Part 17

Coming to details, we find that Bruno shakes himself free from the tyranny of Aristotle,--a mighty audacity, to measure which we must remember that upon Aristotle’s arbitrary dicta the fathers and doctors of the Catholic Church had based their dogmas. Though a pagan, he had been for fifteen hundred years the logical pillar of Christendom, uncanonized, yet deserving canonization along with St. Thomas and St. Augustine. Bruno dared to attack the mighty despot in his very strongholds, the Sorbonne and Oxford, and, by so doing, helped to clear the road for subsequent explorers of philosophy and science. Equally courageous was his championship of the discoveries and theories of Copernicus. Bruno, we may safely say, was the first man who realized the full meaning of the Copernican system,--a meaning which even to-day the majority have not grasped. He saw that it was not merely a question as to whether the earth moves round the sun, or the sun moves round the earth; but that when Copernicus traced the courses of our solar system, and saw other and yet other systems beyond, he invalidated the strong presumption upon which dogmatic Christianity was reared. According to the old view, the earth was the centre of the universe, the especial gem of God’s creation; as a final mark of his favor, God created man to rule the earth, and from among men he designated a few--his “chosen people”--who should enjoy everlasting bliss in heaven. But it follows from Copernicus’s discoveries, that the earth is but one of a company of satellites which circle round the sun; that the sun itself is but one of innumerable other suns, each with its satellites; that there are probably countless inhabited orbs; that the scheme of salvation taught by the old theology is inadequate to the new conceptions we are bound to form of the majesty, justice, and omnipotence of the Supreme Ruler of an infinite universe. The God whom Bruno apprehended was not one who narrowed his interests to the concerns of a Syrian tribe, and of a sect of Christians on this little ball of earth, but one whose power is commensurate with infinitude, and who cherishes all creatures and all things in all worlds. Copernicus himself did not foresee the full significance of the discovery which dethroned the earth and man from their supposed preeminence in the universe; but Bruno caught its mighty import, and the labors of Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Herschel, and Darwin have corroborated him.

Inspired by this revelation, Bruno was the first to envisage religions as human growths, just as laws and customs are human growths, expressing the higher or lower needs and aspirations of the people and age in which they exist. His famous satire, _The Expulsion of the Beast Triumphant_,[31] has a far deeper purpose than to travesty classic mythology, or to ridicule the abuses of Romanists and Protestants, or to scoff at the exaggerated pretensions of the Pope. Under the form of an allegory, it is a prophecy of the ultimate passing away of all anthropomorphic religion. It shows how the god whom men have worshiped hitherto has been endowed by them with human passions and attributes, “writ large,” to be sure, but still unworthy of being associated with that Soul of the World which is in all things, yet above all things. Everywhere he assails the doctrine that faith, without good works, can lead to salvation. He denounces celibacy, and other unnatural rules of the Catholic Church. He denounces still more vigorously the monstrous theory of original sin, according to which an assumedly just God punishes myriads of millions of human beings for the alleged trespass of two of their ancestors. Bruno also cites the discovery of new races in America as evidence that mankind are not all descended from Adam and Eve; whence he infers that, since the Mosaic cosmogony is too narrow to explain the creation and growth of mankind, the Hebrew scheme of vicarious punishment and vicarious redemption must be inadequate. He laughs at the idea of a “chosen people.” Over and over again Bruno derides the assertion that, in order to be saved, we must despise our divinest guide, Reason, and be led blindly by Faith, reducing ourselves so far as we can to the level of donkeys. His satire, _La Cabala del Cavallo Pegaseo_, which supplements _The Beast Triumphant_, is a mock eulogy of this “holy asininity, holy ignorance, holy stupidity, and pious devotion, which alone can make souls so good that human genius and study cannot surpass them.” “What avails, O truth-seeker,” he exclaims in one of his finest sonnets, “your studying and wishing to know how Nature works, and whether the stars also are earth, fire, and sea? Holy donkeydom cares not for that, but with clasped hands wills to remain on its knees, awaiting from God its doom.”

