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B783.Z7 B85 Giordano Bruno: philosopher and martyr.
3 1924 028 988 967 olln
Giordano Bruno
:
PHILOSOPHER AND MARTYR.
TWO
DANIEL
ADDRESSES.
G.
BRINTON,
M.D.,
AND
THOMAS DAVIDSON,
M.A.
PHILADELPHIA:
DAVID McKAY, PUBLISHER, No. 23 South Ninth Street. 1890.
As America's jnental courage is
(the
thought comes
so indebted, above all current lands
army of old-world martyrs clear those martyrs' lives
past,
to
and peoples,
how incumbent on
me to-day)
to
the noble
us that
we
and names, and hold them up for
reverent admiration as well as beacons.
And typical
of
this,
and standing for it and all perhaps, Giordano Bruno may well be put, to-day
heart
and
to come, in
our
New
World's thankfulest
and memory.
WALT WHITMAN. February
24ih, l8go.
Camden, N. J.
PREFATORY NOTE.
—
The Contemporary Club, of Philadelphia an association of men and women formed for the discussion of the leading questions of the day ject of Giordano Bruno for
its
— selected the sub-
meeting on January
14, 1890.
The heated
controversies which had attended the
erection of a statue to vious,
Bruno
and the numerous
in
articles
Rome
the year pre-
which had appeared
concerning him in the recent magazines and papers,
both European and American, signalized his individuality
and
thought as manifestly present topics of
his
interest to reflective minds. in this little
The two addresses
printed
volume were read before the Club on the
date mentioned, and are presented without alteration.
Of course,
it
will
be understood that they exhibit the
opinions of the writers, and are not an
official
expres-
sion of the sentiments of the Club as a body. It
appeared the more desirable to print them in
their present
form on account of the
difficulty
of
PREFATORY NOTE.
VI
obtaining accurate information about Bruno, or access to bis works.
None
of tHese has been translated into
English, and the Italian and Latin originals are extremely, rarely to be
found,
even
in
our largest
libraries.
Of biographies
in English, Frith's " Life of Gior-
dano Bruno," published by Messrs. Triibner
London,
is
much
&
Co.,
the best, and a book to be recom-
mended.
The lines by Walt Whitman will be appreciated by who are in sympathy with his sterling philosophy of life. They were written after reading the first of
all
the addresses here published, his infirmities preventing
him from attending the meeting of the Club, of
which he
is
an honored member.
The engraving on statue
erected to
Rome, and
is
the
title
page represents the
Bruno on the Campo
de'
Fiori,
copied from the medal struck to cele-
brate that event.
D. G. Philadelphia,
March, i8go.
BRINTON.
GIORDANO BRUNO: HIS LIFE
AND
BY DANIEL
HIS PHILOSOPHY,
G.
BRINTON, M.D.
—
:
:
GIORDANO BRUNO HIS LIFE
Mr.
President
AND
HIS
PHILOSOPHY.
and Fellow Members
—
Soraething more than five-and-twenty years
ago
listened to
I
some
on Giordano Bruno, I
remember
lectures at the Sorbonne_
his life
and
his philosophy.
that a fellow student expressed his
opinion that they were a deadly bore
yeuxs a mourir. you
fault
ject
find with
not
shall
I
I
me
fall
ennu-
hope that whatever other in
treating the
under
this
same sub-
worst of con-
demnations.
At
that time
Bruno was but one of a number
of obscure philosophers of the Renaissance with
whom in
the lecturer
Italy
I
was
dealing.
Last winter
found that the name of Giordano
Bruno was a
war-cry, ringing from Sicily to the
9
—
GIORDANO BRUNO:
lO
Alps
—
yes, far
Roman
beyond the Alps,
I
over the
Catholic world, with distinct echoes in
Protestant lands.
logne
all
At
the ancient city of Co-
stood in an assembly of a thousand men,
gathered to celebrate and defend the erection of Bruno's statue in far off
week olics
Rome;
while the
before, at a very large meeting of Cath-
on the upper Rhine, the orator of the day,
a distinguished delegate to the Rdchskammer,
had called Bruno "a hog and an "Schwein
und ein Esel,
—
ass,"
ein
and had been applauded
for the epithets.
When on the epochal ninth of June last (1889), Bruno's statue was unveiled on the spot of his burning, in can,
it
is
full
view of the windows of the Vati-
said that
and spent hours
in
Leo Xlllth refused food an agony of prayer at the
foot of the statue of St. Peter.
Never have
I
read more bitter denunciations than have been
poured forth concerning Catholic pulpit. in
this act
from the
Roman
Many another man was burned
Rome, and some
Florence, and John
at
Geneva; Savonarola
Huss
at
at Constance; but
I
—
HIS LIFE
doubt
if
AND HIS PHILOSOPHY.
II
the statue of any one of these
would
have offended the Catholic church so deeply,
would have rankled so venomously, as
that of
Bruno.
Nor was this of Rome. The
feeling confined to the church
learned dignitaries of the more
conservative Protestant churches,
knew anything about Bruno and
when they
his teachings,
This was perfectly mani-
evidently shared it fest
from the
and
in the official religious
editorials in
the
London Times
press both of Eng-
land and North Germany.
What was in
the secret of this?
Bruno which so
the theologians? others, la. vita
nuova
it
peculiarly excited the ire of
And why
has he, beyond
been chosen to represent the new
—of
are the questions this
What was
independent Italy? I
shall
all
life
These
endeavor to answer
evening.
And
who was Bruno ? Fihppo Bruno, known in religion first,
dano Bruno, was born
into
life
as
Gior-
at Nola, near
Naples, in 1548, and burned alive at
Rome
!
GIORDANO BRUNO:
12
A
1600.
in
precocious lad, he assumed the
garb of the Dominicans at fourteen years of
and two years
age,
sion of
vows
later
made
he exercised the
and around the convent
St.
until
Dominic
holy orders
to-
offices of the
profes-
full
Convent of
Soon promoted
Naples.
at
in the
priesthood in In that
1576.
year the Provincial of his order accused him of heresy on one hundred and thirty counts
With a Bruno
just fear of the result of the
cast
aside
vows, and fled
Northern
first
to
Rome and
For three
Italy.
trial;
renounced
frock,
his
his
then to
years he
wan-
dered from Genoa to Noli, to Turin, to Vento
ice,
Padua, gaining a precarious subsist-
ence by teaching and writing.
him
find
in
he
in
for him.
was thrown
libel,
into
Calvinism.
This
In a very few
months
prison
for
defamatory
and prohibited the sacraments
doctrine.
he made
his
we
Geneva, then the stronghold of
most uncompromising
the
was no place
In 1579
Escaping
way
to
from
the
for errors Calvinists,
Toulouse, at that time
3
HIS LIFE
AND
HIS PHILOSOPHY.
1
There
the literary center of southern France.
he spent a year, lecturing on Aristotle, wearied, as he scholastic
by
tells us,
its
"
until
clamors and
he was glad to move on
frenzy,"
to Paris.
The atmosphere under
He
of
that
great
suited
influence,
Italian
city,
him
then
better.
obtained the position of professor extra-
ordinary in the Sorbonne, where he lectured
on the divine
Two
memorizing.
and on the
attributes
years
art
of
later, that is in 1583,
he journeyed to London, apparently at the invitation
court of
of the
Queen
French ambassador to the
Elizabeth.
In the English capital he passed
years.
At
that
the imperial city Its its
streets
were
inhabitants
some three
day London was
far
from
on the Thames of our time. filthy,
its
police
a
jest,
and
numbered only twice as many
as those of
Camden, on the other side of our
Delaware.
