CHAPTER VI

Chapter 96,665 wordsPublic domain

THE PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY OF BRUNO

The distinctively ethical teaching of Bruno is contained in the two dialogues--the _Spaccio della Bestia Trionfante_, and the _Heroici Furori_. The latter describes the struggles and aspirations of the "heroic" or generous human soul in its pursuit of the infinitely beautiful and good--its efforts towards union with the divine source of all things. To this more constructive work, in which moral philosophy was to be treated according to "the inward light with which the divine sun of intelligence had irradiated" the soul of the writer, the _Spaccio_ was to form an introduction. "It seemed well to begin with a kind of prelude, after the manner of musicians; to draw some dim and confused lines, as painters do; to lay deep bases and dark foundations, as do the great builders; and this end seemed best achieved by putting down in number and in order all the primary forms of morality which are the capital virtues and vices."[436] The _Spaccio_, with its shorter appendage, the _Cabala del Cavallo Pegaseo_, contained a bitter attack upon the prevalent forms of Christian religion; it especially attacked the doctrine of the all-sufficiency of faith, which, interpreted as it then was, might stand as the formula of mediaeval corruption and stagnation; and it was upon this dialogue, almost solely, that the reputation Bruno long enjoyed--that of being an atheist--was based. It is therefore well to remember the introductory nature of the work. Had not "atheism" been frequently synonymous with "unorthodoxy," the _Heroic Enthusiasms_ would have shown on how shallow a foundation the charge rested, for that dialogue breathes the purest religious emotion and aspiration. Bruno had, however, a premonition of the fate that was to befall his memory. He protested, perhaps with a touch of sarcasm, that nothing in his work was said "_assertively_,"--that he had no wish either directly or indirectly to strike at the truth, to send a shaft against anything that was honourable, useful, natural, and, consequently, divine.[437] His own religion was that which had its beginning, its growth, and its continuance in "the raising of the dead, making whole the sick, and giving of one's goods"; and not that in the spirit of which the goods of others were seized, the whole maimed, and the living put to death.[438] The conclusions of the _Spaccio_ were not therefore to be regarded as presenting a finished system, but as mere suggestions, to be tested "when the music should be given in concert, the picture finished, the roof put on the building." On the other hand, it is clear also that in the _Spaccio_ Bruno intended to present a popular moral philosophy, or to point out the degree of virtue which might be attained without the influence of the divine _afflatus_ described in the _Enthusiasms_. As in the philosophy of Aristotle before Bruno, and in that of Spinoza after him, the perfection of this customary morality formed at the same time the ante-chamber through which alone entrance was to be gained into the inner chamber of divine love. This is the real meaning that underlies the bizarre and at times extravagant humour of the dialogue: it points out the purification to which the human soul must submit before it can become a fitting vessel for the divine enthusiasm.

[Sidenote: Faith and works.]