[31] This, the most famous of Bruno’s works, was until recently so rare that only two or three copies of it were known to exist. Hence numerous blunders and misconceptions by critics who wrote about it from hearsay. For a detailed analysis of “The Beast Triumphant” I may refer the reader to _The New World_ for September, 1894. Lucian’s satire, “Zeus in Heroics,” may have given the hint to Bruno.

In a striking passage, Bruno explains that evil is relative. “Nothing is absolutely bad,” he says; “because the viper is not deadly and poisonous to the viper, nor the lion to the lion, nor dragon to dragon, nor bear to bear; but each thing is bad in respect to some other, just as you, virtuous gods, are evil towards the vicious.” Again he says, “Nobody is to-day the same as yesterday.” The immanence of the universal soul in the animal world he illustrated thus: “With what understanding the ant gnaws her grain of wheat, lest it should sprout in her underground habitation! The fool says this is instinct, but we say it is a species of understanding.”

These are some of Bruno’s characteristic opinions. Their influence upon subsequent philosophers has been much discussed. His conception of the universe as an “animal” corresponds with Kepler’s well-known view. Spinoza, the great pantheist of the following century, took from him the idea of an immanent God, and the distinction between _natura naturans_ and _natura naturata_. Schelling, who acknowledged Bruno as his master, found in him the principle of the indifference of contraries; Hegel, that of the absolute identity of subject and object, of the real and the ideal, of thought and things. La Croze discovers in Bruno the germs of most of Leibnitz’s theories, beginning with the monad. Symonds declares that “he anticipated Descartes’s position of the identity of mind and being. The modern theory of evolution was enunciated by him in pretty plain terms. He had grasped the physical law of the conservation of energy. He solved the problem of evil by defining it to be a relative condition of imperfect energy.... We have indeed reason to marvel how many of Bruno’s intuitions have formed the stuff of later, more elaborated systems, and still remain the best which these contain. We have reason to wonder how many of his divinations have worked themselves into the common fund of modern beliefs, and have become philosophical truisms.”[32] Hallam, who strangely undervalued Bruno, states that he understood the principle of compound forces. After making due allowance for the common tendency to read back into men’s opinions interpretations they never dreamed of, we shall find that much solid substance still remains to Bruno’s credit. He is, above all, suggestive.

[32] From J. A. Symonds’s _Renaissance in Italy: The Catholic Reaction_, chap. ix.

III

We come now to that perplexing question, “Why did he recant? How could he, who was so evidently a freethinker and a rationalist, honestly affirm his belief in the Roman Catholic dogmas?” His confession seems to be straightforward and candid: had he wished to propitiate the Inquisitors, he needed only not to mention his philosophical doubts about the Incarnation and the Trinity; he needed only to admit that there were in his writings errors which he no longer approved, and to throw himself on the mercy of his tribunal. What, then, was the motive? Was it physical fear? Did life and liberty seem too tempting to him who loved both so intensely; preferable to death, no matter how great the sacrifice of honor? Did he simply perjure himself? Or was he suddenly overcome by a doubt that his opinions might be, after all, wrong, and that the Church might be right? He testified, and others testified, that before he had any thought of being brought to trial he had determined to make his peace with the Pope, and to obtain leave, if he could, to pass the remainder of his life in philosophical tranquillity. Did the early religious associations and prejudices, which he supposed had long ago ceased to influence him, unexpectedly spring up, to reassert a temporary tyranny over his reason? Many men not in jeopardy of their lives have had this experience of the tenacious vitality of the doctrines taught to them before they could reason. Did it seem to him a huge Aristophanic joke that a church which then had but little real faith and less true religion in it should call any one to account for any opinions, and that therefore the lips might well enough accept her dogmas without binding the heart to them? Many men, who believed themselves sincere, have subscribed in a “non-natural sense” to the Thirty-nine Articles of Anglicanism; did Bruno subscribe to the Catholic Articles under a similar mental reservation? Or, believing, as he did, that every religion contains fragments of the truth, could he not honestly say he believed in Catholicism, at the same time holding that her symbols had a deeper significance than her theologians perceived, and that the truth he apprehended was immeasurably wider?--just as a mathematician might subscribe to the multiplication table, knowing that it is not the final bound of mathematical truth, but only the first step towards higher and unlimited investigations.

