316 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. centre is everywhere, its circumference nowhere. A child of the sixteenth century, his speculations comprehend and his sympathies embrace methods of thought current in ancient times on the one hand, and in our own day on the other. The immense range of his studies is proved by the fact that there is hardly an author, certainly not a subject known in his day, to which he does not seem to have paid attention, and on which he has not thrown some light. 1. To us his chief interest arises from his skepticism. The nature and extent of this I have already glanced at. As in the case of so many other philosophical enquirers it was, perhaps, more in intent than reality, limited and methodical. Bruno doubted to know. Skepticism was the foundation of his philosophy and his science. Surrounded by despotic powers and principles, philosophical, religious, and political, which demanded a blind submission from every man, Bruno boldly protested against them all. They were so many external restric- tions and antiquated prejudices which possessed no inherent validity except so far as they received the approval of a man's own con- science. Hence he opposed himself to Peripateticism, to scholasti- cism, to mediseval science, and Papal Christianity. He even carries his opposition to the ruling convictions of his time further than his own system of thought appears altogether to warrant. For although e.g. he himself places such stress on abstractions, he attacks the abstract ideas of scholastic logic in the true spirit of nominalistic criticism. The truth moreover that he finally attains by his idealism is so far imperfect and indemonstrable that his highest knowledge consists in a direction rather than a goal, an effort than an achieve- ment, a perpetual struggle than a definite crowning victory. He also shares with Galileo, 1 and other thinkers of the time, the conviction of a distinct separation between theology and philosophy, and is so far a maintainer of double truth. Indeed this doctrine could have presented no difficulty to a thinker who regarded truth as essentially multiple, though its various forms and aspects finally met and were united in the absolute one. Nor can it be said that the final merging of his own idealism in the mystic cabbala of Raymund Lulli imparted the conviction of absolute and demonstrable truth for which he had been searching all his life. Notwithstanding his stress on that philosophy so signally manifested by making it the subject of so many of his works, not>- 1 Com p. Berti, II Procenso oriyinale di Galileo Galilei, p. xxx. ' Egli (Galileo) con ragioni alle quali, nulla si potrebbe oggi ancora aggiungere, sostiene nettamente non solo la convenienza, ma la necessita di separare la scienza. dalla religione, e di dare nelle dispute il primo luogo non gia alle parole della Scrittura, ma alle ossfrvazioni ed alle dimostrazioni.' Giordano Bruno. 317 withstanding his ingenious manipulations of numbers, alphabets, abstractions, physical and hyperphysical entities, notwithstanding the claim of Lulli to have discovered a key to human omniscience, the ultimate feeling concerning it in Bruno's mind was imperfect attain- ment. Like his fellow pilgrims through the darkness and mist of occult science, Agrippa and Vanini, Bruno also arrives at the con- clusion that metaphysics cannot yield that perfect conviction of truth which its earnest seeker desiderates. He was too keen-sighted not to perceive that whatever advantage metaphysical terms and ab- stractions might have as ideal comprehensions of diverse realities, the standpoint was essentially imaginative and individual, and that the profounder the research, the more recondite and unattainable be- came its object. There is a remarkable passage l near the conclusion of his chief Lullian treatise in which he announces his agreement with the De Vanitate Scientiarnm of Agrippa concerning Lulli's art. In universal propositions he says, no one but a fool would think he attained perfect knowledge after all his study. Even Aristotle, who of all philosophers attributed most power to the human intellect, admitted that in the ultimate substances and differentiae of things the eye of our understanding was not otherwise than the eye of a night-bird when directed to the sun. At the same time he repudi- ates the skepticism which remains satisfied with the admission of its ignorance. He merely claims for Lulli's art that whatever is possible in all sciences by way of generalization, is acquired by it as by the cause which in all things is most general. 2 An interesting question, especially connected with Bruno's untimely end, is the relation of his skepticism to Papal Christianity. It is generally assumed to have been one of open hostility; it would be more truly designated as one of divergency. As a rule Bruno was more un-Christian than anti-Christian. No doubt there were aspects of Papal ecclesiasticism to which he was thoroughly opposed, e.g. its compulsory dogmatic spirit with which he contended throughout his life. The crucifix thrust in his face by those who were piling burn- ing faggots around him, was a melancholy symbol of the manner in 1 De Lampade Conibinatoria Lulliana, Lulli, Opera, p. 732. 'In universis etenim nullus nisi plusquam mediocriter stultus veram et non vanitati similem post omne studium se nactum esse noverit scientiam ; quod sane et is qui maxim6 omnium philosophorum humano ingenio tribuisse videtur Aristoteles testatur, ubi rerum substantias ultimasque differentias, innominabiles imper- ceptibilesque dicit et oculum intelligentiae nostrae ad manifestissima se habere naturae baud aliter quam nocturnae avis oculos ad lumen solis.' 2 'Quod ergo per omnes scientias habere tandem possibile est, per artem istam utpoti per causam maxime generalem acquiritur.' Lulli, op f-oc. cit., p 732. 3 1 8 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. which Christianity had always been presented for his acceptance and adoration a harsh, bitter, narrow, ignorant bigotry, administered often by men who were incarnations of the worst vices that could disgrace humanity Nor did Protestantism, as he had experienced it, at Geneva and Marburg, represent the religion of Christ in a much more inviting guise. Some idea of Christianity, conjoined with toler- ance and a respect for intellectual freedom, he may have derived from his sojourn at Wittenberg ; though even here the phenomenon was only evanescent. There is no trace in his writings of any formal attempt to extract the pure gold of Christ's words and life from the dross by which human ambition had surrounded it ; and yet there are intimations in his interrogatory before the Inquisition that this aspect of Christianity had not altogether escaped him. When asked, e.g. what he considered necessary to salvation, his reply was : ' Faith, hope, and charity,' an answer which, with its implication of the superior merits of charity, must have sounded satirical on such an occasion. His statement, adduced by Mocenigo, of the corruption of the Church, compared with its primitive purity ; and the coercive me- thods then employed in propagating Christianity, contrasted with the persuasive and rational modes first used for the purpose ; his expressed estimate of the evidential value of miracles, viz. that the higher attestation of Christ's religion comes from the precepts of the Gospel ; all point in the direction of an attempt to distinguish the divine elements in Christianity from the human incrustations in which they had become embedded. 1 But after making due allowance for these intimations, we must admit that Bruno's conception of Christianity indeed his view of every religion, is one-sided and imperfect. There was a predisposition, closely connected with his own mental tenden- cies, to make religion entirely synonymous with intellectual culture, 1 Further light on this important point may be expected from the hoped-for publication of a number of Bruno's unpublished works in the possession of Mr. Abraham de Noroff. In a communication which this gentleman has made to Signor Berti, and which the latter has inserted among his collection of Bruno documents, he says : ' Nous appellons 1'attention du monde savant sur les passages du MS. qui levent completement 1'accusation oalomnieuse qui a etc portee contre le celSbre philosophe italien d'avoir professe des dogmes antichretiens, et la transmigration des ames. Les passages consignes sur les ff. 23. v. et. 48 v. ainsi que les propositions emises dans de iivre: De triyinta Statuarum (pp. 114121), qui adoptent la revelation, qui s'appuyent sur les paroles du Christ (dont le tres saint nom est trace par la main de Bruno en lettres majuscules), et enfin qui parlent de 1'immaterialite et de la substan- tialit6 de I'ame, protesteiit hautement contre les farouches ennemis de Bruno, auxquels sans doute il applique les paroles du Christ citees a la f. 48. v. : Hie dies vestra et potestas tenebrarumS Berti, Documenti, etc., p. 112. Giordano Bruno. 319 instead of regarding moral discipline and spiritual feeling as its necessary concomitants. Just as there are men in our day who think Christ should have foretold the latest development of modern science, so Christianity, to have been perfect in Bruno's eyes, ought to have announced the Copernican Astronomy instead, perhaps, of the Sermon on the Mount. Christianity had too much of the passive stolidity of the age, and not enough of the daring and imagination of the winged Pegasus, to satisfy Bruno's aspirations. Eeligion as the exponent of the Eternal Mind ought to possess an infinite, necessary, and univer- sal character, 1 whereas Christianity, in its traditional development, seemed to him to have a merely local and partial aim. Sacchetti, in one of his novels, 2 relates how, in the Dante craze at Ravenna in the fourteenth century, a certain youth took the burning wax-lights from before the crucifix on the altar and placed them before the tomb of the poet. Bruno also wished to remove the wax-lights designed to do honour to Christianity, and to place them on the altar he had erected to the Infinite and the One, the all-filling, all-animating Creator of the universe. Hence he had no objection to those speculative doctrines of Christianity which were allied to the Infinite, or were susceptible of a metaphysical interpretation. Indeed, we have in Bruno a foreshadow- ing of the peculiar interpretation of Christian dogma which was so common in the first half of this century among German idealists, the disciples of Schelling, Hegel and Feuerbach. He had, as we have seen, no objection to a Trinity in which the second Person was the Wisdom perpetually emanating from its Divine source, and the third Person was the Anima Mundi, or soul of the universe, ' the Lord and Giver of Life ' (though Bruno would have denied the personality) of the Nicene Creed. He would not have disputed the Incarnation interpreted as a spiritual process. 3 Immortality and a future life fell in completely with his general scheme of thought provided he was not compelled to admit a bodily resurrection, and that some scope for transmigra- tion, physical and mental, were conceded him. On the whole view of the question we may say that there is nothing in his mode of thought directly opposed to the first pure form of Christianity, what- ever may be said of his attitude to the Papal caricature of it extant in his time. We must remember, in estimating Bruno's relation to 1 Spaventa, op. cit., p. 168. 8 Novelle, cxxi. Ed. Barbera, ii. p. 4S1. 