Before a purer morality can be taught to any avail, there must exist a desire for it in the minds of those to whom it shall be revealed. In the way of Bruno's proposed reformation there stood the attitude of the Church and of the religious orders towards "faith" and towards "works" respectively. Faith meant merely professed belief in, or acceptance of, their doctrines, and conformity with their practices--blind acceptance and unreasoning conformity--in contrast with which an earthly life that was simply moral was held to be of no value towards the blessed life hereafter. Under the influence of this spirit the worst vices were practised, condoned, and pardoned, even in Bishops and Cardinals, not to speak of the ordinary priests and monks. It is only as embodying this conception that Bruno attacked the Church. Thus Jupiter, in the _Spaccio_, complains that his powers are decaying:--"I have not vigour enough to pit myself against certain half-men, and I must, to my great chagrin, leave the world to run its course as chance and fortune direct. I am like the old lion of Æsop--the ass kicked it with impunity, the ape played tricks upon it, the pig came and rubbed its dusty paunch upon it, as if it were some lifeless log. My noble oracles, fanes, and altars are thrown down, and most unworthily desecrated; while altars and statues are raised there to some whom I am ashamed to name, for they are worse than our satyrs, fauns, and other half-beasts, viler than the crocodiles of Egypt; for these at least showed some mark of divinity when magically guided, but those are quite the scum of the earth."[439] Bruno is ironically contrasting the Christian ideal, as he interprets it, with that of the Greeks and Egyptians. The former is that of a being only half-human, half-free; on one side of his nature he is reduced to the level of the beast, the ass, the bearer of burdens, unquestioning, faithful. Again, one of the constellations, the _Corona Borealis_, is to be left in the heavens, escaping the general fate,[440] until the time when it shall be given in reward to "the invincible arm that shall bring peace, the long-desired, to a miserable, long-suffering Europe, cutting down the many heads of that worse than Lernean monster that is scattering its fateful poison of manifold heresy, and sending it through every portion of her veins."[441] To this decision of Jupiter, Momus, the critic and wit of the assembly, adds that it would be enough "if a certain sect of pedants could be rooted out, who, doing no good themselves, as the divine and natural law bade, yet thought themselves, and desired to be thought by others, pious and pleasing to the gods; they said that to do good was good, to do evil, evil; but that men gained grace and favour with the gods, not through the good that they did, but through hoping and believing in accordance with _their_ catechism. As if the gods, said Mercury, were anxious about nothing but their own vainglory, cared nothing for the injury caused to human society. And they defame us, Momus continued, by calling this an institution of heaven, decrying effects or fruits; while all the time they are doing no work themselves, but living on the works of others, who instituted temples, chapels, hospices, hospitals, colleges, universities, for quite other men than they. These others, even if they are not perfect, will not, like their usurpers, be perverse and pernicious to the world; they will be useful to the state, skilled in speculative science, studious of morality, fanning zeal and enthusiasm for doing good to one another, and maintaining the common weal for which all laws are ordained. The usurpers are worse than grubs, caterpillars, or destroying locusts, and should be exterminated accordingly."[442] How is it possible, we read elsewhere, that men should regard that as the highest type of religion which holds behaviour, the doing of good deeds, to be unimportant, or even to be vice and error; or pretends that the gods do not care for good deeds--that through such, however great they are, men are not justified?[443] This creed was a disease that ran through a man's nature and poisoned it for ever. "When one turned from any other profession or faith to this, his liberality was exchanged for avarice, mildness for insolence, humility for pride; formerly open handed with his own goods, he now became a robber and usurper of those of others; a good man became a hypocrite; a sincere one, cunningly evil; a simple one, malicious; he who was once conscious of his own defects became the most arrogant of men; he who was ready to do any good action, to learn any new knowledge, became prone to every kind of ignorance and ribaldry; he who had merely the makings of a rogue became the worst possible of men."[444] Miracle-working was the universal means by which the supremacy of faith was maintained. Momus therefore proposed to send Orion upon the earth. "He can do miracles--can walk upon the waves of the sea without sinking or wetting his feet; let us send him among men to make them believe everything we would have them believe--that black is white, that the human intellect is blind where it thinks itself to see best; that what to reason appears excellent, good, best, is vile, wicked, evil in the extreme; that nature is a strumpet, the law of nature a ribaldry; that nature and divinity cannot work together for one and the same good end; that the justice of the one is not subordinate to that of the other, but that they are as contrary as darkness and light."[445]

[Sidenote: Asinity.]

The attitude of mind which formed the ideal of the Church for its members Bruno typified frequently enough, as we have seen, by the Ass, after Cusanus' _Docta Ignorantia_ and Agrippa's praise of Asinity in his work on _The Vanity of all Sciences_. But _they_ were in earnest: Bruno bitterly ironical. In his _Cabala_ Asinity is given the two places left vacant in the heavens by the council of the gods in the _Spaccio_: the place of _Ursa Major_ is taken by Asinity in the abstract, that of _Eridanus_ by Asinity in the concrete. The whole work is in praise of "the pure goodness, royal sincerity, magnificent majesty of ignorance, learned foolishness, divine Asinity."[446] Asinity is in the sphere of practice as submission to authority in that of speculation, or pedantry in that of teaching. Against all of these Bruno casts the shafts of his irony, now broad and heavy, now fine, light and piercing.[447] The list of virtues which Bruno gives as adorning the soul of the renovated man does not present any novelty, except perhaps in the order assigned to the different virtues.[448] Along with each mythical figure of the constellations he names the various vices that are expelled, and into the place of which the virtues come. The Bear, the highest constellation in the heavens, is replaced by Truth, the Dragon by Prudence, Cepheus by _Sophia_, or Wisdom. The following table shows some of the virtues which occupy the different posts vacated by the mythical beings of the heavens, and their contrary vices.