Throughout his examination Bruno was careful to make the distinction between the province of faith and the province of speculation. “Speaking after the manner of philosophy,” he confessed that he had reached conclusions which, “speaking as a Catholic,” he ought not to believe. This distinction, which we now think uncandid and casuistical, was nevertheless admitted in his time. All through that century, men had argued “philosophically” about the immortality of the soul; but “theologically” such an argument was impossible, because the Church pronounced the immortality of the soul to be an indisputable fact. But, we ask, can a man honestly hold two antagonistic, mutually destroying beliefs; saying, for instance, that his reason has disproved the Incarnation, but that his faith accepts that doctrine? Or was Bruno unaware of his contradictions? Of how many of your opinions concerning the ultimate mysteries of life do you, reader, feel so sure that, were you suddenly seized, imprisoned, brought face to face with a pitiless tribunal, and confronted by torture and burning, you--one man against the world--would boldly, without hesitation, publish and maintain them? Galileo, one of mankind’s noblest, could not endure this ordeal, although the evidence of his senses and the testimony of his reason contradicted the denial which pain and dread wrung from him. Savonarola, another great spirit, flinched likewise. These are points we are bound to consider before we pronounce Bruno a hypocrite or a coward.

The last news we have of him in Venice is when, “having been bidden several times,” he rose from his knees, after confessing his penitence, on that 30th of July, 1592. The authorities of the Inquisition at Rome immediately opened negotiations for his extradition. The Doge and Senate demurred; they hesitated before establishing the precedent whereby Rome could reach over and punish Venetian culprits. Time was, indeed, when Venice allowed no one, though he were the Pope, to meddle in her administration; but, alas! the lion had died out in Venetian souls. Finally, “wishing to give satisfaction to his Holiness,” Doge and Senators consented to deliver Bruno up; the Pope expressed his gratification, and said that he would never force upon the Republic “bones hard to gnaw.” So Bruno was taken to Rome. In the “list of the prisoners of the Holy Office, made Monday, April 5, 1599,” we find that he was imprisoned on February 27, 1593. What happened during almost seven years we can only surmise. We may be sure the Inquisitors searched his books for further heretical doctrine. We hear that they visited him in his cell from time to time, and exhorted him to recant, but that he replied that he had nothing to abjure, and that they had misinterpreted him. A memorial which he addressed to them they did not read. Growing weary of their efforts to save his soul, they would temporize no more; on a given day he must retract, or be handed over to the secular arm. That day came: Giordano Bruno stood firm, though he knew the penalty was death.

We cannot tell when he first resolved to dare and suffer all. Some time during those seven years of solitude and torment, he awoke to the great fact that

“’Tis man’s perdition to be safe, When for the truth he ought to die.”

Mere existence he could purchase with the base coin of cowardice or casuistry; but that would be, not life, but a living shame, and he refused. Who can tell how hard instinct pleaded,--how the thoughts of freedom, how the longings for companions, how the recollections of that beautiful Neapolitan home which he loved and wished to revisit, how the desire to explore yet more freely the beauties and the mysteries of the divine universe, came to him with reasons and excuses to tempt him from his resolution? But conscience supported him. He took Truth by the hand, turned his back on the world and its joy and sunshine, and followed whither she led into the silent, sunless unknown. Let us dismiss the theory that he was impelled by the desire to escape in this way from an imprisonment which threatened to be perpetual; let us dismiss, and contemptuously dismiss, the insinuation of an English writer, that Bruno’s purpose was, by a theatrical death, to startle the world which had begun to forget him in his confinement. To impute a low motive to a noble deed is surely as base as to extenuate a crime. Bruno had no sentimental respect for martyrs; but on the day when he resolved to die for his convictions, he proved his kinship with the noblest martyrs and heroes of the race.