But among those inhabitants were
such glorious stars as Shakespeare and Spencer,
Francis Bacon and Sir Philip Sidney, and
GIORDANO BRUNO:
14
the galaxy of the Elizabethan age gathered
around the throne of the virgin queen, herself learned
and a patron of
In this incomparable circle
Sidney, to
whom in the
reflections of ford,
and
the friend of
he dedicated two of of his
influence
recognized
Bruno entered as
He became
a welcome guest.
and the
learning.
his books,
teaching has been
philosophy of Bacon and the
Hamlet.
The
University of Ox-
however, received him worse than coldly, his lectures led to
was forced
such acrimony that he
hastily to depart.
Returning
to the continent in
1586, for five
years he roamed from city to city in Germany, leading that
life
of the vagrant scholar so gen^
eral in his day, but unfortunately always in hot
water.
At Wittenberg,
in spite of delivering
gyric on Luther, he
leave the town
;
a pane-
was warned summarily
to
from Marburg he was obliged
to flee in order to escape the
"malevolence"
of the rector of the University; in Helmstedt he
was excommunicated from the reformed Church
5
HIS LIFE
(October,
1
589)
;
AND in
HIS PHILOSOPHY.
1
Frankfort the authorities
refused to permit him even to lodge within the
gates
and so the story goes.
;
Finally at Zurich he received an invitation
from a noble Venetian, Zuane Mocenigo, to visit
Venice and teach him the higher and secret
learning.
He
complied, with unsuspecting con-
fidence in his patron.
But Mocenigo was noble
nothing but his
in
The two soon quarreled
birth.
with the implacable
thirst for
violently,
and
vengeance of a
mediaeval Italian, Mocenigo quietly collected
from the works of Bruno and
his conversations
a mass of testimony as to his heretical
and turned them over in
to the
beliefs,
Father Inquisitor
Venice, with a formal' denunciation of their
author.
Bruno was promptly
Once his fate, tain.
in the
arrested.
hands of that merciless tribunal
though
it
might be deferred, was
Tried and convicted
in
Venice, he was
delivered to the Inquisition in
seven years spent
in its
cer-
Rome.
After
dungeons, again he was
6
GIORDANO BRUNO:
I
and again convicted.
tried
Eight charges of
heresy were proved against him, and he was called
upon
to recant.
His reply was firm
and
I
not recant
will
"I
:
ought not to recant,
" !
After further delay, the Inquisition pronounced sentence of death, and, as the custom was, turned
him over
to the secular
Bruno heard the in
power
words
fatal
a menacing tone replied, "
fear
more
hear
it."
to*
Ten days was
He
execution.
its
It
may be
later,
on February
1
7th,
1
600,
on the Campo
and
that you
deliver this judgment, than
led to the stake
I
to
Bruno
de' Fiori.
scorned the proffered consolations of the
priests,
and met death with the calmness of a His
truly great mind.
latest
a martyr, and willingly." into the Tiber
and
accursed on the Such, in restless
him
for
unflinchingly,
brief,
man.
tally
his
rolls
words were,
His ashes were cast
name placed among
with his
the
of the Church.
was the history of
The
" I die
descriptions
life
—a
this lonely,
we have
small, thin
of
man, with
7 "
AND
HIS LIFE
HIS PHILOSOPHY.
1
a meagre, dark beard, sovereignly scornful of his attire
"
three buttons off his coat and not a
;
ring on his fingers," says one narrative
hose pieced out from says another
Dominican gown,"
not a presentable
;
and of uncomfortable
society, all
his
day long, or
"
" his
;
man
in fine
habits, writing
walking up and down,
with fantastic meditations upon
new
filled
things,
reported the Prior of the Carmelite Convent in
Frankfort
;
quick in temper, bitter in debate,
violent in language, impatient with ignorance, full
of scorn
for
prejudices
;
not a pleasant,
easy-going fellow by any means to vainglorious boasting,
;
given at times
and perhaps also
to
mystifying intimations of secret knowledge in
Impatient with the pettiness about
his reach.
him,
embittered by persecution, what wonder
that he
ular
fell
and
a long
way
short of being that pop-
affable individual
which the
common
mind admires?
You
will
personal
wish
me
character..
to say It
something about
has been bitterly
tacked, not so much, so far as
B
I
can
find,
his at-
from
8
'
GIORDANO BRUNO:
1
any incidents recorded about his private life, as from the coarseness and ribaldry of some of his dialogues and comedies.
undeniable
;
This coarseness
is
passes sometimes beyond buf-
it
foonery into what to us seems indecency.
But
in
judging
it,
we must and
ation the man's epoch
well
know
take into considernationality.
that his great contemporary Shake-
speare penned
many a scene
which not the lowest theatre
would place unchanged upon
dramas,
in his
in
its
country
this
boards.
Far greater was the admitted license of ian writers.
Church of stories,
of the
who
died
odor of sanctity as a Bishop of the
the
drew
Ital-
Matteo Bandello was a contem-
porary of Bruno's, a Dominican monk, in
You
Rome
;
yet the Novella, or short
which he wrote, from which Shakespeare
his plot of
Shrew and
profligacy,
Romeo and others,
the
Taming
a work of monstrous
and the grossest indecency.
cannot believe that the author,
is
Juliet,
it
who seems
We
reflects the character of
to
have been temperate,
studious and self-respecting.
It
does
reflect the
9
AND
HIS LIFE
HIS PHILOSOPHY.
The whole
literary fashion of the time.
ian sixteenth century literature
some of the
finest of
suggestions.
No
least of all
an
it is
demn Bruno on such In spite of his
Their
life,
Ital-
licentious,
and
critic
in its
therefore,
a Romanist,
evidence as
will con-
this.
vagabondism Bruno published
about twenty-five works his actual
is
of
simply revolting
competent
Italian or
1
and
left
in the fifteen years of
many
others incomplete.
own char"The Book of the
are as eccentric as his
titles
acter; such, for instance, as
Great Key;" "The Explanation of the Thirty
"The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast;" "The Threefold Minimum ;" "The Composition of Images;" "The Innumerable, the Immense and the Unfigurable " and others of the same obscurity. In these productions, some of which are prose, some poetry, some dialogues, some comSeals;"
;
edies,
he developed
them the heresy.
inquisitors
To
his
philosophy;
and on
based their charges of
them, therefore,
we must
turn to
seek those teachings which on the one hand are
;
GIORDANO BRUNO:
20
asserted to prove him a
venomous
and on the other a glorious martyr
social viper,
to truth.
devoted to
Several of his publications are the Art of
Memory.
In the thirteenth century
Raymond
the Catalan monk,
remarkable treatise on that
by an
power of There
recollection
is
be
maintaining
and the methods of
indefinitely
something
at the base of
composed a
system of mnemonics the
artificial
tigation can
Lully,
this subject,
most
expanded.
in his theory,
later
inves-
and
it
lies
schemes of the kind
but Bruno, Cornelius Agrippa, and other scholars of the sixteenth century, imagined that
could be carried far beyond
and devoted it
to
it
did not merit.
memorizing,
it
its
an amount of attention which Like
all artificial
methods of
does not invigorate the
as a faculty, but merely supplies
schemes
it
possible limits,
for associating facts.
it
It is
whether, like the use of a crutch,
memory
with material
all
a question
such plans
do not perpetuate weakness while they seemingly aid the powers.
As
this portion of
activity neither received the
Bruno's
condemnation of
—
HIS LIFE
AND HIS PHILOSOPHY.
21
the Church nor the applause of posterity,
may
pass
it
merely remarking that
by,
longed attention to
it
how
indicates
had studied the rather
we
his pro-
closely he
rationalistic writings of
the old Catalan.
When
he was at Frankfort, Bruno registered
himself as a student of natural history sophies naturalis studiosus
serve the
There
title.
is
—and well
philo-
did he de-
something marvelous
in
the precocity of his insight into both the methods
and the
results of natural science.