There follow as "virtues":--Sagacity, judicious election or choice, affability, magnanimity (_Aquila_); divine enthusiasm or rapture (_Pegasus_); hopefulness, faith and sincerity (the _Triangle_); virtuous emulation, tolerance, sociability (and friendship--the _Pleiades_); love (peace and friendship--_Gemini_); conversion or emendation, heroic generosity (or magnanimity, again--_Leo_); continence, equity (and justice--_Libra_); sincerity (observance of promises--_Scorpio_); contemplation, the love of solitude (freedom of mind), temperance (_Aquarius_); just reserve and taciturnity, tranquillity of mind, industry, prudent fear, vigilance for the state, kindliness, liberality, judicious sagacity (_Hydra_); divine magic (and soothsaying), abstinence (the _Cup_!), the divine parable (the sacred mystery,--_Chiron_); sincere piety and wise religion (the _Altar_); honour, glory, and, finally, health, security and repose, as the due reward of the virtues, and remuneration for zealous work and endurance.[450]

It will be seen that the list is redundant, and it is more so in the text, where several virtues are usually given under each head. Several of the names do not denote virtues in the ordinary sense (_e.g._ knowledge of magic, ability to interpret the divine parables): they are merely qualities which it is desirable for the good man to have. Others refer to qualities which could not be acquired by any one destitute of them (_e.g._ hope, love, piety), while others represent rather the outcome of the virtuous life than any one of its constituent elements, _e.g._ Knowledge, Divine Enthusiasm, Contemplation, Honour. There remain the familiar virtues of Greek philosophy:--Courage; prudence and sagacity; temperance (continence and abstinence); wisdom (or the love of truth); justice, including submission to law, active justice or judgment, and equity; sincerity, with truthfulness, simplicity, faith, the observance of promises; sociability and friendliness, with humanity, affability, tolerance, kindliness; liberality; magnanimity and heroic generosity; tranquillity or gentleness. More modern are the virtues of solicitude, diligence or industry, of emulation, and of love of solitude, or "Monachism." There is accordingly nothing of value to be derived for systematic ethics from this or from any other work of Bruno. It is in the digressions from the main argument that his philosophy of practical life is revealed.[451]

[Sidenote: Peace and liberty.]

[Sidenote: Law]

[Sidenote: Judgment.]