3 Cf. Berti, p. 355. It was perhaps the materialistic mode of explaining it that suggested to Bruno his illustration of it by the Centaur, though such illustrations and analogies were in his time, as well as subsequently, often employed to explain the doctrines of Christianity. Comp. Bishop Huet's hardly less profane illustrations of the Incarnation : Dem. Evan. Ed. vi., p. 466. 320 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. the Church, that he openly admitted the fact of his hostility. In his interrogatory before the Inquisition he candidly acknowledges that he had cherished, from his earliest years, doctrines and opinions irre- concileable with those of the Church ; and all that he pleads for in his defence is that this divergence of thought and sentiment did not constitute that fatal breach with dogmatic Christianity which his enemies supposed. He emphatically disclaimed all desire to see Christianity supplanted by any other religious faith ; and confessed his desire to see it allied closely with metaphysics. The conception of a universal religion, like his own Infinite, in which all churches and creeds, everything local and temporary should be merged in the Absolute, in which, to use St. Paul's words, 'Even Christ Himself shall be subject to Him that put all things under Him, that Grod may be all in all,' no doubt swept occasionally before his eyes, but only as a vague, misty dream of the future J the apocalypse of an idealistic thinker. Bruno's imagination was, we know, fond of soaring beyond both realities and possibilities ; and due allowance should be made for this fact when we meet, as we often do in his writings, schemes of thought-ideals of human progress, and vague vistas of futurity on which he himself would have laid no stress as assured convictions or articles of faith. Nor should we forget another trait of his intellect which, if neglected, might involve us in considerable misapprehension of his character. I mean the daring and impetuous nature of his speculations, which continually seduces him beyond the limits of his real intellectual and religious standpoint. 2. In that curious letter of Bruno's to the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, which I noticed, he styles himself among other titles, ' The awakener of sleeping minds.' 2 Few designations would better express the main influence which Bruno exercised on his time ; but it was an effect produced more by his rationalism and eclecticism than by his 1 The passages in Bruno's works in which a dislike to all positive religions seems manifested, are evidently based on the condition of their resemblance, more or less, to the spurious Christianity of his time. Hence when he says of these : 1 Humanam turbant pacem sseclique quietem Extinguunt mentis lucem, neque moribus prosunt,' he was clearly drawing from his own experience of Romanism. A tolerant religion, which inculcated as primary articles in its creed, peace, culture, and morality, he would doubtless have cordially approved. Bruno's anticipations of a regenerated world are thus conveyed in his last published work : 1 Novi Telluris faciem nihilominus esse Fulgentem, vere sanctum et venerabile sidus.' De Triplici minima et mensura, p. 2. 2 'Dormitantium animorum excubitor.' Comp. Bartholmess, i. p. 97, note 2. Giordano Bruno. 321 skeptical tendencies, so far as these influences are independent of each other. It was aa a Free-thinker that Bruno was especially known to his contemporaries one who carried bold and unscrupulous speculation into every province of knowledge, not as a mere denier of accepted doctrines. He is therefore an illustration of the truth that breadth of culture, eclecticism and toleration will subserve the same purpose as negation in undermining any narrow system of dogma. Indeed of the two it is the more effective and lasting method: the true opposite to dogma being not negation, which may be just as dogmatic as assertion, but latitudinarianism, freedom of research, and full toleration for all sincere and rationally attained conclusions. The intellect, according to Bruno, should be free and un- bound. When it thus exercised its powers, its conclusions attained a moral coercion which he truly pronounces irresistible. ' Our opinions,' he said, 'do not depend on ourselves : evidence, the force of circum- stances, the reason, the will of God impose them on us. If no man therefore thinks what he wishes nor as he wishes, no one has the right of compelling another to think as he does. Every man ought to tolerate with patience, nay with indulgence, the beliefs of his neighbour. Toleration, that natural faith graven upon all well-born hearts, the fruit of the enlightened reason, is an indispensable re- quirement of logic, as well as a precept of morality and religion.' Noble words ! we may add, addressed to an intolerant age. Bruno was unfortunately more alive to the advantages of toleration than sedulous in its practice. We have already seen how vehement his antipathy occasionally became to modes of thought and feeling which he declined or was unable to approve. As a contrast to the Free-thought of Montaigne and his followers, we must note in passing Bruno's opposition to Humanism. He per- ceived that whatever services classical learning had, in time past, conferred on the Renaissance when it was a new movement, it now threatened to become in some cases an intellectual despotism. A tyrant was to him a tyrant, even though he had commenced his career as tribune of the people. Not only the thought but even the language of modern Europe was becoming subjected to the sway of antiquity. Aristotle and Plato ruled men's minds, Cicero their tongues, Seneca and the poets their feelings. Bruno was indignant with a subserviency which threatened to become abject servility. He pours his invective like a lava -flood over the grammarian, the pedant, and the purist : speaking of the vanity of these apes of the ancients, he says of one of them, ' Though he is only an individual, he alone, thanks to his superiority, is equal to all men. Should he happen to laugh he calls himself Demokritus, should he weep he is VOL. I. Y 322 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. Heraklitus, when he argues he is Aristotle, when he constructs his chimseras he takes the name of Plato, when he loudly harangues he styles himself Demosthenes, when he construes a phrase of Virgil he becomes Maro himself. By turns he chides Achilles, approves jEneas, blames Hector, exclaims against Pyrrhus, laments with Priam, accuses Turnus, excuses Dido, praises Achates; in a word, nihil divinum a se alienum putat. 1 For the same reason Bruno jeers at compositions such as Montaigne's Essays, in which the dicta of ancient ages and poets are joined together like patchwork, or he describes them as a mixed salad of proverbs, of Greek and Latin phrases. He also employs the inversion of the common saying, viz. that antiquity is the youth of the world, and the present its old age. What did antiquity know of the extension of the earth and the heavens by Columbus and Copernicus, of the advances science was then making? Antiquity had, according to Bruno, served its pur- pose ; philosophers must now turn their faces to new worlds, and expend Lheir energies on new objects. 3. But with all his stress on the new astronomy and his anticipa- tion of the triumphs of modern science, Bruno has little claim to be regarded as a physical scientist. The bent of his genius was alto- gether metaphysical. He had little capacity, and less taste, for the slow, plodding methods of induction. His eager spirit and compre- hensive intellect grasped intuitively the inference from any given fact or series of observations, whether of Nature or humanity, and his fervid imagination immediately deduced the extremest possible consequences from such a conclusion. In this respect the contrast so frequently pointed out between Bruno and Galileo is very remark- able. While the latter was thoroughly imbued by the spirit of modern scientific methods, Bruno was mainly the idealist, the theoriser and the poet. Both accepted the Copernican system, for instance ; but while Galileo was busily exploring our own planetary system with his telescope, Bruno had already traversed infinite space on the wings of imagination, and filled the remote heavens with other suns and inhabited planets far beyond human ken or research. While Galileo was satisfied with determining the physical features and laws of our own system, Bruno had boldly speculated on the relation which the new astronomy must necessarily bear to humanity and its concerns, to Christianity and its doctrines, to political and social regulations. While again a modern scientist would have explored by laborious induction the particular law governing a given phenome- non, Bruno must needs obtain by his monads and his metaphysical abstractions a comprehensive theory, which included and explained 1 Bar., ii. 51. Comp. p. 299. Giordano Bruno. 323, to his satisfaction all natural phenomena. A partial or particular truth, the isolated cause of a single phenomenon, a process or dis- covery that he could not formulate in terms of the Absolute or the Infinite, was to him no truth at all. These qualities and tendencies of Bruno have naturally met with scant sympathy among our induc- tive philosophers. Contrasted with Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo, the men of science and observation, Bruno seems but a vain dreamery a thinker who intermingled strange paradoxes and trivial fancies with serious and well grounded hypotheses; and whose occasionally correct adumbrations of scientific truth are only the happy guesses of an erratic imagination which, in its impetuous and fantastic careering in every conceivable direction, must needs have come into occasional contact with ideas more or less true. To all of which may be replied, in the words of a well-known proverb, ' The king's chaff is as good as other people's corn.' Bruno, with the help of what he terms the lume inferno, ragione naturale, altezza dell' inte- letto, anticipated what neither Copernicus nor Galileo foresaw, and the bare idea of which is said to have ' horrified ' Kepler. 1 I mean the doctrine of more habitable worlds than one. Nor were Bruno's incursions into science so entirely idealistic, and divorced from all physical proofs and considerations, as some of his critics have assumed. Thus in the inference just maintained, analogy would suffice to sug- gest that planets similarly circumstanced to our own might also have living beings, in many respects like ourselves. As a rule, Bruno starts in every case from a physical science basis. His abstractions are, as we observed, metaphysical inferences from the infinite he re- cognized in Nature. His definition of God is derived from the laws of the visible world. His ideal worlds are but shadowy copies of this, though, like a disciple of Plotinus, he would fain have reversed this relation and made this the evanescent shadow of other Real worlds invisible and eternal. It was as a disciple of modern science not as a metaphysician that he first betrayed his Skepticism and came into hostile contact with the Church. In a word, with all his admitted idealistic tendencies, Bruno started in his investigations from the standpoint of physical science. The Pegasus on which he wings 1 Delambre, Histoire de I' Astronomic Moderne, i. 386. Speaking of the in- finity of the Universe, he says, ' C'ebait le sentiment du malheureux Jordanus Bruno ; Kepler le combat, la seule idee que 1'etoile puisse etre un nouveau monde, le fait frissoner d'horreur.' Hurnboldt, in his Cosmos (iii. p. 18), makes the mistake of saying that Bruno regarded Kepler ' with enthusiastic admiration,' whereas, Berti has pointed out, Kepler's first work was published when Bruno had already spent four years in the prison of the Roman Inquisi- tion. Berti, Copernico, etc., p. 87, note 2. 