In physics
the theories of the center of gravity of the planets, the orbits of the comets, fect sphericity of the earth are
was one of the
first
and the imper-
due
to him.
to espouse the
He
modern or
Copernican theory of astronomy.
The
doctrine of Evolution, the progressive
development of nature, an idea absolutely un-
known
to
pounded
ancient philosophy, was
in his
but to the
full
works, not vaguely or
pro-
partially,
extent of the most advanced evo-
lutionist of to-day.
says, " differs
first
"The mind
of man," he
from that of lower animals and of
GIORDANO BRUNO
22
not in quality, but only in quantity."
plants,
"
:
Each
individual,"
" is
he adds,
the resultant of
Each
innumerable individuals.
starting point for the next."
species
Change
is
is
the
unceas-
No individual is the same to-day as yesterday." He extended these laws to the inor"
ing.
ganic as well as the organic world, maintaining
unbroken
that
man which
from matter to
line of evolution
modern
severest studies of
the
science are beginning to recognize.
This eternal change, he taught, poseless. defects,
It is
and the acquisition of higher powers.
Hence, he
laid
down
the doctrine of "optim-
ism," which Leibnitz notoriously
him
;
not pur-
is
ever toward the elimination of
and the theory of the
borrowed from
perfectibility of
man advanced by Herbert Spencer
is
but one
of several prominent ideas defended by that doctrinaire,
which Bruno was the
and did so
clearly.
first
This has been pointed out before is
a remarkable passage
"The Shadows of
in
to express,
;
but there
a work of his called
Ideas," which
seems
to
me
to
HIS LIFE
AND
HIS PHILOSOPHY.
23
forestall
one of the most extraordinary sugges-
tions of
modern
doctrine of
science.
I
refer to Pasteur's
symmetry and non-symmetry (asym-
metry), in things as the fundamental physical
explanation of material changes.
Some
of you
doubtless are aware of the
almost romantic nature of Pasteur's researches
on
this subject,
and
he has not devoted to Well,
it
was
expressed regret that
his it
the whole of his
evidently present
life.
Bruno's
to
thoughts also as the ultimate physical explanation of
phenomena.
"It
is
"that the universe shall in
unequal.
necessary," he says, its
various parts be
Progress toward accord
ceivable through
is
only con-
the cancellation of inequali-
ties."
Such were some of the
results attained in
natural science by this wonderful man.
were
his
What
methods ?
They were
those which to-day govern every
trained scientific mind.
Bruno constantly
re-
peats that the investigation of nature in the unbiased light of reason
is
our only guide
to
truth;
:
GIORDANO BRUNO
24
and
you apply
if
for the criterion of
answer comes with
his
truth,
him
to
no
sound, rather with ceaseless iteration evidence, observation,
though they may not
Trust to
observation.
your own senses; they tell
will
uncertain
— evidence,
not deceive you,
you the whole
truth.
Hold
your mind ever open to new
Never
believe you have attained final certainty.
Doubt
ever,
"
Let us
tion, faith
doubt reject,"
and
all
truths.
things.
he
cries, " antiquity,
authority.
The
truth
is
tradi-
not in
the Past, nor in the Present, but in the Future." "
Let us begin by doubt.
He
we know."
Let us doubt
till
frequently admonished his
hearers not to yield to the habit of
faith,
doubt what others hold as established
but to
truth.
Especially did he apply this to religious dog-
He
mas. the
declared that they blind and stunt
intellect
yond
all else.
and lower the moral nature be"
A
hundred warring
sects,"
he
writes, "claim each for itself the exclusive truth,
and despise the worship of bids
its
votaries to question
others. its
Each
for-
own dogmatic
"
AND
HIS LIFE
fect of
its
25
arraigning and condemning
utterances, while
those of
HIS PHILOSOPHY,
Hence
rivals."
the disastrous
ef-
such religions on the moral nature.
Bruno affirmed ethical progress
that the greatest obstacle to
has been the preference given
to sectarian belief over the practice of disinter"
ested philanthropy. pher," he is
The God
of the philoso-
writes, "is not a jealous
He
God.
and goodness, he reveals himself in
truth
nature, to
all
men, and
all
Hence
in all religions."
the philosopher, he adds, will study the myths,
prayers and hymns of
races and
all
all
religions
with equal reverence. I
appeal to you
if
consonant with the our day
?
With
which Professor ville in
made
loftiest
that
Max
France, and
ers have
such an expression
"
is
not
moral sense of
this
science
of religion
Miiller in England, Re-
many
other eminent teach-
us acquainted with
?
This breadth of view he extended to jects " to
of thought.
"I have sworn," he
no philosophy, and
of learning. c
I
all
I
despise
subcries,
no means
do despise the ignorant crew
GIORDANO BRUNO:
26
who have
gained, their opinions, not by occu-
with philosophy, but by accepting the
pation
words of others." Thought,
earnest
clear,
free,
thought,
he
proclaimed, will at last be victorious and will lead to the highest knowledge and the broadest
"A
good.
a
moment
time shall come," he exclaims in of
rapturous
" a
foresight,
and desired age, when the Gods
new
shall lie in
Orcus, and the dread of everlasting punish-
ment
from the world."
shall vanish
Having reached the pure eminence, he
more
is
and the
itself,
he teaches,
is
is
divine,
because
born of the mind's direct relations to
Infinite.
great,
this
lofty
but took a yet
sealed with the seal of an infinite origin,
It
is
forever
the inconceivably small
both
air of this
aerial flight.
Thought it
did not rest,
between illimitable,
the
moving between
and the immeasurably
atom and the
incomprehensible
was no barren
scholastic
but a pregnant truth,
is
;
universe,
and that
theorem to him,
shown by a sentence
HIS LIFE
than which
I
AND
HIS PHILOSOPHY.
know none grander
philosophy.
It
occurs
to Sir Philip Sidney, appropriately
Heroic Rapture," and faculty
intellectual
hensible truth only
as
is
whole of
in the
work he dedicated
the
in
27
named,
follows
" "
:
The The
appeased by compre-
is
when
feels
it
it
thereby
is
advancing nearer to incomprehensible truth."
The
intellectual faculty,
he continues to argue,
thus forever seeks the unsearchable, passionately yearns
for
the
very passion and yearning prove "
noblest destiny.
the
more
But
unattainable.
its
Love," he
this
to
title
" is
cries,
than knowledge, and only the love of
the
Divine can satisfy the
the
soul."
He who
infinite
nature of
drinks of this Elysian
nectar burns with an
ardor that the ocean
cannot quench, nor the cold of the arctic temper.
Elsewhere he writes
finite,
is
to
fixed
behold
know
that
it it
and of a
rising ever
:
"
Love,
if
it
be
certain measure; but
and ever higher
is
to
turns toward the Infinite."
This reasoning led him to the doctrine of personal immortality, which he taught with clear
GIORDANO BRUNO:
28
To
conviction.
"The
of evolution.
he
soul," I
sider
all
tc*
aim of
all
pause and
perhaps you
history,
purpose
final
progress." reflect
this surprising sentence.
well,
it
was the
perfecting of the individual
writes, "is the
would ask you
ment on to
him, this
the
If
will find in
hidden
a mo-
you con-
it
the key
of nature,
secret
the final purpose of the phenomenal world and its
countless changes.
conflict
cess,
of forces
is
Perhaps
endless
all this
a somehow necessary pro-
by which the Individual
is
set over against
the All, the Self against the Other, to the end that each soul shall attain a perfected plenitude
of power, shall acquire infinity without forfeiting individuality.
This, at
any
rate,
was Bruno's
Form, which
is
his doc-
one of the most
difficult
it
further
branches of his philosophy of nature. him.