The two things which seemed to Bruno for his time the most desirable were _peace_ and _freedom_--freedom alike of thought and of speech. The characteristics of the Church which he consistently condemned were on the one hand its violence, the dissension and strife it stirred up, on the other its tyranny over mind and tongue. Hence the aim of the moral life, from the lower plane on which we stand in the _Spaccio_, is to secure the prosperity of the state, the peaceful common life of its members, and the avoidance of all interference with the individual, except where the positive end, security, appears endangered. Of the nine muses, the daughters of Mnemosyne,[452] _Ethica_ is at once the last born and the most worthy. Her task is to institute religions, to establish ceremonies, to posit laws, to execute judgments, with prudence, sagacity, readiness, and generous philanthropy; to approve, confirm, preserve, defend whatever is well instituted, established, posited, executed; adapting, as far as may be, both passions and actions to the worship of the gods, and the common life of men.--The function of _Law_, the daughter of wisdom, is to prevent the powerful from making undue use of their pre-eminence and strength, and in other respects vigorously to protect the common life and civil intercourse of men.[453] "The powerful are to be sustained by the weak, the feeble are not to be oppressed by the strong, tyrants are to be deposed, just governors and kings ordained and confirmed, republics fostered; violence shall not tread reason under foot, ignorance not despise knowledge, the poor shall be aided by the rich, virtues and studies necessary or useful to the community be promoted, advanced, maintained. No one is to be put into a place of power that is not superior in merits, by force of virtue and talent, either in himself, which is rare and almost impossible, or through communication with and counsel of others, which is due, ordinary and necessary. The two hands by which any law is strong to bind are _justice_ and _possibility_, one moderated by the other, for although many things are possible that are not just, nothing is just that is not possible. Whether it come from heaven or from the earth, no institution or law ought to be approved or accepted which does not tend to the highest end, viz. the direction of our minds and reform of our natures so that they produce fruits necessary or useful for human intercourse."[454] _Judgment_ shall make a scale of virtues and of crimes, the greatest in either class being that which affects the Republic as a whole; next that which affects other individuals than the agent; a crime committed between two who are in accord is hardly a crime, while there is no crime if the fault remains in the individual--does not proceed to bad example or to bad deed. _Repentance_ is to be approved by it, but not set upon the same level as _innocence_;[455] _belief_ and _opinion_, but not placed so high as _deeds_ and _work_; _confession_ and _admission_ of fault, but not as _correction_ and _abstention_. It shall not place one who to no purpose mortifies the flesh on a level with one who bridles his spirit, nor compare one who is a useless solitary with another who is in profitable intercourse[456] with his fellows, nor applaud so highly one who, perhaps unnecessarily, subdues his desires, as another, who refrains from evil-speaking and from evil-doing; not make so great a triumph over one who has healed a base, useless cripple, worth little if any more when whole than maimed, as over another who has liberated his fatherland, or reformed a mind diseased.[457] The _Roman people_ was the type of the best-governed state, "more bridled and restrained from the vices of incivility and barbarity, more refined and willing for generous undertakings than any other; and as their law and religion were, so were their customs and deeds, so their honour and happiness." How different from the pedants of the Church, who flourish throughout Europe: while saluting with peace they bring wherever they enter in the sword of division, and the fire of dispersion; taking son from father, neighbour from neighbour, citizen from fatherland, and causing other divorces more abhorrent and contrary to all nature and law; calling themselves ministers of one who raises the dead and heals the sick, they more than all others on the earth are maimers of the sound, and slayers of the living, not so much with fire and sword, as with the tongue of malice.[458]

[Sidenote: The scales.]

Under the _Scales_, Bruno describes some of the reforms he believes necessary: in courts, offices and honours are for the future to go by merit; "in republics, the just are to preside, the wealthy to contribute, the learned to teach, the prudent to guide, the brave to fight, those that have judgment to counsel, those that have authority to command; in states, the scales represent the keeping of contracts of peace, confederations, leagues, the careful weighing of action beforehand; in individuals the weighing of what each wishes with what he knows, of what he knows with what he can, of what he wishes, knows, and can with what he ought; of what he wishes, knows, can, and ought, with what he is, does, has, and expects."[459]

[Sidenote: Sincerity.]

Underlying this cult of humanity one cannot but feel the robust naturalism of the Renaissance, which in Bruno's mind is apart altogether from the mystical exclusive intellectualism of his more characteristic philosophy. It is with man as a natural being, living out his earthly life, and gathering such fruits as may be of kindliness and love from his fellow-creatures, that the practical philosophy is concerned. The religion attacked was one that struck at the root of this human love, and made of earth a purgatory for the sake of the uncertain life to come. Hence the emphasis laid on _sincerity_, _faithfulness_, or _truthfulness_, as high among the virtues. "Without it every contract is uncertain and doubtful, all intercourse is dissolved, all social life at an end." Bruno is as rigid as Kant in regard to the keeping of faith; even promises made to the wicked may not be broken. It was "a law of some Jew or Saracen, brutal and barbarian, not of civilised and heroic Greek or Roman, that sometimes, and with certain kinds of people, faith might be pledged for individual gain, and for an opportunity of deception, making it the servant of tyranny and treachery."[460]