324 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. his flight towards the Infinite is not only an earth-born steed, dieted on terrestrial hay and oats, but has received some preliminary exercise on terra firma. I have already hinted at Bruno's forecasts of modern-science theories and discoveries. Besides his anticipations of inhabited worlds, and distant suns, he made some happy conjectures as to the movement of the fixed stars, the planetary nature of comets, the true figure of the earth, viz. that it was not quite spherical, the forma- tion of the sun, viz. a luminous photosphere superimposed on an opaque nucleus ; he seems also to have had some presentiment of the discovery that the constituents of heavenly bodies are similar to those of our own globe. Moreover, his attempt to unify all the processes of Nature, though put forward as a transcendental conception, has a distinct rapproche- ment to recent discoveries in physical science, whereby the conser- vation and relation of forces have become well founded scientific hypotheses. Moreover, should future science now resolve all the physical forces of the universe into different modifications of one single elementary force, Bruno might be adduced, with some show of reason, as having had a presentiment of such a truth. 4. As a natural result of his greater mental versatility, Bruno's influence on modern though b has greatly exceeded that of his con- temporaries, Galileo and Kepler. Not only has he anticipated the conclusions of physicists, but he has engendered and stimulated no inconsiderable amount of metaphysical speculation, both in his own country and in Germany. This fact will perhaps not add to his credit among the disciples of Comte and other scientific dogmatists of our own day. But those who still retain the attributes of genuine philosophers, who believe that nothing essentially human lies outside the scope of philosophic sympathy, who recognize the Infinite in Nature and in Humanity, who are well acquainted with the part metaphysics have played in time past, and who watch contemporary currents of speculation, will not think less of Bruno for indicating so many phases of speculation, and presenting so many points of contact, metaphysical as well as physical, with the common thought and senti- ment of mankind. With all the so-called progress of modern science, notwithstanding its perpetual attempts to circumscribe human feel- ing, Idealistic energy and aspiration within the limits of bodily senses, and its efforts to dwarf the Infinite to the measure df the Finite, the mind of man still bears unmistakable traces of its origin and of its destiny: Like that of Bruno it tends, when free and unthwarted, to the Infinite. Having thus sketched, at greater length than I intended, the Giordano Bruno. 325 salient points of Bruno's teaching, I now resume the thread of his history. Eight years had elapsed since this apostle of Free-thought had been deprived of freedom years, we may well suppose, of terrible tor- ture and misery; but sustained by the conviction that he had but employed the faculties God had given him to discover truth ; and as he himself pleaded, he had absolutely no power to thwart or contra- dict what seemed to be their clear and unbiassed conclusions. The end was now drawing nigh. The Holy Office was getting impatient with the obstinacy which it regarded as an aggravation of the origi- nal ' heretical pravity." Numberless had been the attempts to break down the stubborn spirit of the Nolan philosopher. Theolo- gians, we are told, had visited him daily for that purpose, but their efforts were powerless. He had also been repeatedly summoned before the Congregation of the Holy Office; but with no result. The records of some of these interviews are among the 'Roman Docu- ments ' Professor Berti has published. 1 Thus, on Thursday, the 14th of January, 1599, Bruno was ' visited/ i.e. brought before the Con- gregation, which consisted of sixteen cardinals and other ecclesiasti- cal dignitaries. On this particular occasion were read eight heretical propositions extracted from Bruno's works by the commissary gene- ral of the Holy Office, with the help of Bellarmine ; who seems to have been as forward in the proceedings against Bruno as he was afterwards in the persecution of Galileo. These propositions were submitted to Bruno for deliberation and recantation. On Thursday, the 4th of February, of the same year, Bruno was again before the Congregation, when the term of forty days was assigned as the period within which his deliberations should be confined. What happened at the end of the forty days when Bruno, no doubt, reite- rated his previous refusals, we do not know. Another summer and autumn passed slowly over the head of the immured philosopher; and the next news we have of him is on Tuesday, the 21st of December, when he is once more brought before the Congregation. On this occasion he said that ' he neither ought nor wished to recant ; indeed, he had nothing to recant, and was ignorant of the matters on which his recantation was demanded an allegation which probably signi- fies his skeptical ignorance of those dogmas for which his concurrence was required. The same day, perhaps on the same occasion, Bruno was heard on the subject of his opinions and his prison privations doubtless a plea against the cruelties to which he was subjected and the Congregation appointed certain of their body to try and persuade him to abjure, by the promise of consequent advantage and 1 See his Copernico e vicende dd sistema Copernicano in Italia, pp. 219-235. 326 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. gain. 1 Thus passed the last month of 1599. Three weeks of the new year the last of his life had gone by, and Bruno stood again before his inquisitors. This time he presented a memorial, which was opened but not read. That its contents were of an unsatisfactory character is shown by the appended decree, which informs us that the General of the Domincans and the Procurator General had been appointed to address him (for the last time) on the subject of his recantation. Once more Bruno refused, boldly maintaining that he had never put forth heretical propositions ; by which he no doubt meant consciously false ones. The resolution was thereupon made that extreme proceedings must be taken, and Bruno delivered over to the secular arm. 2 This was formally done on Tuesday, the 8th of February. Bruno was then declared an impenitent and obstinate heretic, and ordered to be delivered over to the civil powers. The next day was appointed for the public announcement of the sentence, and the formal degradation of Bruno as an apostate and lapsed priest. Professor Berti is apparently in error in supposing that this cere- mony took place in the church of Santa Maria della Minerva, subse- quently employed for this purpose. 3 Both Scioppius and the Avvisi, or Roman Gazette of the day, agree in making the palace of the Supreme Cardinal Inquisitor (Madruzzi) 4 the scene of the event. There for the last time Bruno appeared before his judges, attired according to his usual custom in his Dominican dress. He was com- pelled to kneel down and listen to his sentence. The recital com- prised the chief events of his life, the erroneous opinions of his writings, both interpreted by the false light of ecclesiastical prejudice. The tender and solicitous efforts of the Holy Office to convert him were duly recapitulated; and once more his obstinacy was denounced with the unctuous and hypocritical expressions of regret commonly employed by the Inquisition on such occasions. To the long harangue Bruno listened with firm and unmoved countenance. With equal 1 ' Eique (Jordano) ostendat propositiones abjurandas ut agnoscat errores, se emendat, ac disponat ad abjurandum, ipsumque lucri faciant ut possit expe- diri.' Berti, Copernico, p. 230; Documenti, p. 70. 2 Berti, Copernico, p. 231. 8 The business of the Roman Inquisition at this period was regulated by the Constitution of Sixtus V. (' Immensa j^Eterni Dei ' ), A.D. 1588. See details in Limborch History of the Inquisition, i. p. 153, etc., etc. According to the same authority, ' These Supreme Inquisitors meet twice a -week, viz. on Wed- nesdays, formerly in the house of the oldest Cardinal Supreme Inquisitor, but now in St. Mary's Church Supra Minervam, except the Pope commands other- wise,' pp. 154-5 ; comp. Berti, Copernico, p. 233. 4 In the Congregation of December, 1599, a list of the members of which is extant, the first name is Cardinalis Mandrutius, and the second Cardinalis S. S.sverinse. Copernico, p. 228. Giordano Bruno. 327 unconcern he underwent the ceremony of degradation the stripping off his priestly vestments and attiring him in the heretic's coat of the San benito, while the solemn formula was pronounced ' By the authority of God Almighty, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and by our own, we take from thee the clerical habit, we depose and degrade thee, and deprive thee of every ecclesiastical order and benefice.' * Once only did Bruno condescend to notice the grim farce of which he was the object. When the sentence was pronounced, he turned to his judges and with a firm voice and defiant expression, uttered the noble and memorable words, ' I suspect you are more afraid to pronounce that sentence than I am to receive it.' 2 The ceremony over, Bruno was consigned to the secular arm with the usual injunc- tion, that 'he should be punished as leniently as possible, and without shedding of blood ' the iniquitous formula for death by fire. There- upon he was removed to the civil prison at Rome. The usual delay of eight days was granted in order to afford one last opportunity of recantation, but in vain. At length he was brought forth to die on Thursday, the 17th of February. The scene must have been remarkable. The year 1600 was a jubilee year. There were then in Rome no less than fifty cardinals. 3 The streets were crowded with pilgrims. In every direction might be seen troops of strangers dressed in the different costumes of their own country, wending their way from one church to another, im- ploring pardon for their sins. There was ringing of bells, marching of processions, singing penitential psalms, offering of vows and prayers at different shrines from morning till night. ' While it might have seemed,' says Berti, 4 ' that all hearts ought to have been in- clined to mercy, and attracted lovingly to the gentle Redeemer of humanity, the poor philosopher of Nola, preceded and followed by crowds of people, accompanied by priests carrying crucifixes and escorted by soldiers, was wending his way to the Campo di Fiora to die for freedom and the rights of conscience. As the lonely thinker the disciple and worshipper of the Infinite passed through the streets, clothed in the San benito, but with head erect, and haughty, fearless glance, what thoughts must have passed through his mind ! The feeling of utter isolation could not but have been felt by him. He must have found it was the conclusion of his intellectual career, the inevitable destiny, too often, of the single-hearted truth- seeker that he was alone in his researches, in his passionate quest 1 Berti, Vita, p. 293. 2 ' Major! forsan cum timore sententiaxn in me dicetis quam ego accipam.' Bartholmess, i. p. 338. 3 Berti, Vita, p. 295. 