On February 8, 1600, he was brought before Cardinal Mandruzzi, the Supreme Inquisitor. He was formally degraded from his order, sentence of death was pronounced against him, and he was given up to the secular authorities. During the reading, he remained tranquil, thoughtful. When the Inquisitor ceased, he uttered those memorable words, which still, judging from the recent alarm in the Vatican, resound ominously in the ears of the Romish hierarchy: “Peradventure you pronounce this sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it.” After nine days had been allowed for his recantation, he was led forth, on February 17, to the Campo di Fiora,--once an amphitheatre, built by Pompey, and now a vegetable market. When he had been bound to the stake, he protested, according to one witness, that he died willingly, and that his soul would mount with the smoke into paradise. Another account says that he was gagged, to prevent his uttering blasphemies. As the flames leaped up, a crucifix was held before him, but he turned his head away. He uttered no scream, nor sigh, nor murmur, as Hus and Servetus had done; even that last mortal agony of the flesh could not overcome his spirit. And when nothing remained of his body but ashes, these were gathered up and tossed to the winds.

Berti, to whose indefatigable and enlightened researches, extending over forty years, we owe our knowledge of Bruno’s career,[33] says justly that Bruno bequeathed to his countrymen the example of an Italian dying for an ideal,--a rare example in the sixteenth century, but emulated by thousands of Italians in the nineteenth. To us and to all men his death brings not only that lesson, but it also teaches that no tribunal, whether religious or political, has a right to coerce the conscience and inmost thoughts of any human being. Let a man’s deeds, so far as they affect the community, be amenable to its laws, but his opinions should be free and inviolable. We can grant that the Torquemadas and Calvins and Loyolas were sincere, and that, from their point of view, they were justified in persecuting men who differed from them in religion; for the heretic, they believed, was Satan’s emissary, and deserved no more mercy than a fever-infected rag; but history admonishes us that their point of view was not only cruel, but wrong. No man, no church, is infallible: therefore it may turn out that the opinions which the orthodoxy of yesterday deemed pernicious have infused new blood into the orthodoxy of to-day. Bruno declared that the universe is infinite and its worlds are innumerable; the Roman Inquisition, in its ignorance, knew better. Galileo declared that the earth moves round the sun; the Inquisition, in its ignorance, said, No. It burned Bruno, it harried Galileo; yet, after three centuries, which do we believe? And if the Roman Church was fallible in matters susceptible of easy proof, shall we believe that it, or any other church, is infallible in matters immeasurably deeper and beyond the scope of finite demonstration? Cardinal Bellarmine, an upright man, and perhaps the ablest Jesuit of any age, was the foremost Inquisitor in bringing Bruno to the stake, and in menacing Galileo with the rack; but should a schoolboy of ten now uphold Bellarmine’s theory of the solar system, he would be sent into the corner with a fool’s-cap on his head.

[33] See Berti’s work, _Giordano Bruno da Nola; Sua Vita e Sua Dottrina_, 1889. This excellent biography deserves to be translated into English.

Strange is it that mankind, who have the most urgent need for truth, should have been in all ages so hostile to receiving it. Starving men do not kill their rescuers who bring them bread; whereas history is little more than the chronicle of the persecution and slaughter of those who have brought food for the soul. Doubtless the first savage who suggested that reindeer-meat would taste better cooked than raw was slain by his companions as a dangerous innovator. Ever since that time, the messengers of truth have been stoned, and burned, and ganched, and crucified; yet their message has been delivered, and has at last prevailed. This is, indeed, the best encouragement we derive from history, and the fairest presage of the perfectibility of mankind.