Form seems
With
to stand for the ultimate
of the objective universe. "
and
by
he undertook to support trine of
opinion,
"
Forms," he
law
writes,
;
are the true objects of knowledge " yet he
adds that matter
is
not complete in
its
forms,
-
HIS LIFE
AND
HIS PHILOSOPHY.
29
Beyond
because these are constantly changing.
and behind
all
these changes
This, in the individual,
the universe,
it is
The
God.
the intangible
them and
abstract energy which incites
them.
is
is
directs
the Soul;
reality of
in
both he
considered demonstrated by rigid naturalistic reasoning.
Yet
this is the
man whom some
theologians
have called an atheist and a materialist that he
would have been the
had he been both. scientious conviction
An is
a zealot through blind
less
Not
!
commendable
atheist through con-
a nobler character than faith;
but Bruno does
not happen to have been an atheist, and
it is
misstatement to apply the term to him.
Noth-
a
ing but wilful ignorance or dishonest prejudice
could have laid such a charge to his account.
Recognizing everywhere manifestation of the divine
around
him
in nature,
the
he ex-
horted his hearers to turn away from creeds
and dogmas, and
to study themselves
and the
world about them.
"The
truth,"
he writes, "like the Kingdom of
GIORDANO BRUNO
30
God,
;
is
within every one of us "
"To
passage,
attain the truth,
who seeks
impede
to
and
another
in
only neces-
it is
He
sary to hold fast to Nature. ous,
:
is
truly impi-
this quest."
Again, with a noble sense of the sure results of a sound science, he writes, is
such, will
will of
show
truth, if
it
conformity with the
itself in
a beneficent
"The
God and
the observed laws
of Nature."
Some
historians of philosophy,
for instance,
in error.
is
a deification of nature.
He
does indeed lay down
the metaphysical thesis that
cognition is
is
same
correct,
fact,
but
this
as the English idealist ;
and therefore those
who, like Professor Carriere,
have classed Bruno among the In
act of divine ;
Bishop Berkeley taught
more
"The
the substance of things "
effectively the
are
Fischer
have called Bruno a pantheist, and
stated that his system
They are
Kuno
however, here, as
he reached the modern,
in
so
idealists.
many directions,
scientific
standpoint,
and regarded matter and form, thought and extension, as
merely different aspects of the same
1
HIS LIFE reality
own
HIS PHILOSOPHY.
—just as Alexander Bain teaches
3 in
our
day.
This
and
AND
is
it is
that philosophic doctrine called monism,
many passages of Thus he says: "The Forms
clearly enunciated in
Bruno's writings.
of Nature cannot exist without matter and a certain subject."
were
The
subject
him convertible terms,
to
presses
and the object or,
as Bain ex-
merely the two sides of the same
it,
arc, altogether
convex, as you look at
it
from
one aspect, altogether concave from the other yet, in fact,
You
one and the same
:
line.
appreciate at once that in this monistic
philosophy, which teaches that matter and spirit -are
but different aspects of the same, and that
their
we
antagonism
is
merely owing to the way
look at them, and does not in reality
the one
is
exist,
as sacred and as true as the other.
The whole
universe
may be
read in terms of
either with equal completeness; the blankest
materialism and the purest idealism are equally correct,
though equally inadequate.
Appreciating
this,
Bruno
occasionally de-
GIORDANO BRUNO:
32 lighted to dwell
on the
nity of matter,
and
matter under
most
indestructibility, the eter-
to
speak of the soul as
sounded
This
forms.
certain
and we are not surprised
materialistic,
as one writer
"
he paralyzed
his
audience at Oxford with astonishment and
in-
that,
tells us,
dignation."
When we
study such elements of Bruno's
philosophy as of
some of
this,
we may
the critical
been passed upon
When,
Bruno's teaching
"
an explanation
by learned
it
for instance,
find
judgments which have
Kuno
historians.
Fischer writes that
belonged to the philosophical
Renaissance, not to modern philosophy,"
we may
accept such words as the dictum of a metaphysician
who
is
not in touch with modern
scientific
thought, nor acquainted with that conception of
the Universe which to our
is
gradually unfolding itself
ken through the
irresistible logic
of the
abstract sciences, a conception which asks no
ex cathedra deliverance to support with the
Neither
cogency of
this
evidential
it,
but comes
proof
itself.
philosopher of the Renaissance, nor
HIS LIFE
AND HIS PHILOSOPHY.
33
any philosopher of modern science asks
his
pupil to believe anything that the enlightened intellect
can help believing.
That alone
is
true
which can bear constant reinvestigation.
As
intelligent belief, belief
ficient evidence, is in
founded upon
Bruno's scheme the only
faith for the philosopher, so morality,
be
really such,
the
action
must
suf-
he taught, to
also be intelligent, that
is,
must be directed by knowledge
toward a clearly understood purpose, greater, nobler,
more enlightening than
the action itself
This, of course, excludes all merely religious rites
and formulas
;
to
Bruno these were not
only non-moral, but immoral, as they are obstacles to ethical
advancement, blind the soul to
higher aims, and satisfy
its
its
longings with
lower standards of excellence, and with mechanical formalisms. In
many passages he
expresses himself se-
verely on what he considered this demoralizing effect of
dogmatic teaching.
He
fully
ciated the inevitable conflict between
and
evidential truth.
appre-
dogma
There cannot but be con-
_
GIORDANO BRUNO:
34 flict,
and
age.
it
as sharply defined
is
There
is
not, to-day,
now
as in his
a professor in any
sectarian college in this free land,
who
dares to
teach the elementary facts of science in their theological applications.
Let
me
by two points on which
illustrate this
Bruno was emphatic, and modern, science conclusive Sin,
—the nature of
sin
Bruno explains as
and of death. something wholly
good
negative, an incompleteness of
thermophysics, cold
just as in
;
regarded merely as the
is
The
deficiency of heat.
is
dogmatic
Christian
notion of sin as a positive entity he rejected. In
accord with him in
this
opinion
are
the
noblest thinkers of our century, those great souls
who look
before and
after,
the mighty
bards, Goethe, Browning, Tennyson,
and many another; ethnologists
and
in
Whitman,
accord with him are
scientific
students of
a.11
human
development.
Death he regarded merely as a somewhat greater change than in
is
our bodies, and as
taking place every day in
nowise a cessation or
AND HIS PHILOSOPHY.
HIS LIFE
diminution of
"They
life
—rather
stantly
"who dread
your body
for this
is
it.
the con-
away and being renewed." writes, " The wise man fears not
passing
Elsewhere he
may be
death; yea, there
himself in
boast his
its
way
"
times
and that
;
when he puts
this
was no vain
own end proved.
Dogmatic
world by sin;" that the
Roman, Greek and
Christianity,
Reformed, teaches that
Adam,
an exaltation of
are fools," he exclaims,
menace of death;
35
sin
man
first
is
death came into the
"
a curse inherited from
and
;
that there
no
is
es-
cape from the curse but by believing certain creeds and performing certain
rites.
Yet every
Adam
schoolboy knows or ought to know that
was not the in the
Fn
first
man, and that death has been
world from the earliest geologic ages. with
conflict
the
Churches
on
points, Bruno was not less so on the
of the Trinity.
he
writes, "
the
Son and
assert
that
I
"
From my
these
dogma
eighteenth year,"
doubted within myself regarding the
this,
Holy
Spirit."
dogma
is
Not only
did he
incompatible with
GIORDANO BRUNO
2,6
:
reason, but he pointed out that
mentioned
in
the
either
it
Old or
nowhere
is
New
Testa-
ment, and did not belong, therefore, to Apos-
He
tolic Christianity.
urged that as the theory
of Christ suffering for the sin of
where intimated
in the
Adam
words of Christ
is
no-
himself,
so the theory of the Triune divinity was not
acknowledged by
You
his disciples.
will readily
understand that a
these views in the sixteenth century,
heat,
was no more welcome
to the other.