4 Berti. loc. cit. 328 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. for truth, in the inferences and conclusions he had laboriously wrought out. Sympathy with the crowds round him who, no doubt, hooted the heretic in order to display their own orthodoxy, he was hardly likely to feel, except as a sentiment of pity for the ignorance and fanaticism of which he was only one victim among many. He may have com- miserated the ' Santa Asinita ' of his enemies just as Huss did the ' Sancta simplicitas ' of the poor woman who was devoutly bringing a faggot to his pyre. He could not but regard them as the followers of a religion which, no matter what its original excellencies, had become utterly depraved and immoral, a base and merciless tyranny over the conscience and freedom of mankind ; or from the heights of his philosophy and his confidence in the final triumph of truth, he may have looked forward to a time when the ' Triumphant Beast ' would be expelled in accordance with his own prediction; or if not expelled, would be deprived of its power to suppress and destroy every effort and aspiration after truth ; or his imagination might possibly have been concentrated on those celestial worlds so often the objects of his contemplation and devout yearning, and on existences and pursuits more in harmony with his ideas of intellectual freedom and perfection. Among the last words contemporary tradition assign to him is the dying utterance of Plotinus : x ' I go to carry the Divine in us to the Divine in the universe ; ' 2 while the report was current among the newsmongers of the day that Bruno said that he died a martyr and willingly, even though his soul should not ascend to Paradise with the smoke of his fire, but that was of no conseqiience to him if he spoke the truth,' 3 words which, if authentic, are the fitting expres- sions when dying of one who living professed to love the truth for the truth's sake, ' per amor de la vera sapienza e studio de la vera con- templazione m' affatico, mi cruccio e mi tormento.' 4 At length he comes to the fatal spot where the stake had been erected. He submits himself to be bound, and in a few minutes the fire blazes round the martyr; but not a word or moan escapes the firm set lips, no expression of suffering or weakness passes across the wan 1 C. Cantu, Gli Eretici d? Italia, iii. p. 62. ' Narrano die ripetisse le parole di Plotino.' 2 HeipcLffOai TO tv tifjuv Oeiov avayeiv irpbs TO fv r

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Beprinted, with other Imaginary Conversations, ed. Havelock Ellis, in the ' Camelot Series,' 16mo London (Walter Scott) 1889. LE BAS : Allemagne, 2 vols, 8vo Paris (Didot) 1838 : 295 (n2). LECLERC, L. : Histoire de la Medicine Arabe, 2 vols. 8vo Paris 1876 : 27 (n), 34 (nl), 68 (nl), 69 (n2), 119 (nl). DE LEIBNITZ, Godf. Wilh. [1646-1716] : Opera Omnia, nunc primum col- lecta, in classes distributa, preefatt. et indicc. exornata, studio Lud. Dutens, 6 vols. 4to Geneva 1768; reissued with new titles Colonize- Allobr. 1789 : 393 (n2). LEVI, David : Giordano Bruno o la Religione del Pensiero, 8vo Turin 1887 : 245 (n). LEWES, Geo. Hy. [1817-78]: History of Philosophy from Thales to Comte, 3rd edn., 2 vols. 8vo London (Longman) 1867; 4th edn. 1871; 5th edn. 1880 : 270 (n2). Practically an enlarged edition of his Biographical History of Philosophy , 4 vols. 18mo London (Knight) 1845 ; 2nd edn. 8vo London (Parker) 1857. LIBKI, Gugl. B. I. T. [1803-69] : Histoire des Sciences Mathematiques en Italie, depuis la Renaissance des Lettres jusqu'a la Jin du 17 siecle, 4 vols. 8vo Paris (Renouard) 1838^1 : 245 (n), 260 (nl). Two more volumes, at least, were to have appeared, but never did. VAN LIMBORCH, Phil. [1633-1712]: History of the Inquisition, transl. by S. Chandler, 2 vols. 4 London 1831 : 326 (n3). Original edition sub tit. ' Historia Inquisitionis, cui subjungitur liber sen- tentiarum Inquisitionis Tholosance ab anno 1307 ad 23,' f Amsterdam 1692. LITTRE, M. P. Emile [1801-81] : Dictionnaire de la Langue Francaise, 4 vols. 4to Paris 1863-72 ; with Supplement by M. Devic, 4 vols. 4to. 1874-84 : 29 (nl). Etudes sur les Barbares et le Moyen Age, 8vo Paris 1867 : 58 (n). Histoire de la Langue Francaise, 2 vols. 8vo Paris 1863 ; 5th edn., 2 vols. sm 8vo ib. 1869: 47 (nl). LLORENTE, Juan Ant. [1756-1823] : Histoire critique de V Inquisition de I'Espagne depuis son etablissement jusqu"au regne de Ferdinand vii., trad, [from Spanish MS.] par Alexis Pellier, 4 vols. 8vo Paris 1817-18 ; 2nd edn., 4 vols. 8vo ib. 1820 : 266 (n2). Abridged by Leonard Gallois 18mo Paris 1822. Abridged translation into English 8vo London (Whittaker) 1826. LULLI, Raimund [1234-1415] : Opera ea quos ad inventam ab ipso artem universalem pertinent cum diversorum commentariis : accessit Valerii de Valeriis opus in artem Lullii, 8vo Argentorati (=Strassburg; Zetzner) 1651 : 245 (n). This collection was first printed at Strassb. 8ro 1598, and was re-issued again in 1617. The edn. of 1651 is the most complete. MACHIAVELLI, Niccolo [1469-1527] : Opere: 10 vols. 8vo Milan 1804-5. Asino d' Oro (in Opere, vol. viii.) : 175 (n2), 177 (nl). Discorsi (in Opere, vol. ii.) : 165 (n), 166 (nl-3), 167 (n). II Principe, ed. L. A. Burd, with Introduction by Lord Acton. 8vo Oxford (Clarendon Press) : 169 (and n), 174. translated [with other pieces] in Morley's Universal Library, cr. 8vo London (Eoutledge) 1833 ; also [with his Hist, of Florence] in Bohn's Lib. cr. 8vo London (Bell) 1876. MALENFANT : Memoires [manuscript] : 391 (and n), 395, 417. x Index to Literary References. MANNI, Dom. Mar. [1690-1788]: Istoria del 'Decamerone' di Boccaccio, 4 Florence 1742 : 138 (n), 142 (n). An Appendice alia illustrazione istorica dell' Boccaccio scritta da D. M. Manni was pub. 4to Milan (Pirotta) 1820. MAP[ES], Walter [12 cent.] : The Latin Poems commonly attributed to, col- lected and edited by Thomas Wright, s 4 Camden Society 1841 : 38 (n2), 39 (n3), 40 (nl), 41 (nl, 3, 4), 42 (n2), 57 (n2), 94 (nl). MARIANO, Raphael [1840 ; living^ : Giordano Bruno : la vita e V uomo, 8vo Rome 1881 : 245 (n). MARTIN, Henri [1810-83] : Histoire de France depuis les temps les plus recules jusqu'en 1789, 17 vols. 8vo Paris (Furne) 1833-54 ; 4th edn. 19 vols. 8vo ib. (id.) 1855-60 : 44 (n6), 48 (n3), 49 (nl), 418 (n). MASINI : Sacro Arsenale o Pratica del Sant Ufficio : 400 (nl). MAURICE, Jno. Fred. Denison [1805-72] : Moral and Metaphysical Philo- sophy, s 8vo. London 1854 ; 2nd edn., 2 vols. 8vo ib. (Macmillan) 1871-2, reprinted ib. (id.) 1873, 1882, 1885 : 254 (n3). MAZZUCHELLI, Conte Giam. Maria [1707-1765] : Gli Scrittori d' Italia, doe notizie storiche e critiche intorno alle vite ed a gli scritti dei letterati italiani, 2 vols. in 6 pts. f Brescia 1753-63 : 129 (n3), 130 (nl). MERAY, A. : La Vie au temps des Libres Precheurs, 2 vols. 8vo Paris 1878 : 105 (n2). Mercure de France: published monthly in Paris from 171 7 to 1799: 400 > 2 )- MEZIERES, Alfred : Petrarque : etude d'apres de nouveaux documents, 8vo Paris 1867: 111 (nl), 112 (and n), 113 (nl, 2), 124 (nl). MILMAN, Hy. Hart [1791-1868] : History of Latin Christianity, including that of the Popes to the pontificate of Nicholas v., 6 vols. 8vo London (Murray) 1854-55 ; new edn., 9 vols. p 8 ib. (id.j 1883 : 66 (n3). DE MONTAIGNE, Michel [1533-92] : Essais : 182 (n2). First edn. of first two Books sm. 8vo Bordeaux (Millanges) 1580. English Translation by John Florio [1603], ed. by Henry Morley, cr. 8vo London (Routledge) 1885 ; new edn. 1887- MORERI, Louis [1643-80] : Le Grand Dictionnaire Historique [20th edn.], revue et augmentee par Drouet, 10 vols. f. Paris 1759: 388 (n2). First edn. : 1 vol. f. Lyons 1674. The above is the last and best edn., con- taining all the additions of previous editors, the Abbe de S. Ussan, J. Le Clerc, Vaultier, Dupin, La Bar re and Goujet. MULLINGER, J. Bass : Schools of Charles the Great and the Restoration of Education in the Ninth Century, 8vo London (Longman) 1877 : 53 (nl), 60 (nl), 61 (n3). MUNK, Solomon [1805-67] : Melanges de Philosophic Juive et Arabe, 8vo Paris 1859 : 70 (nl, 2), 71 (nl). MURATORI, Lodov. Ant. [1672-1750]: Antiquitates Italicce Medii JEvi: Dissertationes, 6 vols. f Milan 1738-42 : 22 (n), 23 (nl), 60 (nl), 62 (nl), 208 (nl). The edition printed at Arezzo in 17 vols. 4to is inferior to the above. Mystery of the Nativity, The [miracle-play] : 54 (n). E Gabriel (1600-53] : Considerations politiques sur les Coups d'Etat 1712 : 233 (n). First Edition 4to Rome [= Paris] 1639 [stated in the Preface to be limited to 12 copies, bnt this is untrue : probably not more than 100 copies were printed] . Reprints in 12rno in 1667 and 1671 ; also sub tit. ' Sciences des Princes ' 8vo Strassburg 1673 and 3 vols., 12mo Paris 1752, and sub tit. ' Reflexions sur les Moyens dont les plus grands Princes se sont servis,' etc., 12ino Leyden 1736. Index to Literary References. xi NICERON, Jean Pierre [1685-1738] : Memoires pour servir a Thistoire dcs Hommes lllustres dans la, Republique des Lettres, 69 vols. 12mo Paris 1727-45 : 192 (n), 345 (n), 356 (nl), 388 (n3). NICOLAI, Friedr. [1733-1811] : Versuch uberden die Beschuldigungen welche die Tempelhen-norden gemacht warden etc., 2 pts. 8vo Berlin (Nicolai) 1782-3 : 28 (n3). NICOLAS. Michel : article in the Correspondence Litteraire, for July 5th, 1857 : 29 (n2). NIPHUS, Aug. [Agostino NIFO ; 1473-1583] : De Immorlalitale Animce libellus, f Venice 1518 : 205 (n3). NISARD, D. : Histoire de la Litterature Francaise, 4 vols. 18mo Brussels 184-6 ; New edn., 4 vols. 8vo ib. 1854-61 : 408 (n). NOURISSON, J. Felix [1825; living'] Machiavel 18mo Paris 1875: 166 (n3). Nouvelle Biograpbie Generale, ed. Dr. Hoefer, 46 vols. 8vo Paris (Didot) 1855-66 : 352 (n2). OWEN, John : Evenings with the Skeptics : or free discussions on freethinkers, 2 vols. 8vo London (Longman) 1881 : 67 (nl), 99 (n3), 102 (nl), 180 (n2), 196 (n2), 201 (nl), 365 (n2). Skeptics of the French Renaissance, 8vo London (Sonnenschein) 1893 : 102 (n3), 270 (nl). OZANAM, A. F. [1813-53] : Dante et la Philosophic Catholique au mii. Siecle, 8vo Paris 1840 : 20-21 (n), 98 (and nl, 4). PALUMBO, Kaffaele : Oinlio Cesare Vanini e suoi Tempi, 8vo Naples 1878 : 345 (n), 356 (and n2), 358. PASCAL, Blaise [1623-62] : Pensees, ed. A. Molinier, 12mo Paris : 348 (n). First edition of the original 12mo Paris (Desprez) 1669. English Translation by C. Kegan Paul c 8vo London (Paul) 1885; reprinted in Bohn's Lib. c 8vo ib. (Bell) 1890. PATIN, Gui. [1602-72] : Lettres, new edn. by Beveille-Parise, 3 vols. 8vo Paris ( J. B. Bailliere) 1846 : 12 (nl). First edn. of these curious letters, which are of some value for the history of literature and of medicine, 3 vols. 12mo Cologne 1692 ; second, 3 vols. 12mo The Hague 1/07; third, 5 vols. 12mo Rotterdam 1725 [vols. iv.