The antipathy of Bruno towards the Jews is to be explained by the same principle of social life and progress; it is not, as Lagarde supposes,[461] an offspring of his hatred towards the Church, regarded as a direct descendant of Judaism. So far as it is not an expression of an unreasoning anti-Semitic wave of feeling, such as occasionally overwhelms some of the European peoples, it may have had three grounds: the reputed avarice of the Jew:[462] his exclusiveness, unsociability;--"a race always base, servile, mercenary, solitary, incommunicative, shunning intercourse with the Gentiles, whom they brutally despise, and by whom in their turn, and with good reason, they are contemned":[463]--or his religion, which appeared to Bruno a corruption of the nobler Egyptian religion. Thus in _Spaccio_[464] the punishment of the children for the sins of the fathers is said to be found only among Barbarians, and first among the Jews, "a race so pestilent, leprous, and generally pernicious that it should be effaced from the earth."[465]

[Sidenote: Temperance.]

_Temperance_, as a virtue, is rather the peace of mind that goes with civilisation--urbanity--than the more physical virtue: its opposites are intemperance, excess, asperity, savagery, barbarity. "It is through intemperance in sensual and in intellectual passions that families, republics, civil societies, the world, are dissolved, disordered, destroyed, swallowed up."[466] Again, Bruno's unorthodox standpoint with regard to the vows of _chastity_ and of celibacy taken by nuns and priests is part of a healthy reaction towards naturalism from the false sentiment which condemned as unholy whatever pertained to the natural man. The place of _Virgo_ is taken by chastity, continence, modesty, shame; the contrasting vices being lust, incontinence, shamelessness. "It is through these," Bruno adds, "that virginity becomes a virtue. In itself it is neither virtue nor vice, implies no goodness, dignity, or merit, and when it resists the command of nature it becomes a wrong, an impotence, a folly, madness express; while if it is in compliance with some urgent reason, it is called _continence_, and has the essence of virtue, because it participates in that courage and contempt for pleasure which is not vain or worthless, but benefits human intercourse and brings honourable satisfaction to others."[467] "The laws of the wise do not forbid love, but irrational love; the sycophancies of the foolish prescribe, without reason, limits to reason, and condemn the law of nature; the most corrupt of them call _it_ corrupt, because by it they are not raised above nature to become heroic spirits, but are depraved, contrary to nature and below all worth, to become brutes."[468]

[Sidenote: The Golden Age.]

In the third dialogue of the _Spaccio_ is a digression on _Otium_, Idleness, and the Golden Age, which had been brought into popularity by the pastoral poem of Tasso, the _Aminta_, and its imitators (_e.g._ Guarini in the _Pastor Fido_). _Otium_ presses its claim to a place in the heavens as being more truly a virtue than solicitude or strenuous effort, to which the place of _Perseus_ had been given. Its chief argument is that through it the golden age had been instituted and maintained, by the law of idleness which is the law of nature, while it was through solicitude, with its following of vainglory, contempt of others, violence, oppression, torment, fear, and death, that the age had departed. "All praise the fair age of gold, when I kept minds quiet and peaceful, safe from this virtuous goddess of yours. For their bodies, hunger was sufficient sauce to make a delicious and satisfying repast out of acorns, apples, chestnuts, peaches, and roots, which benign nature administered at a time when such food was the best nourishment for them, gave them most pleasure, and kept them longest in life, which the many artificial sauces that industry and zeal have discovered cannot do."[469] Industry had introduced property, and divided up not only the earth, which is given to all its children, but also the sea, and perhaps the air as well; so that instead of sufficiency for all there is too much for some and too little for others. It had introduced an unnatural inequality, and confused together peoples whom nature had intended to live apart, with the consequence that the vices of one race were being implanted upon those of others. The right of the stronger had taken the place of the law of nature, violence that of the peace of nature, which are the law and peace of God.

O bella etá de l'oro Non gia perche di latte Sen corse il fiume, et stilló mele il bosco.

* * * * *

Ma 'n primavera eterna Ch' hora s' accende et verna Rise di luce, et di sereno il cielo, Ne porto peregrino O' guerra, o merce a' l' altrui lidi il pino.