He was
do not imagine that our
is
to
burned
we
when
the
one camp than at
should
reproaches on the
for that act. tive
with
of theological controversy were at white
fires
all
man
The
;
but
pour forth
Roman Church
Swinburne's recent
out of place.
Rome
fiery invec-
Calvinists of
Geneva
would have burned Bruno just as cheerfully as
they did Servetus only twenty-five years
before
Bruno
visited
their
city;
the bigots
of England would have hanged him quite as readily as their descendants
ers
hanged the Quak-
on Boston Common; and he himself be-
AND
HIS LIFE lieved that
was
it
HIS PHILOSOPHY.
to save his
37
that he fled
life
from the Lutherans of Marburg and Helm-
The
stedt.
of dogmatic belief are
instincts
everywhere the same, and to the
same extremes,
logically force
men
times and in
in all
all
climes.
Flatter not yourselves that the fires of fanati-
cism are extinguished. They smoulder and glow in
every exclusive dogma, only waiting their
chance to re-illume the torch of the Fiori or the pyre of Servetus,
and
eral
art
de'
sweep
into
to
one vast auio da fe the hard-won free thought
Campo
victories of
and untrammelled research, of lib-
and secular
culture.
Rome"
What Bruno
called "the
Wolf
the greater
power and the more frequent op-
of
has merely had
portunity.
Yet there was
deliberate
Italy in the selection of
in its conflict with the
purpose
Bruno as
its
in
new
champion
papacy and with the ad-
vocates of the temporal power.
Not
the bitter-
est Covenanter ever arraigned the head of the
Roman Church
in
more
violent language than
GIORDANO BRUNO:
38
his
"Who
ex-monk.
this
is
Oration on Luther,
he," he exclaims in
"who pretends
the vicar of Christ on earth
of the tyrant of
is
be
the vicar
armed with keys and
hell,
sword, at once fox and
and hypocrisy,
He
?
to
steeped
lion,
fraud
in
crowned with cruelty and
triple
deceit," etc.
What wonder bishops
that
Pope Leo wept and the
when
cursed
this
impenitent philosopher,
Church and
who had jeered came
young
Italy
Startling, indeed,
No
promises free
;
to every
to the
?
Roman
branch of obscurant
;
the intellect
must be
the pursuit of truth
relig-
and wholly
must be unimpeded
the individual
;
free
must answer
conscience and not to a priest;
education which begins with with fanaticism Italy,
be
half-measures, no temporizing, no com-
by any creed his
to
was the admonition, loud
was the warning, thus heralded
ion.
at the
satirized its mysteries,
the chosen ideal of victorious
Church and
monk and
apostate
these the
;
falsities
and ends
these are the mottoes of
maxims of
to
no more
la vita nuova.
young
The
HIS LIFE
AND
HIS PHILOSOPHY.
39
churches have ever cried, " Believe, and ye shall
Bruno
be saved;"
know
shall
modern
;
"
taught, f" Doubt,
young
\and
and ye
along with
Italy
science has chosen the latter teaching.
But you would err
if
you suppose that the
skepticism inculcated by this philosopher of the
Renaissance was the
sterile uncertainty of the
He
rested his teachings on
Greek
sophists.
the broadest principles. losophy, he urged, contraries, the
is
form
the
finite,
good
and
in
the
You
will
phi-
the in-
To accom-
and the nega-
the reconciliation of both
some higher
all
must be considered
in its contraries, the affirmative
in
evil,
vice versa.
plish this, every proposition
tive, until
of
in the matter, the spiritual
in the corporeal, the finite in
The aim
to recognize the unity of
is
discovered
proposition.
recognize in this principle the doc-
trine of antitheses uniting in a synthesis,
which
the basis of the Hegelian logic.
But
is
at
Bruno applied
German there
is
it
more
metaphysician.
no gainsaying
it
practically than did the It
appears to
me
that
as the law of progres-
GIORDANO BRUNO
40
sive thought in the sciences.
:
Every
investiga-
must begin by reviewing the evidence
tor
the facts in his branch, and the the
more
tain
is
belief,
more
skeptical his scrutiny, the
for
critical,
more
cer-
he to turn out good work./ Doubt, not
must be
^
his guide. |
What
is
thus true in the sciences
is
not less
so in religious thought.
Every reformer must
begin by doubting the
faith
Take
army of
the noble
gress,
of
fathers.
his
leaders in ethical pro-
Buddha, Socrates, Christ, Paul, Abelard,
Arnold of Brescia, John Huss, Martin Luther,
—
George Fox
I
cannot
one of them was sceptic
and an
call
in his
infidel
;
the long
roll
—every
own day accounted a every one of them re-
jected the words of authority, spurned the, belief
of the orthodox, denied the claims of dogmatic doctrine. this
What
right
have we to suppose that
unvarying record of history
good
in
this
last
will
decade of the
not hold
nineteenth
century?
The mention
of
mind how strangely
George Fox brings
to
my
similar the religious aspect
1;
AND
HIS LIFE
HIS PHILOSOPHY.
of Bruno's philosophy
They
is
4
to that of the primi-
tive
Quakers.
and
creeds, all edicts of councils
also rejected
all
dogmas
and ancient
writings, finding the sufficient rule of faith in
the heart of every man, be he
Mahometan or
Jew,
for
less
the
heathen.
They looked
Church
Christ or the
or
Christian
without,
than for the resurrection and the light within these they turned for guidance, not to a
to
book nor a man. priests
all
All
rites
and professed teachers of dogma,
they rejected as obstructions truth
and ceremonies,
and genuine
From what
I
in the pursuit of
holiness.
have now told you, you
will
appreciate the significance of the selection of
Giordano Bruno by new tive
man.
It
Italy as its represe"hta-
means an open war on dogmatic
belief of every kind, a declaration of the in-
dependence of the that philanthropic
intellect,
working
is
an announcement better than grossly
beheving, a proclamation that truth as attested by
evidence and virtue as shown by actions are the only sacred things and alone merit reverence.
D
The following brief paper was written without seen or heard that of Dr. Brinton. latter little
had been
was
direction
left
sent to me,
far m.e
to
and from
say by
which I then followed.
Dr. Brinton that
way
my having
A
short synopsis of the
this
Igleaned that what
of supplement lay in the
I was happy
my surmise had not been
wrong.
to
learn from
BRUNO'S THOUGHT. AH
human history men are,
conflicts in
between
ideas, of
which
only the instruments or weapons.
are conflicts so to speak,
The
sacrifice
of a marfyr means the temporary defeat of an idea
;
the canonization of that martyr, the tem-
porary
or,
it
the same.
may
be, the
This idea
is
permanent triumph of the only thing of real
interest about the martyr, the only fact that gives
him
historic significance.
personal
All the rest
is
mere
not differing essentially from
detail,
newspaper gossip.
With respect
to
Giordano Bruno, the only
questions that really concern the serious torian
was
that which
and
1600, 1
and philosopher are:
889
?
(2)
succumbed
triumphed at
How
(i)
What
his-
idea
at his execution in his
canonization
in
did this idea stand related to
-the current thought of the time?
45
(3)
Whence
Bruno's thought:
46 did
Bruno derive the data enabling him
ceive
such an idea?
(4)
How
affected subsequent thought?
to con-
has that idea
(5)
What
is its
permanent value ?
Though every idea may be said to be born at the mind of some one man, yet every new idea has a long prenatal history in the consciousness of the race or some part of it. We
first in
example, follow with great ease the
can, for
course of every element in Mr. Spencer's Evolutionary,
Aggregational Agnosticism.