-v. containiug new matter, prev. pub. in 2 vols. 8vo Amsterdam 1718]. Pafiniana et Naudosana, 2nd edn. 12mo Amsterdam 1703: 354 (u4), 372 (nl), 401 (n), 404 (n3). PEARS, Edwin : The Fall of Constantinople: the story of the fourth crusade, 8vo London (Longman) 1885 : 26 (nl). PETRAKCA, Francesco [1304-74] : Opera quce extant Omnia, f Basle (Seb. Heinr. Petri) 1581 : 111 (nl), 113 (n3), 118 (nl-3), 120 (n), 121 (n2), 122 (nl), 123 (n4), 124 (n2), 125 (nl), 128 (n2). Other edns. f Basle (Job. de Amerbach) 1496 ; ib. (Heinr. Petri), 1554 ; f Venice (Sim. de Lucre) 1501; ib. (Sim. Bevilaqua) 1503; Leyden 1601. The edn. of 1581 is a rather mediocre reprint of the Bilsle edn. of 1554, which was itself an inferior reprint of the Venice edn. of 1501. De Contemptu Mundi : 123 (and n4), 124 (n2), 126 (n3). De Eemediis Utriusque Fortunes liber : 118 (n2), 121 (nl), 122. Epistolce Rerum Familiarium ; ed. J. Fracassetti, sub tit. Epistolce da Rebus Familiaribus et varice nunc primum vulgatce, 3 vols, 8vo Florence 1859-63 : 118 (nl). Epistolce Rerum Senil. : ed. Gr. Fracassetti, sub tit. Lettere Senili di Petrarca vnlgariwzate e dichiarate con note, 2 vols. p 8vo Florence 1869-70 ; 111 (n3), 118 (n2), 119 (n2), 120 (n), 144 (n). In Medicum quendam Invectivarum : 118. xii Index to Literary References. Of Ms own Ignorance and tliat of many Others : 121. Rime : col comento del Tassoni, del Muratori e di altri, 2 vols. 8vo Padova (Minerva Press) 1826-27 : 113 (n3, 4). Re-issued with fresh title-pages sub tit. Rime colle note letterali e critirhe di Castelvetro, Tassoni, Muratori, Alfieri, Biagioli, Leopardi ed altri, raccolte, ordinate ed accresciute da Luigi Carrer, 2 vols. 8vo Padova (Minerva Press) 1837. First Edition 4to Venice 1470. Pious de Mirandola, Job. [1470-1533] De omni re scibile in his Opera Omnia (with, those of J. Fr. Picus) 2 vols. . Basle (Heinr Petri) 1572-3 ; also 1601 : 38 (nl). _ PLATO [B.C. 429-347] : Opera Omnia, rec. et comment, instruxit Godof. Stallbaum, 10 vols. in 12, 8vo Gotha (Hennings) 1858-60 : 216 (n). Crito : 216 (n). DI POGGIO BRACCIOLINI, Gian. Franc. [1328-1452] Dialoghi : 94 (and n). Facetiae, ed. par E. Liseux, 2 vols. 12mo Paris 187- : 47 (n2), 79 (and n). La Papesse, ed. par E. Liseux, 12mo Paris 187- : 93 (nl). POMPONAZZI, Pietro ("1462-1524] Opera, f. Basle (Guill. Gratarol) 1567 : 3 (n). Apologia pro suo Tractatu de Immort. Anim. [1st pub. 1578] : 199 (n3). Contradictoris Tractatus doctissimus : 206 (nl). De Fato [1st pub. 1567] : 203 (nl), 211 (nl). Immortalitate Animce [1st pub. 1516] : 3 (n), 201 (n2), 202 (nl), 203 (nl, 2), 204 (n2). Incantationibus : 202 (n2), 208 (n2), 209 (n), 210 (n 1-3). Defensorium sive Responsiones ad Aug. Niphum [1st pub. 1519] : 206 (nl), 207 (n2). Tractatus de Intentione et Remissione Formarum, de Immortal! t< if e Animcs, Apologias libri iii., et alia f . Venice (Oct. Scotiius) 1525 : 193 (n2), 206 (nl). POUPYHRIUS [223-c. 304] : De Vita Plotini liber in vol. i. of his Opera, rec. Ad. Kirchhoff, 2 vols., p. 8 Leipzig (Teubner) 1856 : 328 (n2). Also added to various editions of his works e.g. Opp., rec. G. H. Moser + P. Creuzer, 3 vols. 4 Oxford 1835, Enneades rec. Fr. Creuzer + G. H. Moser [sic], r 8 Pads (Didot) 1855, Enneades rec. H. F. Miiller, vol. i. p. 8 Berlin (Weidmann) 1878. Translated into German in Enn. ubers. v. H. F. Miiller, vol. i. p. 8 Berlin (Weidmann) 1878 ; into French in vol. i. of Enn. trad, par N. Bouillet, 3 vols. 8vo Paris (Hachette) 1857-61. PULCI, Luigi [1431-87] : II Morgante Maggiore [1st pub. 1481] : 150 (nl), 151 (n2), 155 (nl, 3), 157 (nl-3), 158 (nl, 2), 159 (nl). A spirited translation by Lord Byron was given in The Liberal : verse and prose from the South [edit, by Leigh Hunt], 2 vols. 8vo London (Hunt & Clarke) 1824. v. RANKE, Leop. [1795-1886]: History of the Popes of Rome: pol. and eccles. in IGth and \7th centuries, translated by Mrs. Austin, 3 vols. 8vo London (Murray) 1841 ; new edn. ib. (id.) 1866 : 12 (n2). Also transl. by E. Foster, in Bohn's Lib., 3 vols. cr 8vo London (Boll) 1848. First edn. of the original was in 4 vols. 8vo : vol. i. Hamburg (Perthes) 1827, vols. ii.-iv. Berlin (Duncker) 1834-36. Zur Kritik neuerer GescMchtschreiber, 8vo Berlin (Reimer) 1824 : 179 (n2). DE EEMUSAT, Chas. Fr. Marie [1797-1875] Abelard [the drama] 8vo Paris, 1877 : 236. The author also wrote a large work on the life and works of Aboard [sub hoc tit.~] 2 vols. 8vo Paris 1845. Index to Literary References xiii RENAN, Ernst [1823-92] : Averroes et VAverroisme,8vo Paris 1852 ; 2nd edn. 8vo ib. 1861 : 3 (n), 11-12, 30 (n2), 63 (nl), 70 (nl), 71 (n2), 72 (n2, 3), 192 (n), 197 (n), 202 (n3), 215 (n2), 354 (n2, 3). Retrospective Review : Ser. i. ed. H. Southern + Sir H. N. Nicolas, 16 vols. 8vo London, 1820-26; Ser. ii., 2 vols. ib. 1827-28 ; New Ser. 2 vols. ib. 1853-54 : 352 (n2). EIEMER, F. W. [1774-1845]: Mittheilungen uber Goethe, aus munpr und schriftlicher, gedrurkt. und ungedruckt. Quellen, 2 vols. 8vo Berlin (Duncker) 1841 : 397 (nl). RIEZLER, Sigra. : Die literarischen Widersacher der Pdpste zur Zeit Ludwig des Baiers : ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Kdmpfe zwischen Staat und Kirche, 8vo Leipzig (Duncker) 1874 : 18 (n). RITTER, Heinr. [1791-1869] : Gfschichte der Philosophic, 12 vols. 8vo Ham- burg (Perthes) 1829-53 : 3 (n), 209 (n), 212 (n), 313, 345 (n). English Translation, 4 vols. 8vo Oxford (Clarendon Press) 1833-46. RIXNER + SIBER^^ [eds.] Leben und Lehrmeinungen berilhmter Physiker am Ende des xvi. und am Anfange des xvii. Jahrhunderts, 7 pts. Sulzbach (Seidel) 1819-26 : 245 (n), 254 (and nl, 2). Pt. i. Paracelsus, ii. Cardan, iii. Telesius, iv. Franc. Patricias, v. Bruno, vi. Campanella, vii. Helmont. DE ROSSET, Franc. Les Histoires Tragiques de noire temps, 8vo Lyons, (Benoist Yignieu) 1621 [should be 1721]: 388 (nl). The First Edition was pub. sub tit. ' Histoires Memordbles et Tragiques,' 8vo Paris 1619 ; and reprinted with successive additions at Paris 1623, Lyons 1653, Rouen 1700 ; but the 1621 [1721] eda. and that of 1700 are the most complete. RTTTEBCEUF [b. 1230] (Euvres Completes, ed. par Achille Jubinal, 2 vols. 8vo Paris (Pannier) 1838 : 44 (nl, 2). The First Edition of the works of this 13th century trouvere. C'est Ii Testament de I'Ane : 44 (n3). La Desputizons dou Croisie et dou Descroizie : 44 (n4). Le Miracle de Theophile : 69 (n3). An edn. of this by Jubinal was pub. separately 8vo Paris (Pannier) 1838. SACCHETTI, Franco [c.. 1335-c. 1405] : Novelle : 98 (nl), 319 Cn2). The best edn. is that occupying vols. ii.-iii. of his Opere, ed. O. Gigli, 3 vols. 8vo Florence 1857-61. They are also contained in the Raccolta di Novellieri Italiana, 8vo Florence 1832-33. [DE SADE, Abbe ; 1705-78] : Mernoires pour la Vie de Petrarque, 3 vols. 4to Amsterdam 1764-67 : 123 (and nl). ST. ELOI, Bp. : address on superstitions : 37 (n). St. Meviasek (Cornish miracle-play) : 58 (n). DE SANCTIS, F. : tiuggio critico sul Petrarca, 8vo Naples, 1869 : 123 (n2). Sforia della Lelteratura Italiana, 3rd edition, 2 vols. 8vo Naples, 1879: 360. SCHEIBLE, J. [ed.] : Das Kloster, weltlich und gei'stlich, meist aus den dlteren deutschen Volks-Wundercuriositdten und komischen Literatures vols. 12mo Stuttgart (Exped. d. Kloster) 1845-49 : 67 (nl). v. SCHELLING, F. W. J. [1775-1854]: Bruno Dialogue in vol. iv. of his Sdmrntliche Werke, 14 vols. 8vo Stuttgart (Cotta) 1856-61 : 335 (n), 341 (n). SCHULZE, Fritz, Geschichte der Philosophic der Renaissance, 2 vols. : 185 (n) SCIOPPIUS, Kaspar [SCHOPPE ; 1576-1649] : letter to Rittershausen ou Bruno : 252, 326, 329. SCOTT, Sir Walter [1771-1832] Ivanhoe [First Edition 1820] : 28 (n3). SEDILLOT, L. A. [1808-1875], Histoire generale des Arabes, leur Empire, leur Civilisation, leurs Scales philosophiqu, 262, 294, 312, 316-21, 332-3, 141, castigation of Skeptics and Agnostics 296, ' Suspense of Passion ' 125, early Theological views 264-5, relation to and influence on modern German Transcendentalism 301 (and n2), 319, 335, view of Transmigration of souls 293, 3^4, of Transubstantiation 264-5, 284, of the Trinity 264-5, 283, of 'Twofold Truth' 316, his ' Union of Index of Subjects. xxi Contraries' 301, 302, Writings on Lulli 269, 277, 280. His autobiography 282, Cabala del Cavallo Pegaseo 293-7, 2/2 (n2), Candelajo 289, Cantu Circeo 271, De Cornpendiosa Architectural, 271 (n2), De la Causa 276, 272 (n2), De Lam- pade 272 (nl), 296 (n2), De I' Infinite 272 (n2), De Monade Num. et Fig. 279, De Unibris Idearum 269, 271, Dei Predicamento di Dio 271, Expli- cata triginta Sigillorum 273-4 (and nl), 272 (n2), Gli Eroici Furori 312, 313, 330 (compared with Shelley 324), La Cena delle Ceneri 275-6, 272 (n2), 273, L'Arca di Noe 266 (and n3), Memoria, Technica 271, 280, One Hundred and Sixty Articles 277-8, The Signs of the Times 267, Spaccio de la Bestia trionfante 290-3, 294, 272 (n2) (compared with Shelley's Prometheus 324), Spiegazione di trenta Sigilli v. ExpUcata, supra. Brutes: their advantages over human beings a favourite theme with satirists 177 (n3). BRUTUS : popular regard for, in Italy 20. BUNYAN'S Pilgrim's Progress : contrasted with Boccaccio's Decameron, 136, Tractarian attempt to de-Puritanize it 142. Burlesques, Early : their contribution to artistic enfranchisement 56. Cabbala, Jewish : Dante's study of 106. CAESAR, JULIUS : frequently adopted as a name by Ital. doctors in 16 cent. 351 . CALDERON : his genius independent of reli- gious influence 10, 11. CALIXTUS, St. : Catacombs of, their ex- amples of Early Christian symbolism 53. CALVIN, John: his Fanaticism 402 (nl), Intolerance 416-7, Pessimism, 172, 168 ; contrasted with Erasmus and Melanchthon 417 v. also Geneva. Calvinism : Bruno's contact with, v. Bruno. CAMPANELLA : persecuted by the Church 248, 260 ; his character corresponds with the natural environment of his childhood 261, reasons for joining the Dominican Order 262, 263; Bruno likened to 253, 309. Campania : worship of Venus in, in 5 cent. 59. CARACCIOLO, Galeazzo, Marquis of Vico : his visit to Bruno 268 (and espec. n). CARDAN : his Astrology 363, 356, Astro- nomical theories refuted by Vanini 362, theory of Monstrous Creations 367, refuted by Vanini 367 ; View of Nature 260, 373 ; influence of Aver- roism on 72, Pomponazzi likened to 202, Vanini contrasted with 372 (their lasciviousness 374), a favourite author of Vanini 355. CARLETON, Sir Dudley (English Ambas- sador at Venice) : a friend to Vanini 357-9. CABNESECCHI : persecuted by the Church 248. CARKANZA, Abp. of Toledo : his abjuration a contributary cause of Bruno's flight from Eome 2f >6 (and n2) . Cartesianism : v. Descartes. CASAUBON, the elder : on public dialectical contests 236. CASCIAN '. his prohibition of Pagan authors 59. CASIMER : his Calvinistic intolerance 277- CASSIODORUS : his teaching 59. CASTELNUOVO di Mauvissiere (French Ambassador to England) : his toler- ance 273, cordial reception of and friendship with Bruno 271-2, 275, 358. CASTI : his lines on the title of ' saint' 93. DE CASTRO, Francis (viceroy of Naples) : Vanini's father an agent of 353. DE CATEL (Procnreur-Ge'n. of the King) : his instrumentality in conviction of Vanini 393-5, 397, 399, 402 (n2). Catharists, The : their doctrines not re- sponsible for the persecutions by In- nocent iii. 49. CATO : popular regard for in Italy 20. CATULLUS : study of in 14-15 cents. 