* * * * *

Ma legge aurea et felice Che natura scolpi. S' ei piace, ei lice[470]

Bruno was no imperialist. Nature seemed to him to have fixed definite boundaries to the extension of the different races, by which the special genius of each was kept pure. In the _Cena_ (126. 9) Tiphys and his successors (Columbus, Vespucci, and others are meant, although not named) are said to have "discovered means of disturbing the peace of peoples, violating the natural trend of the genius of countries, confounding what foreseeing nature had distinguished, doubling, through commerce, evil feelings, adding the vices of one race to those of another, propagating new incitements, instruments, methods of tyranny and assassination, which in time, by the natural vicissitude of things, would recoil upon our own heads."[471] It was really, he thought, for the advantage of men themselves that the world-regions should be kept as distinct in their usages and customs as they are physically distinct by the natural divisions of mountains and tracts of sea. From region to region, vice and the poison of perverse laws and religions, the materials of discord and extermination, were propagated and disseminated to the suffocation of every good fruit; there were no advantages which could compare with these evils.[472] It should be remembered that the colonists of the day were the Spaniards, with the corruption and cruelty of whose rule Italians were only too familiar; and their misdeeds were far greater in the new world.

[Sidenote: Progress.]

[Sidenote: Evolution.]

[Sidenote: Man and the animals.]

The age of gold, however, of idleness, and peaceful happiness, was far from Bruno's ideal; the reply of Momus to _Otium_ showed that it had not made men virtuous in the golden age any more than the brutes were virtuous now--that men were perhaps originally more stupid than many of the latter; but in their emulation of divine actions and their attempts to satisfy spiritual desires, difficulties had arisen and needs sprung up; through these their minds were sharpened, industries had been discovered, arts invented; and so from day to day out of the depth of the human intellect necessity brought forth new and marvellous inventions.[473] Thus more and more they advance, through pressing and earnest occupation, from the bestial nature, and approximate more and more nearly to the divine. That injustice and vice increase along with industries is only a corollary of the increase of justice and of virtue. If oxen or apes had as much virtue and spirit as man, they would have the same apprehensions, the same passions, and the same vices. So in men those that have in them somewhat of the pig nature, or of the ass or ox nature, are certainly less wicked, not infected by so criminal vices as more highly developed men might be; but they are not for that more virtuous, unless the brutes also are more virtuous than men, being infected with fewer vices.[474] In this generous conception of human progress, and of its spur--solicitude, necessity, pain--Bruno is quite at one with modern theories of human evolution; it can hardly be said, however, that he anticipated the evolution theory so far as it involves an identity of origin for human beings and lower animals. The idea that different human beings express different animal types was not a new one. It means in Bruno that such men have animal souls, but this is not because their bodies have reverted to the animal type. It is the soul that moulds the body and gives, in these cases, the animal expression to the face--the look of wolf, or bear, or fox, or serpent. There is no question of a _physical continuity_ between animal and man, but there is a _psychical continuity_, since a soul which is that of an animal in one generation may become that of a man in another.[475] A much nearer approach to the evolution-theory is to be found in the _Cabala_,[476] where it is said that if a serpent could have its head moulded into that of a man, its tongue widened, its shoulders broadened, arms and hands branching out from it, and, where the tail now is, a pair of legs, it would think, look, breathe, speak, work, and walk just as a man does, for it would be nothing but a man. Or if the reverse process occurred, in a man (_involution_), in place of talking he would hiss, in place of walking he would creep, in place of building a palace he would hollow out a hiding-place for himself. This is not, however, because the body of the one had been transformed into that of the other animal, function following structure; the soul with all its qualities is unchanged--it is one and the same in both; the differences are only in the power of expression. A serpent or any other animal might have a higher intelligence than man, yet remain inferior to him through poverty of instruments. If man had not hands, but two feet in their stead, however high his intelligence, family and social life would have been no more enduring with him than with the horse, the deer, or the pig; it would only have exposed him to greater danger and more certain ruin; and, in consequence, there would have been none of the institutions of doctrine, the inventions of discipline, the congregations of citizens, the raising of edifices and other things that represent human greatness and excellence, and make man the invincible superior over all other species. All this is referred not so much to his mind as to his hand, the organ of organs.[477] It is in the development of the hand, also, that modern anthropology has sought one of the chief conditions of human development. It is clear, however, that in these theories there are two positions not distinctly separated: one that the soul gives form to the body, the other that all difference comes from the body, the soul remaining apart, and in its essence untouched by the changes its body undergoes. We shall have to return to this question in the following chapter.