These
elements are Kant's Critical Philosophy, Hartley
and
Mill's association theory,
lutionism, of all of which
it
and Darwin's evoeasy enough to
is
trace the_history.
I.
Bruno's idea.
Bruno's philosophy istic
Evolutionism.
guish
it
I
is
Rational Semi-panthe-
say " rational " to
from agnostic evolutionism.
to him, the universe
is
intelligent,
According
the explication
lution) of a single principle.
and includes two
distin-
(i. e.,
evo-
This principle
is
perfectly correlated
ITS SOURCES,
elements
—
CHARACTER AND VALUE.
47
active element capable of doing
'an
and a passive or receptive element
all things,
capable of becoming
Without these
all things.
two elements no action could be conceivable. Being from
draws out
intelligent, this first principle
passive element
its
which that
all
the endless forms
implicitly contains, and, in
doing
so,
evolves or explicates the universe. Calling the passive element matter, Bruno
holds that
it is
composed of innumerable monads
(not atoms), every one of which eternal,
either a
Each
minimum
therefore, potentially,
is,
or a
maximum. it is
they are explicated,
is
it
therefore, has the
that the primal
When
minimum a maximum.
forms are unexplicated,
all
necessarily
and every one capable of manifesting all
possible forms.
monad,
is
a
may
even,
power of becoming
monad
is,
though only
by mystic union with
monad, become
identical with
The primal monad Bruno 'i,
when Each
;
succession and by a process of evolution it
its
;
in
nay,
this
primal
the
anima
it.
calls
or world-soul, and this he holds to be
Bruno's thought:
48
at all times completely active in animating the
and
world,
to
be the only
first
sible to science or philosophy.
principle transcending this
on
this subject differed
periods of his
—
life
it
losophy, but only to
does not define.
is
principle accesIf there
be any
—and Bruno's views
somewhat
at different
not accessible to phi-
faith,
a faculty which he
Philosophy arrives at
the
world-soul by retracing the process of evolution
reverse direction.
in the
Monads being eternal;
and the human soul being one of them high state of explication), nal.
Its
end
is
it is
(in
a
necessarily eter-
the realization of the universe
in itself.
In order to
show Bruno's exact view, we may
-quote a few sentences from the Confession of
Faith which he pronounced before the Inquisition,
and which may,
therefore,
be regarded
as an authentic expression of his latest and ripest views.
"
I
believe,"
he
says, " in
an
infinite
universe
as the (necessary) effect of the infinite divine
power.
The reason
of this
is
that
I
have always
ITS SOURCES,
regarded
it
CHARACTER AND VALUE.
as something unworthy of the divine
power and goodness, another world, nay,
that,
being able to produce
infinite
other worlds besides
should produce only a
this one,
it
whence
have maintained that there are
I
49
finite
world
;
infinite
particular worlds, similar to this of the earth,
which, in accordance with Pythagoras,
I
consider
be an orb, similar to the moon, to other
to
planets and other stars, which are that
all
infinite,
and
these bodies are worlds, and innumer-
able, constituting the infinite universeness, in
an
infinite space,
and
this is called infinite uni-
verse, in which are innumerable worlds, so that
there are two sorts of
magnitude multitude
in the
an
infinity
of
and an
infinity
of
infinity,
in the universe,
worlds, a belief understood to be
indirectly hostile to the truth according to faith. "
Moreover,
in this universe
I
place a universal
providence, by virtue whereof everything
grows, moves and remains I
mean
this in
which the soul in the whole,
two senses, is
lives,
in its perfection,
first, in
the
and
mode
in
present in the body, the whole
and the whole
in
each part, and
BRUNO s thought:
50 this
I
Divinity
shadow and vestige of the
nature,
call
second, in the ineffable
;
mode,
God, by essence, presence and power,
and above
all,
not as part, not
as soul,
in
which
is
in
but
all,
in
an
inexplicable way. "
Further,
I
understand that
are one and the
attributes
herein
I
in the Divinity all
same
agree with theologians and several great
philosophers
—
mean
I
three attributes, power,
wisdom and goodness, otherwise mind, whereby things
lect, love,
rn^d
to
being,
;
due
all
and over
;
As
due
and distinguished
third,
This
all.
intel-
\\2m&, first, being,
ordered
second,
to intellect
metry, due to love. in
and
thing,
I
harmony and symunderstand to be
nothing
is
beautiful
without the presence of beauty, so nothing can exist without
the divine presence
;
and
thus,
with respect to reason, and not with respect to substantial truth,
I
attribute distinction to the
Divinity. "
Again, in affirming the world to be caused
and produced, whole being,
it
I
meant is
that, in
respect to
its
dependent upon the First
1
SOURCES, CHARACTER
ITS
Cause, so that 'creation,'
had no objection
I
which
the world and
to the
said that
God is
nature depend
all
that
whence, ac-
;
St.
whether the world be eternal or
in time,
its
Thomas, it
is
whole being dependent on the First
Cause, and nothing
is
in
it
independently."
This passage shows what that Bruno's system is
term
on which
cording to the interpretation of
with
5
beHeve that even Aristotle
I
when he
signified,
AND VALUE.
was
I
meant
in
saying
semi-pantheistic.
God
totally present in the world, but only in one.
mode
;
dent.
in
another
This latter
mode he is totally transcenmode is ineffable, beyond the
reach of knowledge, but not beyond that of
some higher mode of apprehension
human
nature.
It
had no objection tion, since
also
possible for
shows us that Bruno
to calling his evolution crea-
he recognized the absolute depend-
ence of the world upon the First Cause.
He
differed with the Church, however, in regarding it
as a necessary and eternal correlate of divine
power and goodness, and not a temporal product.
And
this
brings us to
:
BRUNO
52 II.
THOUGHT
S
THE RELATION OF BRUNO's IDEA TO THE CURRENT THOUGHT OF HIS TIME.
Bruno's thought stands related to the thought of his time as Evolutionism to Creationism
Gnosticism to Agnosticism
Theology
as
;
as
Theosophy
to
Theism
as
as Semi- Pantheism to
;
;
;
Mysticism to Scholasticism.
According to the Christian teaching of the sixteenth
and previous
centuries, the universe
is
a creation out of nothing, a creation effected
in
time by a
will. is
The
fiat
of God's free and inscrutable
plastic,
passive matter of the world
not an eternal correlate of his
presupposition of
it,
activity,
but a product of
altogether transcends the world
substance enters into
it.
It,
in the physical
human
mind.
God
no part of
his
therefore, reveals
only, so to speak, his footprints
former
;
it.
and a
and image, the
world, the latter in the
Only by being
lifted
above the
world and himself, by an act of divine grace, can
man
in
any way
attain to
the view that underlies the the view set
forth
so
"
God.
This
is
Divine Comedy,"
clearly
in
St.
Bona-
ITS SOURCES,
CHARACTER AND VALUE.
53
"The Soul's ProThe appointed channel and
Ventura's well-known tract,
gress to God."
depositary of this grace
is
thus easily see the reason at all times
have so jealously watched, and
trine maintaining that
Every such doctrine It is
on
condemned
steadily
so,
condemned, any doc-
God was immanent
revealed through,
therefore,
for being.
can
why the Church should
carefully, ,nay, ruthlessly,
and,
We
the Church.
the
in,
world.
strikes at her very reason this
account that she has
all
forms of Gnosticism,
Pantheism, Theosophy,
all
forms of Mysticism
claiming for the soul any inherent power of rising to, or
comprehending, God, and
all
that
portion of Aristotle's doctrine which maintains the eternity of the world, as the necessary correlate of
God.
The Church
is
founded upon
God's transcendence and man's incapacity to reach him through any faculty of his own, upon the entire and essential separation of
God and
man.