13, echo of in Goliardic poetry 39. DE CAVALCANTI, the elder : an Epicurean 138 (n). Guido : a Skeptic and alleged Atheist 138 (n.), his comparison of Supersti- tion with a churchyard 76 ; story iu Decameron relating to 138. CECROPS : in Early Christian symbolism 53. CELLINI, Benvenuto: his superstitiousness 167. Certaldo : sketches of, in Bocoaccio's De- cameron 77. CERVANTES : his genius independant of re- ligious influence 10 ; Pulci likened to 147-8. CESALPINUS: influence of Averroism on 72. CHARLES I. : his portrait by Vandyke sug- gestive of martyrdom 258. CHAMBERLAIN, Sir (mayor of Canterbury): his connection with Vanini 357-8. Cbambery: Bruno in 267. Chansons de Geste : their relation to Goliar- dic poetry 43, sung in mediaeval Italy 47. CHARLEMAGNE : his educational reform 61, state of Europe under, compared with that of Bagdad 65; satirized by Pulci 148. Romances : sung in mediaeval Italy 47. CHARRON : his disbelief in Immortality 202, substitution of secular for ecclesias- tical principles 82 ; Pomponazzi's in- fluence on 218. Chivalry : its dual origin 45-6, not the ' Poetry of Feudalism ' but an off- shoot of Arab culture 45-6, pre-Cru- sade and post-Crusade Chivalry 45, XX11 Index of Siibjects. its Devotional side 50, a source of the cult of Women in 13-14 cent. 223. Chivalry, Romances of : a secularization of legends of Saints 33. CHRIST: in Early Christian symbolism 53 ; Mediaeval Christology 83, 8G-7 ; Bruno's early views on 264-5, likened by Boccaccio to son of Jupiter 131, Pulci's use of Qiove for 149. CHRISTIAN i. of Saxony: his Calvinistic in- tolerance 277- Christianity, Early : survival of Paganism in 59-61). Mediaeval : the devotional side of Chi- valry 50, growth of its metaphysical doctrines and dogmas 73, the cause of the Italian Renaissance 73, its Evolution and ' planes of stratifica- tion ' 83-95, Monastic conception of 75, its relation to the Communes a.ud Monarchy 17-21 ; its Animalism 88- 90, Anthropomorphism 87-8, Christo- logy 83, 86-7, Depravity from 12 cent, to Reformation 21, esoteric character of its Dogmas 90, divorce of Ethics from religion 78, 81, regard of Faith as above practice 81, effect of its Cor- ruption on moral laxity of Renais- sance 221-2, an agency of Immorality 79, its Materialistic tendencies 83, 87-90, opposition to Pagan culture 59-60, an exaggerated Polytheism 88, its Priestcraft 90, its apppal to Super- naturalism 84 ; Dante s Divina ( 'om- media in relation to 97, Mahomet's tolerance of 64, Provencal diatribe against 49-50 v. also Clergy. Christology : v. Christ, Councils. CHRYSOSTOM, St. : studied by Bruno 266. Church Councils :y. Councils, Church. CIANI : bis 'conversion' of Boccaccio 143-4. Cicala, Mount : Bruno's probable birth- place 261, 2/9, 298. CICERO : his works introduce Skepticism into Italy 185, early study of in Italy 60, his Language the accepted literary medium in Italy 19, influence and popularity in Renaissance times 109- 10, 13, 31, 321, influence on Augustine 109, on Petrarca 109 (Petrarca's use of Scipio's Dream 116) ; Vanini con- trasted with 364. CIOTTO (Venetian bookseller) : his friend- ship with Bruno 2/9, cited as a wit- ness against Bruno 282. Classical Studies : their revival in Italy 58-63. CLEMENT vi. : Petrarca's letter to 118. viii. : an Antichrist 247. Clergy, Mediaeval : their Depravity 93-5, Equality with laity insisted on by Renaissance thinkers 94; denounced by Renaissance men 92, satirized by Rutebceuf 44. Communes, Free, of Italy: in 11 cent. 62, in 12-13 cents. 14-7, 25, their rela- tions to the Papacy 17-21. Cumtists : their estimate of Bruno 324, 341 ; a new Calendar of Saints re- quired 246. CONSTANTINOPLE : Greek works brought from, to Bagdad 65, early Italian commerce with 66; taken by Crusa- ders 26. Conies : their relation to Goliardic poetry 43. COPERNICUS: his system 322-3; Bruno's relation to 248, 260, 26rt, 274, 300, Bruno contrasted with 323. Goran : v. Koran. CORDAY, Charlotte : defence of, by Jean Paul Richter 233. Cordova : its early civilization 67 ; Gerbert at 66 ; famous for its harness and saddles in 9-10 cent. 68; the early re- putation of her University 68-9. Cosmography : in the ' Age of Faith ' 35. Council of Carthage : its prohibition of Pagan authors 59; on the Limbua Infantum 102 (nl). Trent : marked an era in the develop- ment of eccles. supernaturalism 83. Councils, Church : their metaphysical elab- oration of doctrine 84, their Chribto- logy 84. Court of High Commission : modelled on Inquisition 359 (n2) ; its committal of Vanini 359. COUSIN, Victor: his criticism of Vanini 371-2, 373^, 374-5 (and nl), 377, 378 (n), 382 (n), 383, 402-3, 409, 410, 411-2. DE CRAMAIL, Comte: a disciple of Vanini 407-8. Creed, The : Goliardic parodies of 40. CREMONINI : a pupil of Pomponazzi 217, a follower of Aristotle 187, influence of Averroism on 72. CROMWELL, Oliver: a skeptic 173. Crusaders, The : their suspected heterodoxy 24, their intolerance of Jews 25-6. Crusades, The : their influence on contemp. Ital. literature 23, 62, contribution to Renaissance skepticism 23-4, did not directly aid European science 27 (n) ; ridiculed by Ruteboeuf 44. Cuenija : famous for its woollen goods in 9-10 cent. 68. Culture : Petrarca's conception of 111. DE OUSA, Nicolas : his Mysticism 332, view of Nature 260, tendency to Pan- theism 89-90, Skepticism 261 ; his De Docta Ignorantia compared with Bruno's Cabala 293^, 299. CYRAN, St. : his dying words 353 (n2). CYB.IL, St. : an instance of the doctrine of Survival of the Fittest applied to dogmatic development 248. Damascus : its trade with Venice 22, a new home for Greek philosophy 64r-5, its civilization 67. DAMIANUS, St. Peter: place in Dante's paradise 102, Petrarca's estimate of 115. Index of Subjects. xxin DANDOT.O of Venice : brutality of his mer- cenaries 26. DANTE : a type of thinker 3, a forerunner of the Rennaissance 89, 96 ; his face and expression 98, personality 106-7; invectives against the Church 103, 104, Dogmatism 97, 101, 107, concep- tion of the Empire 19, Erudition and culture 23-4, 106 (slight familiarity with Greek 106), Faith and definition of Faith 99-101, Harshness 98, ani- mus against Heretics and doubters 101, 102, Humanism 101, 102-1, 31, 51, Independence 106-7, Influence on 14 cent. 96, 112, on Italian language 128, consecration of St. Peter 98, stress on Philosophy 103-4, Prescience as to advantage of writing in Tuscan rather than Latin 143 (n.), Protestant sympathies 103, Religious standpoint 27, Sacerdotalism 101-2, Skepticism 226, 'Suspense of Passion' 125, ad- herence to the doctrine of ' Twofold Truth ' 187, view on Unbaptized infants 101 : freedom of Lorenzo's Court resp. his Theology 152. His Beatrice v. Beatrice, friendship with Boccaccio 129, Boccaccio's Com- ento on him 145-6, likened to Elijah, Isaiah, St. Dominic 107, his view of Mahomet 101 (and n4), 31, contrasted with Petrarca 107-8, his indebtedness to Provencal poetry 51, contrasted with Pulci 156 (and n2), his Devil compared with Pulci' s Ashtaroth 232-3, 158. De Volgari Eloquio : its philosophical excellence 106. Commedia : a mirror of the Renais- sance 96-7, its form 98, rapid popu- larity 103; contrasted with Milton's Paradise Lost 98. Inferno : its mixture of physical and spiritual elements 89, realism 105 (results thereof 104-5, 226) ; con- trasted with Milton's Hell 105. Paradiso : its character 227-8. Purgatorio : 227. 11 Convito : the first work on philo- sophy in Ital. language 103. Vita Nuovo : its mysticism 106. DARWIN, Charles : his relation to doctrine of ' Twofold Truth ' 239 (n) v. also Survival of the Fittest. Death by Fire : formula for 327. DEitokRiTUs' Monad Theory : connected with modern atomic theories by Bruno's theory 311 ; refuted by Vanini 362. DE MONTKORT, Simon : v. Montfort, Simon de. DERHAM : his Astro-Theology 300. DESCARTES : a skeptic 346 ; his rationalism anticipated by Bruno 314, likened to Boccaccio 142, to Bruno 299, to Pom- ponazzi 6, to Vanini 407 ; Cartesian- ism at Naples in 17 cent. 217 (n). Descent of Man from Apes : Vanini' s opinion on 387. De Tribus Impostoribus : alleged to be the prototype of Bruno's Spaccio 290 ; attributed to Vanini 388 (nl). DEUCALION : in Early Christian symbolism 53. Devils : Pulci's Ashtaroth compared with the devils of Dante, Milton, Gcethe 232-3, 158; Vanini's opinion of 386. Dialectical Contests in Mediaeval Universi- ties : v. Universities. D' ISRAELI, Isaac : on Dedications 352. Dogma : v. Reaction. DOMINIC, St. : his place in Dante's paradise 102, Petrarca's estimate of 115, eulo- gized by Machiavelli 168. DOMITIAN : an Antichrist 248. DONATELLO : his sculpture a reaction against Asceticism 77- DORIA, Giacomo : a disciple of Vanini 359. Drama, Early Christian : v. Mysteries, Moralities, Miracle-plays. Reformation : amount of ratiocination in 57-8, its free Criticism of Romish Church and doctrines 57-8. DVER : his acquaintance with Bruno 272. Eden : in Early Christian symbolism 53. Et^ypt : in Early Christian symbolism 53. El Mistero de los Reyes Magos : a Castilian mystery on the Resurrection 55-6. Elea : the home of Greek Idealism 61 (n5). Eleatics : their refutation of popular notions of Olympian deities 81 ; similarity of Bruno's speculations to theirs 261 (n5). Eternal Punishment : v. Hell. ELIZABETH, Queen : Bruno at the Court of 271, 273, Bruno's eulogy of 273. Encyclopaedias of 11 and 12 cents. : charac- terized 34-6, an advance towards Humanism 37-8. Encyclopaedists, French : inaugurate the French Revol. 34 ; their dogmatism 73. End of the World in A.D. 1000, Belief in : its paralyzing effect 15, 32, 62, 75-6. Other eschatological panics 75-6. England : her early trade with Venice 23 ; Anglicanism in, in 16 cent. 259 (and n), 260 ; Bruno in v. Bruno, Vanini in v . Vaniui. English Philosophy : its tardy development 8(8). Epicureanism : embraced by some Renais- sance thinkers 91-2, 185, sect of, in Florence in 11 cent. 63; Vanini's objections to 365. EPICURUS : Machiavelli contrasted with 178. ERASMUS : his annotations on Jerome and Chrysostom prohibited by Church 266 ; contrasted with Calvin and Luther 417 ; Encomium Morioe com- pared with Bruno's Cabala 293. EKIGENA : his view of Christianity 87; Averroes likened to 71. XXIV Index of Subjects. Ethical Activity : of the Renaissance 81-2. Eucharist, Doctrine of : popular regard for 117 ; Symbolic and dramatic elements of its services 54. EURYDICE : in Early Christian symbolism 53. EURIPIDES : Machiavelli's quotations from 162. Exorcisms of the Church: the origin of belief in astrology 34 ; a source of income to Church 37- Fabliaux : their relation to Goliardic poetry 43 ; ridicule of the Church 43^i. ' Faith, Age of ' : characterized 34-7. Blind : regarded as a Christian virtue 84-5. Fall of Man, Doctrine of : criticized in the early drama 57. Fabliaux : their freethought an indigenous product 185. FARADAY, Michael : Vanini likened to 405. Farces, Early : their contribution to artistic enfranchisement 56. Fate : v. Providence. ' Feast of Apes ' : an instance of seculariza- tion of religious drama 55 (and nl). ' Fools ' : an instance of seculariza- tion of religious drama 295 (n2), 55. Fegatello : a kind of sausage 153 (n2). Ferrara : Pomponazzi at Univ. of 195. FEUERBACH : his relation to Bruno 319. FIANDINO, Bp. : his request to Pomponazzi to write on Immortality 206. Florio and Blanchftower : the original of Boccaccio's Filocope 130-1. Florence : its importance in Europe in 12-13 cent. 16-7, 23, modelled on government of Rome 20, the plague- stricken city of the Decameron 133 ; Boccaccio in 127, his lectures on Dante in 145, Epicurean sect in, in 11 cent. 63, Petrarcain 127, Platonism in 185-6 (ridiculed by Pulci 155), Savonarola in 168, 216. Fortune : Boccaccio's conception of 136-7 v. also Providence. FRACASTOR, Girolamo : Vanini's relation to 386, 404. France : her early trade with Venice 23, Renaissance spirit in 259, 260 ; Vanini in 356, 359. FRANCIS, St. : eulogized by Machiavelli 168. DE FRANCON, Sieur : disciple and betrayer of Vanini 392-3, 281, his action at the trial of Vanini 397-9, 402 (n2). Frankfort : Bruno in 276-8, 270. FREDERICK Barbarossa : his tolerance and patronage of Troubadours 50-51, 26, 103, success of Lombard League against 15, alleged abjuration of Christianity 69-70- the Great : a Skeptic 173. Free Thought : -v. Skepticism. Free Will : Pulci's discussion on 156, Pom- ponazzi's opinion on 211, Vauini's argument for 364-5, 365-6. Fucci, Vanni: Dante's denunciation of 102. Future Punishment: v. Hell, Immortality. GALEN : quoted by Pomponazzi 209. GALILEO : an instance ot inefficacy of Papal prohibition 8-9, a martyr 248, 260 ; at Padua 281, his alleged acquaintance with Bruno there 281, Bruno con- trasted with 322-3, 324, likened to 316, Vanini likened to 405, 407. GANYMEDE : in early Christian symbolism 53. Gaul : her early Monastic Schools 61. Geneva : her theological sympathies 26~-9, Calvinism in, in 16 cent. 259 (n) ; Bruno in 207-9, 318, Vanini in 359-60 v. also Calvin. Genoa : her advance as a Free Commune 17, annual bounty to Greek emperors 23, early trade with B igdad and the East 66, 25 ; Bruno in 2IJ6. GENOCHI, Giov. Maria : a friend of Van- ini 356. GKRBERT [pope Silvester ii.] : bis studies at Barcelona and Cordova 66, mythical legends relating to 69. German Philosophy : its tardy development 7-8. Reformation : Ital. Renaissance com- pared with 6-11, its