The study of the works of Giordano Bruno, which has been revived and extended during this century, is one evidence of a more general toleration, and of a healthy desire to know the opinions of all kinds of thinkers. One reason why Bruno has attracted modern investigators is because so many of his doctrines are in tune with recent metaphysical and scientific theories; and it seems probable that, for a while at least, the interest awakened in him will increase rather than diminish, until, after the republication and examination of all his writings, a just estimate of his speculations shall have been made. Much will undoubtedly have to be thrown out as obsolete or fanciful; much as flippant and inconsistent; much as vitiated by the cumbrous methods of scholasticism, and the tedious fashion of expounding philosophy by means of allegory and satire. But, after all the chaff has been sifted and all the excrescences have been lopped off, something precious will remain.

The very diversity of opinions about the upshot and value of his teaching insures for him the attention of scholars for some time to come. Those thinkers who can be quickly classified and easily understood are as quickly forgotten; only those who elude classification, and constantly surprise us by turning a new facet towards us, and provoke debate, are sure of a longer consideration. And see how conflicting are the verdicts passed upon Bruno. Sir Philip Sidney and that fine group of men who just preceded the Shakespearean company were his friends, and listened eagerly to his speculations. Hegel says: “His inconstancy has no other motive than his great-hearted enthusiasm. The vulgar, the little, the finite, satisfied him not; he soared to the sublime idea of the Universal Substance.” The French _philosophes_ of the eighteenth century debated whether he were an atheist; the critics of the nineteenth century declare him to be a pantheist. Hallam thought that, at the most, he was but a “meteor of philosophy.” Berti ranks him above all the Italian philosophers of his epoch, and above all who have since lived in Italy except Rosmini, and perhaps Gioberti. Some have called him a charlatan; some, a prophet. Finally, Leo XIII, in an allocution which was read from every Romish pulpit in Christendom, asserted that “his writings prove him an adept in pantheism and in shameful materialism, imbued with coarse errors, and often inconsistent with himself;” and that “his talents were to feign, to lie, to be devoted wholly to himself, not to bear contradiction, to be of a base mind and wicked heart.” As we read these sentences of Leo XIII, and his further denunciation of those who, like Bruno, ally themselves to the Devil by using their reason, we reflect that, were popes as powerful now as they were three centuries ago, they would have found reason enough to burn Mill and Darwin, and many another modern benefactor.

Bruno’s character, like his philosophy, offers so many points for dispute that it cannot soon cease to interest men. He is so human--neither demigod nor demon, but a creature of perplexities and contradictions--that he is far more fascinating than those men of a single faculty, those monotones whom we soon estimate and tire of. His vitality, his daring, his surprises, stimulate us. In an age when the growing bulk of rationalism casts a pessimistic shadow over so many hopes, it is encouraging to know that the rationalist Bruno saw no reason for despair; and when some persons are seriously asking whether life be worth living, it is inspiring to point to a man to whom the boon of life was so precious and its delights seemed so inexhaustible. At any period, when many minds, after exploring all the avenues of science, report that they perceive only dead matter everywhere, it must help some of them to learn that Bruno beheld throughout the whole creation and in every creature the presence of an infinite Unity, of a Soul of the World, whose attributes are power, wisdom, and love. He was indeed “a God-intoxicated man.” Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Aquinas spun their cobwebs round the border of the narrow circle in which, they asserted, all truth, mundane and celestial, was comprehended; Bruno’s restless spirit broke through the cobwebs, and discovered limitless spaces, innumerable worlds, beyond. To his enraptured eyes, all things were parts of the One, the Ineffable. “The Inquisition and the stake,” says Mr. Symonds, “put an end abruptly to his dream. But the dream was so golden, so divine, that it was worth the pangs of martyrdom. Can we say the same for Hegel’s system, or for Schopenhauer’s, or for the encyclopædic ingenuity of Herbert Spencer?” By his death Bruno did not prove that his convictions are true, but he proved beyond peradventure that he was a true man; and by such from the beginning has human nature been raised towards that ideal nature which we believe divine.

BRYANT