The
Jesuits,
who
Church's existence,
are most zealous for the
in their efforts to
exaggerate
BRUNO
54
s
thought:
man's incapacity to reach God, have
been
materialists in philosophy.
usually-
Only a couple
of years ago they caused the condemnation of forty propositions
from the writings of Rosmini,
the greatest thinker of the century, because
they seemed to imply that tained a divine element,
God was immanent
human reason
and
con-
something of
that
in the world.
The
insist-
ance of the Church upon the doctrines of creation
and the transcendence of God
opinion, a pure matter of policy,
is,
in
my
and has noth-
ing whatsoever to do with truth.
THE SOURCES OF BRUNO's PHILOSOPHY.
III.
Alongside the philosophic agnosticism of the Church, there existed at
all
times a species of
gnosticism, regarded as unorthodox, a philoso-'
phy which maintained that the human powers were capable of discovering all divine truth, least,
of comprehending
vealed faith
;
it
fully after
in other words, that the
it
or, at
was
re-
content of
could be fully analyzed in terms of reason.
This doctrine
is
due
to the
Greek element
in
,
CHARACTER AND VALUE.
ITS SOURCES,
Christian
We
thought.
can trace
55
as
it
back as Parmenides and Herakleitos.
far
runs
It
through the whole philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, although in different forms.
God and
In Plato,
the divine ideas are transcendent to
the world, and
man
attains
them by mere remi-
on the contrary, man
niscence.
In
arrives at
them by a simple pious use of
Aristotle,
of his existence so to do. of divine things, vision
is
is
it is
Os^copia,
or the vision
That
his ultimate end.
human
mystical and above
fully admits.
"It would
not,"
element
which shows
in
that,
that
this
nature, he
he says, "be
the expression of man's nature, but of divine
his
the true aim
natural powers, and, indeed,
some
nature," a statement
according to Aristotle,
human
nature contains a divine element.
Here we must
carefully distinguish
between
two kinds of mysticism, that of nature and that of grace.
reach least,
The former
God through
his
claims
that
man
own powers,
or,
can at
through the divine element which forms
the very core of his being
;
the latter holds
Bruno's thought:
56 that
he can reach him only by an act of divine form of mysticism 'the Church has always
latter
approved the former ;
It
The
performed through the Church.
grace,
has always condemned.
it
has had considerable
distinguishing the
difficulty,
two.
It is
however, in
easy enough to
see that the one belongs together with the doc-
transcendence and creation
trine of divine
;
the
other with that of divine immanence and evolu-
God is immanent the human soul, a consciousness of him may be
tion.
in
It is
evolved
must
of
and by ;
under
it,
if
whereas at
all,
that, if
he
if
is
transcendent, he
by an act of grace.
Aristotelian doctrine of the
God
tians
in
enter,
The
enough
clear
in the
certain
but, so
the
immanence
world was shared by the Stoics, sects
among
the early Chris-
long as the Church doctrines were influence
of
Platonism, Aristotle
did not exert any very extensive or enduring influence.
But when,
and fourteenth
in the twelfth, thirteenth
centuries, his philosophy rose
into prominence and became the favorite of the
Church, his doctrine of the eternity of matter
ITS SOURCES,
CHARACTER AND VALUE.
and of the divine immanence came again vogue, and natural mysticism
some good and some
forms,
crop up.
Almost
Church persecuted form, and
all
all
the
57 into
a thousand
in
began
evil,
heresies
to
which the
in those centuries
take
this
make men indeEven some of the
naturally tend to
pendent of the Church.
greatest doctors of the Church failed to keep
themselves entirely free from
this taint,
e.
g., St.
Bonaventura, the Seraphic Doctor, the great light of the Franciscans,
of
all
and the most
attractive
the mediaeval saints.
This tendency assumed two forms, owing to
two well-defined causes, rigor.
Among
infidelity
and dogmatic
the Latin nations, in which the
currency of Arab thought had led to a wide-
spread
infidelity,
there
sprang up, naturally
enough, a tendency to offer purely rational demonstrations of Christian dogmas, and necessarily implied the
this
immanence of God
in
The chief representative of this tendency was Raimondo Lulli, a native of Majorca, a man of strong, fervent character, who reason.
Bruno's thought:
58 led a
most romantic
and died
at the
80, in
131
born
in
1235
being" thus
5,
Thomas Aquinas, Bona-
contemporary with ventura, and
He was
life.
age of
He
Dante.
the
closes
palmy
period of Scholasticism.
Among the Germanic nations, on the contrary, the cold rigidity and externality of dogma caused
a
pioiis reaction of the heart,
mysticism, which claimed for
vision of
To
God.
this
speculative mystics of hardt, Suso,
known
practical
man
"
on the
the direct
movement belong
the
Germany, Meister Eck-
and Tauler, and what
as the
this,
form of an enthusias-
theoretical side, took the tic
and
is
Deutsche Theologie
;
mysticism of Ruysbroek,
familiarly " also the
Geert de
Groot and Thomas a Kempis, the author of the "Imitation of Christ."
The two famous
which did so much for true religious
societies
life in
the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Friends
of
God and
both This
the Brothers of
deeply tainted is
the
Common
Life,
were
with natural mysticism.
chief reason
why such desperate
and persistent attempts have been, and
still
CHARACTER AND VALUE.
ITS SOURCES,
are,
made
Thomas a Kempis
to deprive
59
of the
authorship of the Imitation.
The German highest
tendency found
mystical
expression in
philosophical
Cusanus, born near Treves
Roman
dinal of the
eminence, reality, is
Nicholas
in 1401, later
Church, and a
nobility, liberality
and
its
man
a car-
of great
tolerance, in
one of the great men of the Church.
It
a curious enough fact that he received his early
education at Deventer, in the house of the
Brothers of .which
Common
is
system of
immanent
this
world
emphasizing theism,
this,
;
he
a prime article
is
is
man
of which faith
God
is
one.
but the explication or is
not only imma-
also transcendent.
By
Nicholas steers clear of Pan-
one does not always see
although the
that
and can be reached
But God
evolution of God.
is
wonderful
faculties,
Indeed, the universe
in the
It
in the world,
by the human
nent
in
Thomas a Kempis had been educated
but a few years before. in the
very house
Life, the
thing
is
clearly how,
entirely possible.
closes the last great period
He
of Scholasticism,
Bruno's thought:
6o
a system which he combats, paving the the
for
modern world-view.
The the
way
rationalist
Raimondo
Lulli,
who
closes
second period of Scholasticism, and the
who
mystic Nicholas Cusanus,
closes the third,
were the two men who did most
From
mind of Giordano Bruno. the second were borrowed
and expressions tendency and
were able hundred
from the
;
his
method.
to
remain
of
Lulli's
demned), Bruno,
upon these
if
in the
As both
the pagan,
these
men
Church (although a
he had formed
Among
main ideas
first his rationalistic
were his
con-
thought
have done the same.
But other tendencies antagonistic it.
form the
the works of
all his
propositions
alone, might
entered into
to
to the
Church
these were (i) that of
Epicurean, nature-adoring atomist
Lucretius, from
whom
he derived
his doctrine
of atoms and his enthusiasm for Nature; (2) that
of his
own countryman
Telesio,
from whom, ap-
parently, he derived his fondness for observation, his dislike
of Aristotle and the element
which enabled him to convert Lucretius' atoms
1
CHARACTER AND VALUE.
ITS SOURCES,
into
monads, and
(3)
Copernicus, with his helio-
Though
system of astronomy.
centric
6
these
two never broke openly with the church,
last
they carried on their thinking without regard to her,
and arrived
sooner or
at results which she
later, to
Raimondo
was bound,
condemn.