origin in Roman- ism 73, its spread in 16 cent. 259 v. also Luther, Melanchthon, Protes- tantism. Germany : Renaissance spirit in 260. Gesta Romanorum : its ecclesiastical origin 53, actual influence 53. Ghibellines, the : asserters of secular power 63, their struggles with Guelfs 16, Skepticism 63. GIOVANBATTISTA, P. : fellow-traveller with Vanini to England 357, made a de- pendant of Abp. of York 357, his conversion to Anglicanism 357, 359 (n3), fall 358-9, committal to Tower 359 (and n3), return to Papacy 359 (nS). GLANVILL, Joseph: his alleged atheism 346. God : Boccaccio's conception of 136, Bruno's 264-5, 283, Plato's 381, Pulci's 15J, Vanini's 349, 361-2, 364, 365. GODFREY of Boulogne : his intolerance of the Jews 25-6. GOETH E : his genius independent of religious influence 10, relation to the Renais- sance 8, views on political crime 223, likened to Bruno 333, 341, his Devil compared with Pulci's Ashtaroth 232-3, 158, compared with Shakes- pere 225, his Faust 333 (pt. ii. 333-4). Goliard : etymology of the word 38 (n2). Goliardic Poetry : its characteristics 38-41, 43, belongs to the Church 45, its Classical Songs 42, parodies of the Clergy and Church 4J-1, 92 (poem on Index of Subjects. XXV clergy and laity on Day of Judgment 94), Freedom and humour 2L9, 220, 221, 39, its Freethought an indi- genous product 185, Naturalism, 39,40, praise of Love and wine 39, Reynard the Fox and Roman de la Rose its successors 44, poem on Spring 39. Goliards, The : description of 38, their Bohemianism and license 41, de- nounced by the Church 43, their de- votion to Classical antiquity 39, 41-2, zeal for Freedom 41, employment of Lay Minstrels 43, precursors of the Protestant Reformers 41. GONZAGA, Cardinal : a patron of Pompon- azzi 207, 216. GRAMOND : his character as a historian 390 (nl), 402 (n2) ; alleged to be the President who tried Vanini 392 (n). Granada : famous for its silks in 9-10 cent. 68. Greece and Rome : their moral laxity synchronic with their social decay ttl. Greek Drama : a product of peace 11, fre- quent ratiocination in 57. Skepticism : compared with that of Renaissance 185. Testament : decline in its study in 14-15 cents. 13. GREGORY i. : his denunciation of Human- ists 59, his Superstitiousness 76. vii. [Hildebrand] : his friendly atti- tude to the Italian Communes 16-7, Sacerdotalism and Papal ambitions 17-8. GREVILLE, Sir Fulke : his acquaintance with Bruno 272. GUAZZO, Stephen : his interpretation of ' virtue ' 82 (and n3). Guelfs, The : struggles with the Ghibel- lines 16. GUICCIARDINI : a type of the Renaissance 3, the Historian of the Renaissance 179, the Statesmen of the Renaissance 160-1, his character 183, (and n) ; disdain for Averroismand the school- men 180, Independence 106, political and historical Methods 179, Patriot- ism 181-2, Piety and probity 183 ; be- lief in Primitive Christianity 183, op- position to Papal Christianity 166, 180, attitude to Lutheran Christianity 180-1, opinion of the Clergy 94, view on Miracles 180, conception of Pro- vidence and Religion 181, sympathy with the Renaissance movement 183, Skepticism 182-3, contempt for cur- rent Superstition 180, the ' Twofold Truth ' in his character 176, his in- terpretation of ' Virtue ' 82, his Welt- schmerz 182, 224. Likened to Bruno 182, to Montaigne 182 (n2), to Petrarca 182, contrasted with Pulci 183, coutrasted and com- pared with Machiavelli 179, 180, 181, 182. His autobiography 180, Opere lne-< dite 180, 183; Montaigne's charac- terization of his Istoria 182. HADRIAN iv. : his friendly attitude toward the Italian Communes 16. HANDEL : emotional effect of Messiah 227. HAROUN AL RASCHID : contrasted with Charlemagne 65. HARVEY : his acquaintance with Bruno 272. Heaven : in mediaeval Christianity 89. HKGEL : Averroes likened to 70-1, Bruno's relation to 301, 319, 249. Hell, Doctrine of : in mediaeval Christi- anity 89, 104-5; criticized in early Drama 51, ridiculed by Jongleurs and fabulists 43, Bruno's belief in 24, Dante's pictures of 105 (compared with Milton's 105, v. also Dante) v. also Immortality. Helmstadt : Bruno in 278. HENNEQUIN : a disciple of Bruno 276. HENRI iii. : his interest in Bruno 271. HERAKLES : his labours identified with those of Christ in Goliardic poetry 42. HILARIUS : his exposition of teaching of 14 cent. 131 (n2). HILDEBRAND, Pope : v. Gregory vii. HIRNHAYM : Bruno likened to 313. History : its first secularization 33. HOBBES : Machiavelli likened to 172. HOGARTH : Machiavelli likened to 171. Holland : Vanini in 356. ' Holy ' : the epithet applied to Greek and Romans writers, etc. 131. Ghost, Doctrine of : Bruno's views on 2G4-5, 283. Roman Empire : a secular power 14 (and n). HOMER : study of, in 14-15 cents. 13, in Goliardic poetry 42, sung in mediaeval Italy 47. ' Honour ' : Renaissance writers' interpre- tation of 82. HORACE : study of, in 14-15 cents, in Italy 13, 77, echo of in Goliardic poetry 39. ' Horoscope of Religions' : -v. Albumazar. HUET, Bp. of Avrauches : his Eclecticism 117, Skepticism 115, 126, 346. HUGO, Victor : his Notre Dame de Paris referred to 258. Humanism : v. Renaissance. v. HUMBOLDT, Alex. : Bruno likened to 341. HUME, David : his influence on German speculation 335. Hungarians : their devastation of Italy in 9-10 cent. 62. Immaculate Conception, Doctrine of : Ren- aissance thinkers abhorrence of 90, Bruno's early difficulties as to 264-5. Immortality, Doctrine of : at Italian Uni- versities in time of Renaissance 186, object of traffic in the Church 197, decadence of belief in, in 15 cent. 97, 197 (n) ; Ariosto on uubelief in 12 XXVI Index of Subjects. (n2), Aristotle's De Anima v. Aristotle, Bruno's lectures on, at Oxford 274, at Toulouse 269,Charron's disbelief in 202, Macbiavelli's concep- tion of 165, Petrarca's aspiration for 126-7,bis proof of 115-6, Pomponazzi's denial of 200-2, 364 (his treatise on v. Pomponazzi), Pulci's sarcasms on 136, 156, Vanini's opinion on 304, 365 u also Hell. Improvisator 'e : tbeir advancement of free- thought 150. Incarnation, Doctrine of: of mediaeval Christianity 89, of Renaissance thinkers 90. Indulgences, Ecclesiastical : an object of traffic 79, 91 ; Renaissance Skepticism regarding 91 v. also Luther. Infallibility of Private Judgment : Discus- sion of 418-9. Infants, Unbaptized : v. Unbaptized. INNOCENT iii. : his crusade against the Albi- genses 46-7, 48-50, 418, promises to those who joined the crusade 78-9, Sacerdotalism 18. IRELAND : early schools in 61. Islamism : i'. Arab Culture, Koran. Inquisition, The : in Toulouse 49, its place of meeting 326 (and n3). Intolerance, Religious : Discussion of 418 (and n)-419. Italian Art : its origin in Renaissance feel- ing for Naturalism 77. Literature, Earlier : traces of foreign influences in 23. Italy : early schools in 60-1. JACOB : in Early Christian symbolism 53. JACOBI : relation of his Transcendentalism to Bruno's Idealism 301. JANUARIUS, Blood of : venerated by Nea- politan peasantry 117. JEHU : his destruction of Baal worshippers 418 (andn). JEROME, St. : studied by Bruno 266, his decline in the 14-15 cents. 13, lan- guage the accepted literary medium iii luily 19, his prohibition of Pagan authors 59. Jerusalem : capture of, by Crusaders 26. Jesuits : formation of their Order 259. Jews : Christianity a protest against their exclusiveness 86, Mahomet's tolerance of 64; their religion v. Boccaccio's The Three Rings (in Decam.) Jongleurs : their relation to Goliardic poetry 43, ridicule of the Church 43-4, advancement of Freethought 50. JONSOX, Ben : his Naturalism 224 ; conx- pared with Bacon and Raleigh 161. JOSHUA : his warfare against the Cauaan- ites 418. Judaism : v. Jews. JUDAS ISCARIOT : his reproach of God in an Old Breton Mystery 58. JULIUS ii. : effect of his policy on Bologna University 195 (and n2), on Padua Univ. 195. CAESAR : frequently adopted as a name by Ital. doctors in 16 cent. 351. JUNO : epithet of ' Saint ' applied to, by Boccaccio 131. JUPITER : likened to God, by Boccaccio 131 ; in Boccaccio's Spaccio 289-93 ; Pulci's use of ' Oiove ' for Christ 149. Jurisprudence : Boccaccio's study of 129, Petrarca's study of 108, his hostility to 119-201;. also Law, Roman. Justice, Divine : v. Providence. JUSTINIAN : Petrarca's study of 120. JUVENAL : on the pollution of the Tiber 13 ; quoted by Vincent de Beauvais 36. Kabbala : v. Cabbala. KANT : influence of the Rennissance on 7-8, of Bruno on 335, of Pomponazzi on 218. KEATS, John: his lines on 'the winged Fancy ' quoted 250-1. KEPLER : Bruno contrasted with 323 (and n). Knights Templars : their sympathy with Moslemism 28. Koran, The : its effects compared with those of Bible 28 (ul), hatred of idolatry 64, prohibition of painting and sculpture 67, lax interpretation of by Ma,homedans 67, 69. LACTANTIUS : Petrarca's study of 114. LA MAZUYER : a friend of Vanini 374, 389, 391,392,393,403 (n.). Lamiae : superstition as to 35. LANFRANC : obtained his celebrity outside Italy 63. Latin Language : late use of, in Italy 60. LAURA, Petrarca's : her identity, family and life 123, Petrarca's ' Transfigura- tion ' of her 123-4, a symbol of un- attained desire 228-9, effect of her death on Petrarca 124-7 ; compared with Bruno's Morgana 289, with Dante's Beatrice 125 (n-). LAVATER : on Vandyke's portrait of Charles i. 258. Law, Roman : the chief study in Italian Universities 12-13 ceuts. 63 v. also Jurisprudence. League of Cambray : its effect on Padua University 195. Lecce : Vanini's bust in 408. LE VAYER : his Skepticism 115. LEO x. : his tolerance 11, 71, 188, bull against the Averroists?!, 205(antiii2). LEONARDO DA VINCI : his paintiugs a re- action against asceticism 77- LESSING : his tolerarice 8, 31, philosophical forecast 218-9; Bruno likened to 312, Pompouazzi's influence on 218, Nathan der Weise an adaptation of Boccaccio's The Three Riitr/s 229, 230. Levant : early trade with Italy 23, 66, with Spain 68. Liberty, Human : v. Free Will. Index of Subjects. xxvn Libraries, Early : founded in Bagdad 65, in Spain by Arabs 66. Linibus Infantum : in the Early Church 102 (nl), 101-2. Literoe Obscuroruin Virorum : animated by spirit of the Goliards 45. Literature, Secularization of : generally 32- 8, Goliardic poetry 38-45, Provencal poetry 45-51, Mysteries and Morali- ties 51-8, Revival of Classical Studies 58-63, Arab culture and philosophy 63-72. Italian : v. Italian literature. Sicilian : v. Sicilian literature. LIVY : a model to Machiavelli 162, Machia- velli's trust in 169. Lombard, League : its success against Frederick Barbarossa 15. , Peter : obtained celebrity outside Italy 63, 187. Lombardy : early commercial intercourse with Spain 68. London : Bruno in 270, Vanini in 356-9. Lord's Prayer, The : Goliardic parodies of 40. LORENZO de Medici : freedom of his Court with respect to theology of Dante 152, skepticism of his Court 156, Pulci his favoured poet 148, his academy ridiculed by Pulci 155. LOT : in Early Christian symbolism 53. LOTZE : his relation to doctrine of ' Two- fold Truth' 239 (n). Louis of Bavaria : his tolerance 103. Love : Bruno's conception of 312-3, 314. LUCIAN : Bruno likened to 294, a model to Machiavelli 161, 177, Petrarca's respect for 115. LULLI, Raymund : his mysticism 261, 332. LUTHER, Martin : his portrait in Strassburg 356, indictment of Indulgences 91, Intolerance 416-7, campaign against the Papacy 216, his explanation of the Stigmata of St. Francis 363; contrasted with Erasmus and Me- lanchthon 417. LYCURGUS : his combination of priestcraft with secular power 166. Lyons : Bruno in 269, Vanini in 360. LYSON, Dr. : opponent of Bruno in Oxford contest of 1583, 274 (n4). MACAULAY: on MacMa-velli's obliquity of moral vision 170. MACHIAVELLI : a type of Italian Free- thought 3, the Statesman of the Renaissance 160-1, a philosophical