[Sidenote: Riches and poverty.]

[Sidenote: Avarice.]

[Sidenote: Fortune.]

Another digression occurs under _Hercules_,[478] where Riches, Poverty, and Fortune contend for the place of honour that is finally given to Courage or Fortitude. Such personifications of the virtues had been familiarised in Italian philosophy by Petrarca (_Remedium utriusque fortunae_), but Bruno refers back to Crantor's discussion of the relative value for the soul of Riches and other goods.[479] In our dialogue Riches is decided to be neither good nor bad in itself; it may be indifferently either, according to its possessor: therefore it is to incur neither disgrace nor honour, neither be condemned to Hades, nor raised up to Heaven, but to wander from place to place. It shall be found by no one who has not first repented of his good mind and healthy brain; he must give up, according to Momus, all thought of prudence, "not trusting in Heaven, regarding not justice or injustice, honour or shame, calm or storm, but committing all to chance. As a general rule Riches are to go to the most insensate, the most foolish, careless, silly--to beware of the wise as of fire. Poverty, on the other hand (in inferior or corporeal goods), may be conjoined with riches in goods of the mind, as riches in inferior goods may never be, for no one that is wise or wishes to gain knowledge can ever achieve great things by their means. To philosophy Riches are an impediment, while Poverty offers it a safe and easy road. He will be great who in poverty is rich because he is content; and he is a slave who in riches is poor because he has not enough. Not he that has little but he that desires much is really poor. The friends of _Poverty_ are open, the enemies of _Riches_ are secret; the poor man by repressing desire may rival Jove in happiness; the rich, ever spreading more and more widely the nets of cupidity, is plunged more and more into depths of misery. _Avarice_ is the dark side, the shadow, of both Riches and Poverty, ever fleeing Poverty and pursuing Riches, but ever eluded by the latter, and ever caught by the former; far from Poverty in reality, she is ever close by it in imagination; it is this darkness or shadow that make Poverty and Riches alike to be evil. One may be poor in virtue of _affect_ (feeling, emotion) as well as in virtue of _effect_ (actual, material want). _Fortune_ also is rejected, in spite of her claim to be absolutely just; as all things are ultimately or really one, no part of the world, she claims, should be treated as more worthy or unworthy than another, and fortune regards all equally, or does not respect any particular person more than another, which is really justice!

[Sidenote: Courage.]

[Sidenote: Simplicity.]

[Sidenote: Self-consciousness.]

To the place for which these have striven succeeds _Fortitude_, the servant of the higher virtues: "Constant and brave must be he that administers judgment, with prudence, by the law, and according to truth. He shall be guided by the book in which is the catalogue of the things the brave man ought not to fear, viz.: those which do not make him worse, as hunger, nakedness, thirst, pain, poverty, solitude, persecution, death; and that of other things which, as they make him worse, must be avoided at all cost,--gross ignorance, injustice, infidelity, lying, avarice, and the rest."[480] Beside _Fortitude_ may be placed _Simplicity_,[481] between the vicious extremes of Boastfulness on the one hand and Dissimulation on the other, the latter being the less hateful of the two: "sometimes even the gods must make use of it, and to escape envy, reproach, outrage, Prudence is wont to cover Truth with her vestments." Simplicity is pleasing to the gods, for it has in a manner the likeness of the divine countenance, being always the same and unconscious of itself. That which reflects upon or is conscious of itself, makes itself in a sense to be many, to be other and other, becoming both object and faculty, the knowing and the knowable, whereas in the act of intelligence many things concur in one. The most simple intelligence does not know itself, by reflection, because it is absolute, pure light: and again it alone knows itself, negatively, for it cannot be hidden.[482]

[Sidenote: Solicitude.]

[Sidenote: Truth.]