Lulli's acute rationalism
;
Nicholas
Cusanus' genial, anti-scholastic, natural mysticism his
;
Lucretius' fiery love of the material and
atomism
servation
;
Telesio's devotion to natural ob-
and
his
animism
;
and Copernicus'
heliocentric theory (anticipated, indeed,
sanus)
:
by Cu-
take these and add to them Bruno's
fervid, impatient, restless disposition, difficult to
and it is not
account for either his system, his
or his death.
life
Rationalism, naturalism, mysti-
cism, these are the
components of
his thought.
This thought necessarily brought him into conflict is,
with the Church, whose thought was, and
founded on dogmatism, supernaturalism, and
scholasticism.
There
is
very
little
that can be
called original in Bruno.
His great importance consists
in the fact that
Bruno's thought:
62
he united and carried to their proper conclusions time,
the anti-dogmatic tendencies of his
all
broke
definitely with the Church,
and even
with Christianity as a system of thought, and asserted the rights of reason, and
and
attain to all truth
its
capacity to
endure forever.
to
saying that he broke with Christianity, "
to
deep humanity,
is
valu-
its
earn-
able in Christianity,
its
estness,
hope and promise.
infinite
its
ought
I
add that he did not break with what
In
Nay,
despite the reports that have been circulated
respecting his private
broke with
life,
believe he never
I
Christianity's ideal of personal purity.
That, in a coarse age, and in a spirit of reaction
against an exaggerated asceticism, he at times fallen
he
did,
then
below that
let
stone at him;
him that
let
may have
ideal, is possible. is
him that
If
without sin cast a is
ready to face his
death for conviction's sake revile him.
I
can-
in his
Whatever weakness he may have shown life is redeemed by his heroic death and,
even
if it
not.
judge.
;
were
not,
I
am
not appointed his
ITS SOURCES,
HOW HAS
IV.
CHARACTER AND VALUE.
63
Bruno's idea affected subsequent
THOUGHT ?
When
the Church undertakes to destroy an
adversary, she
most
is
not content with taking his
life in
the
way
she generally
;
ignominious and public
painful,
tries at the
same time and
long after to ruin his reputation, both as a thinker and as a man.
This was recently exemplified ing
way
in the
in
a most shock-
papal allocution called forth by
impotent fury over the erection of a
statile to
Bruno, two hundred and eighty-nine years after his
martyrdom.
Such moral
now, fortunately, no
effect
barbarities
have
save on the author
of them, his character, and the cause he represents
;
but
in
times past,
more than two hundred
it
was otherwise.
years, such
For
was Bruno's
reputation for atheism, impiety and misconduct that his writings
only
were completely tabooed, not
among Catholics, but even among ProThey were burned or kept secret,
testants.
like obscenities.
Hegel
tells
us that as late as
the year 1830 they were forbidden to be shown
Bruno's thought:
64 the
in
lost,
of
or buried in the archives of the
Of
Inquisition.
Many
Dresden.
public library at
them are
those
known
no com-
to exist
plete or reasonably accurate edition has ever
The
been published. lected
Italian
works were
and edited by a German.
col-
In spite of
Bruno's thought has exerted a determining
this,
influence
upon many great minds, upon Des-
cartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz,
Kant and Hegel, and
through them upon Goethe, Coleridge, Emerson and the whole body of modern evolutionists
and monists. risen to but
V.
As we
have
shall see, these last
one side of his thought,
THE PERMANENT WORTH OF BRUNO'S THOUGHT. In the last resort, man's interest in a thing
is
measured by
then
my
is
its
permanent worth.
the worth of Bruno's
thinking,
it
lies in
two things:
maintains the universe to be essentially intelligible, first
(2)
(i)
infinite,
that
What To
thought?
it
that
one,
it
and
makes the
principle of the universe transcendent as
well as immanent.
ITS SOURCES,
By
the former of these affirmations,
cludes
both
the
sentimentality.
Inscrutable
It
is
embalmed
equally the
is
foe
and the Unknowable.
It
in
of the inspires
with reverence in presence of the uni-
verse,
and with enthusiasm
movement
scientific
or
ex-
it
forms of Agnosticism, the
and the modern which
man
65
which was eked out with revela-
mediaeval tion,
CHARACTER AND VALUE.
in
will
any true way
to study
No
ever be permanent,
beneficial,
inspired with the conviction that
way to absolute truth. By the latter of its
it.
that it
is
affirmations,
is
not
on the
Bruno's
thought leaves a place for the future evolution of mind. it is
that the that
If
there be any truth in evolution,
surely the height of absurdity to maintain
of mind has
evolution
new mental
faculties
ceased,
and
can never be pro-
duced, or to set limits to the possibilities of mind in
any
before
direction.
we
sit
down
It
to
would be well
for
us,
construct philosophies
of the universe, to reflect that our minds are in
a comparatively low state of development.
—
Bruno's thought
66
and
as Aristotle says, the crown of per-
that,
belong to the imperfect
fection does not
same
at the
:
but,
;
time, to realize that we, for this
very reason, can
fix
no
bound
pillars to
the
reach of thought.
While Bruno maintains gence can
God
rise to
that
of
shall
consciousness
in fact,
than
God
a
attained by
developed a form than the
human
a God-consciousness, as much higher
is
man
higher than the mere consciousness
And, indeed,
which belongs to the brutes.
what
in
the self-consciousness belonging to
as that
in
he does not
is
may be
have
higher
it,
there
that
transcendent mode, which
man when he
intelli-
only as immanent
the universe and as animating
dream of denying
human
else
is
faith,
about which men, for
well-
nigh two thousand years, have been disputing, fighting
and dying, but the dawning of
new God-consciousness Christianity
embodiment ness?
And
in
its
and for
in
deepest trainer
of
man
?
What
the is
essence but the this
what other reason
consciousis
Christi-
'
ITS SOURCES,
CHARACTER AND VALUE.
and making way
anity sinking into disrepute, for
mere
been
physical science, but because
unfaithful to
its
67
it
has
task of developing the
God-consciousness, and has become a mere
matter
dogmas;
of
respectability
The
truth
churches
and
Pharisaic
?
is that,
when Bruno broke with
Church, and with the Christianity of
all
the the
churches, he did so in favor of pure religion
and the very essence of
Bruno should have been shows to what liable to
vile
Christianity.
called
uses
That
an atheist only
human language
is
be put by the ignorant slaves of creeds.
Bruno was,
in truth,
whom
was a glowing
faith
a god-intoxicated man, in life
of " heroic fury,"
not a mere belief maintained by anathemas and the fear of
To sum
hell.
up:
Bruno's fundamental idea was that of a Godinformed, God-governed universe, a universe
embodying power, wisdom and essentially accessible to the ness, partially
now and
love, a universe
human
conscious-
progressively with the
68
Bruno's thought.
progress of that consciousness.
posed
This, as op-
to the notion of a God-bereft universe, in
disfavor
-vfrith
an
God, was
inscrutable
thought which temporarily succumbed
Campo
de' Fiori in
1
600,
and rose
the
in
the
again, let us
hope, to everlasting triumph on the same spot in
1889.
No wonder
called forth
Church.
that
Bruno's thought
Strange, nay fantastic, as
sometimes sound, It
is,
in truth, the
us out of
this
resurrection
the malignant hostility of the
all
it
is
is
its
of
infinite value.
may
expression
the loftiest yet attained.
very thing that
we need
to
lift
forms of blind agnosticism, dog-
all
matism and materialism, into true, seeing science,
and
to
pave the way
higher consciousness
which alone can
PRESS OF WM.
r.
for the development of a
in us,
satisfy the
FELL &
00., 1220-24
a God-consciousness,
human
SANSOM
ST.,
soul.
PHILADELPHIA.