politician and diplomatist 163-4, his life the embodiment of his writings 161 ; his virtual Atheism 174, appre- ciation of Christ and primitive Chris- tianity 165, 167-8, opposition to papal Christianity and the Church 165-8, 94, Classical leanings 161-5 (com- mendation of Roman polytheism 166), conception of God 165, 174, 177, Humanism 164, conception of Im- mortality 165, Independence 106, mode of Life 161-2, study of Man- kind 176-7, disbelief in and ridicule of Miracles 167, 362, on the effect of Moral laxity on the State 221, his Paganism 162, 165, indifference to modern Progress 161, Patriotism 175, Pessimism and Political principles 163-4, 168-72, 172-3, 224, [extenuated 174-7, 233 (and n) (by Montaigne and Rousseau 170), extenuation de- nied 234 (by Macaulay 170)], concep- tion of Providence 169, Selfishness 177, Skepticism (moral and social) 169-70, 171-7 (its pessimistic char- acter 172-3), Superstitionsness 167, adherence to doctrine of ' Twofold Truth' 176, hope of a United Italy 164-5, interpretation of ' Virtue ' 82. Likened to Augustine 172, to Calvin 168, 172, Dante his Italian model 161, his eulogy of Dominic and Francis 168, contrasted with Guicciardini 179, 180, 181, 182, likened to Hobbes 172, to Hogarth 171, compared with Montaigne 163, his disregard of Petrarca and Boccaccio 161, likened to Rabelais 171, Pomponazzi likened to 203, contrasted ith Vanini 362. His anonymous Comedy 167, Asino d'Oro 161 (n), 175, 177-8 (compared with Pulci' s Margutte 177-8), De Monarchia 103, Mandragora 167, II Principe 169, 170-1, 222 (contemp. indignation at 171). MADRUEZI, Cardinal : Bruno sentenced in his palace 326 (and n4) . MAHOMET : his tolerance of Jews and Chris- tians 64, Mediiieval conception of, as a schismatic 101 (n4), Dante's view of 101 (>. of Ockam : on the Divine Institution of Monarchy 19. ii., of Sicily: his tolerance and patronage of belles lettres 51. Weltschmerz, of the Ital. Renaissance 223-5, of Augustan Roman period XXXVI Index of Subjects* 224, of Elizabethan era 224, 225, of French Renaissance 224, of German Sturm und Drang period 224. Wittenberg: Lutheranism at 259 (and n); Bruno at 270, 276-7, 318, his vale- dictory address to 2/6 (n2). Woman : Cult of, in 13-14 cents. 228, Idealistic tendencies of the Renais- pance 50 ; mediaeval theory of her Montrosity 367 (and nl), Vanini's argument against it 367. World, End of : v. End of the World. XENOPHANES : his Idealism 361 (n5). ZARABELLO : influence of Averroism on 72 ; a pupil of Pomponazzi 217. ZENO : his Idealism 361 (n5). ZEUS : his exploits identified with events in life of Christ ; in Goliardic poetry 42. Zodiac, Signs of : Bruno on the 291. Zurich : Bruno in 270. Eutler A Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Fror.ie, aud London. BY THE SAME AUTHOB. EVENINGS WITH THE SKEPTICS; OB, FREE DISCUSSION ON FREE TH1NKKRS. Two Vols. Demy 8vo, pp. 1,040, cloth 32s. VOL. I. PRECHRISTIAN SKEPTICISM. VOL. II. CHRISTIAN SKEPTICISM. OF THE From the WESTMINSTER REVIEW. ' Reliable works on the history of abstract thought are not, as a rule, attractive reading. . . . But Mr. Owen's volumes are at once entertaining and profound, and in our opinion mark a distinct advance in the method of presenting the perennial themes of intellectual interest to the generally edu- cated public. . . . We believe more information will be gleaned from his pages than from many of the current manuals.' From the BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW. 1 This protest against a too comprehensive sweep of the skeptical net is necessary. . . . But having made it, we have no words but those of praise for the results of Mr. Owen's thoughts and labours. His " Evenings with the Skeptics " are very delightful e-venings indeed. . . . We trust that Mr. Owen will fulfil the promise of Dr. Trevor, and give us a second series of " Evenings with the Skeptics." ' From the ACADEMY. ' It would be difficult to devise a title capable of denning the entire drift of a book so rich in suggestions of all kinds. . . . We are glad to learn that the work is to be continued. . . . Mr. Owen's treatment of his subject is so genial, and his general tone so creditable to him as an independent thinker, as to dispose us to opine that the more philosophers he can comprehend, the better.' From the ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE. ' Zeller's well-known work is remarkably jejune with regard to the Pyr- rhonists and the New Academy. Mr. Owen's sympathetic account of the later i H H 2 Owens ' Evenings with the Skeptics' Greek skeptics supplies a real want. . . . Of the Pyrrhonian principles of Sextus, Mr. Owen gives a careful abstract, which will prove most useful to students of Greek philosophy. . . . We imagine there are but few readers who will not derive much information that is new to them from the essays in this book on Erigena Abelard and Aquinas, on William of Ockam, Raymund of Sabieude, and Cornelius Agrippa. Here in a great degree Mr. Owen is a pioneer.' From the LITERARY WORLD, Boston. 1 We hope that he will b3 able to carry out his plan to the uttermost. For breadth and depth of view, for freshness and strength of thought, for anima- tion of style, and for the right kind of popularisation, these volumes have no equals in the English language. No student of philosophy, and no one de- sirous as so many are in these days to know what philosophy has to say about the great problems of life, will do well to pass them by.' From the NEW YORK CRITIC. ' The great sceptics among the schoolmen draw out the author's full power. He has understood them, and he has justly interpreted them. The work is one of permanent and considerable value.' From the CHRISTIAN UNION, N.Y. ' This remarkable work is evidently the fruit of unusually wide research, and of the mature and patient thought of a mind naturally fitted for abstruse speculation, equipped with generous learning, and resolute in the application of co-ordinating principles over an immense historic scope.' From the NATION, N.Y. ' The essays and conversations are carried on in a way which suggests Plato, Berkeley, and Mallock by turns, and in a style so agreeable, that few who begin the volumes will leave them unfinished.' From the CONGREGATIONALIST, Boston. 'It goes over almost the whole course of thinking treated in the usual philo- sophies of history, and its style is so pure and fascinating, that whoever once gets well into it will not willingly quit it till he has seen the end.' From the INDEPENDENT, N.Y. ' . . . This extremely interesting and suggestive work, which, whether it is viewed as a contribution to the study of philosophy, or as an attempt to throw light on the sea of doubt on which the modern world is tossed, is equally worthy of the highest praise.' From the NEW YORK TIMES. ' To give a clear account of Greek thought in its analytical light, together with a very fair view of the relation of the thinkers to each other, within the limits of one volume, though a good -sized one, can have been no light task Owens 'Evenings with the Skeptics' 3 and it cannot be denied that Mr. Owen has performed it with English courage and more than English discrimination.' From the NEW YORK SUN. ' Turning to the author's treatment of these large and interesting themes, we can give only our inadequate and fragmentary idea of its comprehensive- ness, perspicuousness, and effectiveness, by culling here and there a sentence in which he sums up the results of previous inquiry.' From the INDEX, Boston. ' Especially valuable is the account of Ockam, an early English Liberal, who has been sadly neglected, even by his own countrymen.' From the SPECTATOR. 'The kind of scepticism here approved is fatal to ecclesiasticism, and perhaps to later developments of Christianity, but finds rest and certainty in the words and spirit of Christ Himself.' From the INQUIRER. ' Mr. Owen has natural talents, acute, subtle, and penetrating, and through their medium has attained to a very considerable amount of learning. He is evidently a scholar of no mean order, an indefatigable student of antiquity, and a thinker of free impulse, large sympathies, and liberal views. His style is correct, elegant, and refined.' From the SCOTSMAN. ' There is much to be said in praise of the chapters on Greek Scepticism from Xenophanes to Sextus Empeirikus ; much intelligent courage in the discussion on the relation of Christianity to free thought ; and its insistance that Christ's teaching sanctions free thought and impatience of dogma. It is not easy to find elsewhere in our literature so full and clear an account of the philosophical attitude and opinions of the schoolmen of Aquinas, Abelard, and Ockam, or of the sceptical period of Augustine's life.' From the DAILY CHRONICLE. 1 It is impossible ... to do justice to the wide and comprehensive teaching of this work, but we must welcome it as a noble study of intellectual progress put before the reader in the purest and most expressive language, and with an animation that gives unwonted interest to every branch of the subject.' From the GUARDIAN. ' We cannot profess to criticise in detail a series of essays upon subjects so extensive and withal so important ; but the labour and research which Mr. Owen has bestowed upon his work deserves some special notice at our hands.' LONGMANS & CO., PATERNOSTER ROW. BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 7 VERSE MUSINGS ON NATURE, FAITH AND FREEDOM. OIPIINTOITS OIF 1 THE From the ACADEMY. ' No doubt pretty conceits are more enjoyable when we take time to play with them. And Mr. Owen's conceits are often pretty. . . . The drooping snowdrop turned to mother earth is a figure of innocent sentimental souls regretting their unembodied state. Plotinus's speculations on this state, and the delight of returning to it suggests two or three poems worth reading, even after Wordsworth's " Intimations of Immortality." ' Now and then, again, we come upon something that is positively luminous, like the comparison of the illusion of the blue firmament, which hides the starry depths, to definitions of God, or the identification of heaven's silent tent with the tabernacle where He hides the chosen from the strife of tongues. It is a real contribution to the controversy on immortality to enquire how many would desire to live this life again. The enquiry suggests that a future life might be a greater boon if it were not a conscious continuation of this. Again, in " Life and Love," the dictum " 'Tie better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all " is dissected with a good deal of imaginative acuteness. " Dogma Method " is founded on a passage in the Koran where Mahomet was bidden to silence those who doubted the resurrection by swearing to it. Did the writer remem- ber Newman's lines on the apostles "They argued not, but preached, and conscience did the rest''? The contrast is suggestive ; so is the contention in the poem, " What is Faith?" that faith and dogma exclude each other; that when we know, or think we know, enough to dogmatise, there is no room for faith. This agrees with the doctrine of the fine poem, "Pan is not Dead" that we shall always feel and be stirred by the presence of the inexplicable and indefinable.' From the LIVERPOOL DAILY POST. ' It is pleasant and profitable to be the author's companion in his walks abroad, when his soul is stirred with the varied aspects of nature which, active or still, feathered or floral, he apostrophises in verse graceful, spontaneeus, and simple. The musings on " Faith " are thought- pro vocative in their earnestness and force, and attractive by reason of the grand expression they give to some of the greatest truths.' LONDON : KEGAN PAUL & CO., LIMITED.