The transition from ordinary morality,--the virtue of the everyday life of human society,--to the divine aspiration of the "heroic" soul, is to be found in the virtue of _Solicitude_, and the primary triad of _Truth_, _Prudence_, and _Wisdom_. On the feet of Solicitude (Diligence, Endurance) "are the winged sandals of the divine impetus, through which she leaves beneath her the vulgar good, and contemns the soft caresses of pleasures, that, like insidious sirens, try to delay her in the pursuit of the works she seeks." On labour and fatigue she nurses the generous mind,--enables it not only to subdue itself, but to attain the highest state--that of not feeling fatigue, or pain, when fatigue or pain must be undergone. In noble work fatigue is pleasure and not fatigue to itself, but in other than in such work or virtuous activity, it is not pleasure to itself, but intolerable fatigue. "Be with me" Solicitude concludes, "generous, heroic, anxious _Fear_, stimulate me that I do not perish from the number of the illustrious before I perish from that of the living. Before torpor or death take from me my hands, grant that the glory of my works may not be in their power to take. _Anxiety_, grant that the roof be finished before the rain come: that the windows be whole before the winds of treacherous and unquiet winter blow. _Memory_ of a well-spent life, thou shalt make old age and death destroy my soul before they disturb it. Fear of losing the glory acquired in my life shall make old age and death not bitter to me, but dear and desirable." The end which this strenuous virtue seeks is that of the intellectual triad placed in the highest part of the heavens by the gods,--Truth, Prudence and Wisdom, which in reality are one and the same.[483] Truth is the unity which stands above the all of things, and the goodness which is pre-eminent over all things, for being, goodness, and truth are one:--in other words, it is the Eleatic One,--the "implicit universe,"--of the metaphysical works.[484] It is _before_ things as cause and principle, and things have dependence upon it: it is _in_ things, as their substance, and through it things subsist: it is _after_ things, for through it things are known without error. These three aspects represent metaphysical, physical, and logical truth respectively. What is presented to our senses and may be grasped by our intelligence, is not the highest truth, but only the figure, image, resplendence, or appearance of it. _Prudence_ also is both above and in us. It is above as Providence, when it is also truth itself, and there Liberty, Necessity, Essence, Entity, all are one, the Absolute. In us Prudence is the virtue of the consultative and deliberative faculty,--"it is a principal form of reason dealing with the universal and the particular,[485] has for its maid-servant _dialectics_, and for guide acquired wisdom, vulgarly called _metaphysics_, which deals with the universals of all things that fall within human knowledge."[486] So too Wisdom, _Sophia_, is at once supra-mundane,--when it is one with Providence itself, light and eye in one,--and mundane, inferior, not truth itself, wisdom itself, but participant in truth and in wisdom,--an eye that is illuminated by a foreign light. The first is invisible, infigurable, incomprehensible; the second is figured in the heavens, reflected in finite minds, communicated by words. The earthly or inferior forms, however, as Bruno makes clear, are of value only for the sake of the higher unity, to attain which is the real end of the philosophic life. "He who pretends to know what he does not know, says Wisdom, is a wanton Sophist: he who denies knowing what he knows, is ungrateful to the Active Intelligence, insults truth, and outrages me, as do all those who seek me--not for myself, or for the supreme virtue and love of that divinity which is above every Jupiter and every heaven,--but either to sell me for money, honour, or other gain, or to be known rather than to know, or to detract from and be able to destroy the happiness of others.... They that seek me for love of the supreme and first truth are wise, and therefore blessed."[487] Bruno's _Summum Bonum_ is therefore _knowledge_, an intellectual comprehension of the All of things, as it is in the supreme Unity or source of the world. It is for the sake of this end of the few, the wise, that the many, the vulgar, and foolish, are to be kept at peace, in harmony with one another, following obediently their higher guides in religion or in the state. There is not in Bruno any more than in Spinoza any sense of the infinite worth, or the infinite pitifulness of man as an earth-born creature of hopes and fears, creeping towards the light, with the clogging darkness behind, groping in childish terror and childish trust, for the hand of a loving, human God. Therefore, although he lived in the midst of the Reformation, its true meaning passed him by.