[154] Under the heading “Time” (de tempore) there is a short treatise on Astrology.

[155] Doc. 8: the words suggest a special training in Latin, Greek, Philosophy, and Rhetoric,—not the whole Trivium and Quadrivium of the ordinary education of the day, as Berti supposes.

[156] Cf. Op. Lat. ii. 2. 61; ii. 3; i. 4. 39, 65, 69; i. 1. 256, etc.

[157] i. 4. 21; i. 1. 223; i. 1. 231.

[158] A compendium of Aristotle’s Physics.

[159] Op. Lat. i. 4. 131 ff.

[160] (De Immenso, iii. 3), Op. Lat. i. 1. 340.

[161] Lag. 131.

[162] Op. Lat. ii. 2. 133.

[163] Lag. 239.

[164] Ib. 252. Cf. Bacon’s Nov. Org. i. 54:—“Aristotle, who altogether enslaved his natural Philosophy to his Logic, and so rendered it nearly useless and contentious,” (vide infra, ch. 9).

[165] Lag. 256.

[166] Ib. 280.

[167] Nov. Org. i. 62.

[168] (De l’ Infinito), Lag. 324.

[169] Lag. 231.

[170] Ib. 183. Cf. Op. Lat. i. 1. 282, 288.

[171] Cf. Op. Lat. i. 1. 96, 3. 26, 3. 271; i. 1. 291; i. 3. 26; iii. 70, etc.

[172] Lag. 282.

[173] Op. Lat. ii. 2. 196, and (Her. Fur.) Lag. 722. 35.

[174] Cena, Lag. 237. 9. Cf. Her. Fur. Lag. 722. 35.

[175] Lag. 256. 25, 273. 25. Cf. Op. Lat. i. 1. 377.

[176] i. 1. 272.

[177] i. 2. 148.

[178] i. 3. 140.

[179] Causa, Lag. 247.

[180] Op. Lat. i. 3. 169.

[181] Cf. Her. Fur., Lag. 636. If not by Iamblichus, this work issued certainly from his school, to which Julian the Apostate belonged.

[182] E.g. Op. Lat. i. 1. 376.

[183] Ibid.

[184] Op. cit.

[185] Op. Lat. i. 2. 409.

[186] Lag. 532.

[187] i.e. creative or original.

[188] Spaccio, Lag. 533. Bruno was probably acquainted with the De arte cabbalistica (1517) of Reuchlin the Platonist, and with Pico of Mirandula’s Cabalistarum selectiora obscurioraque dogmata. Of the Cabala itself the first part (Creation) was published in Hebrew at Mantua 1562, a translation into Latin at Basle 1587: the second part, The Book of Splendour, Hebrew, 1560, a translation, not, as it seems, until the following century. It is unlikely that Bruno read Hebrew, although he makes use of Hebrew letters among his symbols. But there were many writings on the Cabala from which he could have derived his idea of their teaching—e.g. Agrippa’s Occulta Philosophia, to which he was indebted for much of the De Monade. The Cabala (i.e. “traditional teaching”) is a collection of dogmas made about the ninth and thirteenth centuries; it was certainly influenced by Neoplatonism, and contained the interpretation of creation as emanation in graduated series of beings from the one supreme Being, of the Logos or Divine Word as intermediary between the Supreme and the lower beings (viz, the material world and all sensible objects): the elements of the Logos are the Sephiroth, the ten numbers of Pythagoras, corresponding to the chief virtues or qualities; next to these are the ideas or forms, then the world-souls, and last of all material things.

[189] Causa, Lag. 231.

[190] Op. Lat. i. 2. 196.

[191] Ib. ii. i. 48.

[192] Plotinus, Enneads, ii. 4. 4; cf. Bruno’s Causa, Lag. 267.

[193] Causa, Lag. 271; cf. Plot. Enn. ii. 4. 3.

[194] i. 2. 117.

[195] Vide Munk, Mélanges de Philosophie juive et Arabe, Paris, 1589; and Dictionnaire des sciences Philosophiques, Paris, 1844–52.

[196] Ibn Sina, 980–1037 A.D.; cf. Op. Lat. iii. 458, 475.

[197] Op. Lat. i. 1. 223, called by Bruno Hispanus, but really an Arabian, Ibn Badja,—d. 1138.

[198] A Jew, Ibn Gebirol, fl. 1050.

[199] Al Ghazzali, 1059–1111 A.D.

[200] Cf. Op. Lat. iii. 696.

[201] Vide Wittman, Giord. Bruno’s Beziehungen zu Avencebrol in the Archiv für Geschichte der Phil. 13. 2 (1900).

[202] Causa, Lag. 253; cf. 246, and Op. Lat. iii. 696.

[203] Causa, Lag. 265.

[204] Cf. Wittman, loc. cit.

[205] Cena, Lag. 170.

[206] Her. Fur. Lag. 742. Algazel is connected with Averroes by Bruno in another argument against authority,—that the mere habit of and familiarity with a given belief does not authorise its truth, for “those who from boyhood and youth are accustomed to eat poison, come to such a state that it is transformed into a sweet and good nourishment for them, and on the contrary they come to abhor what is really good and pleasant according to common nature.”

[207] A Latin translation of Averroes’ Commentaries was published in 1472, and one of his criticisms of Algazel (Destructio destructionis) in 1497 and in 1527.

[208] Causa, Lag. 271, and Op. Lat. i. 2. 411.

[209] i. 1. 370.

[210] Causa, Lag. 271: on Averroes cf. Op. Lat. i. 1. 221, 224, 337, 338, etc.

[211] Her. Fur. Lag. 677.

[212] Op. Lat. i. 1. 16. Albertus lived from 1193 to 1280 A.D. There are frequent references to the spurious writings attributed to him, in Bruno’s De Magia Mathematica, etc.

[213] i. 2. 415. Cf. Sig. Sig. ii. 2. 190, for a reputed miracle related of Saint Thomas.

[214] Cf. the ridicule in Lag. 361 and 563.

[215] Causa, Lag. 246.

[216] Tocco, Fonti piu recenti, etc., p. 538.

[217] Besides the several works on the Art of Reasoning, Lully had written also on theology and on medicine, and Bruno, in his (posthumous) Medicina Lulliana, gave a compendium of the latter group of writings.

[218] De Lampade Combinatoria, Op. Lat. ii. 2. 234.

[219] Faber Stapulensis (c. 1500), and Carolus Bovillus (c. 1470–1553). Both were rather followers of Cusanus.

[220] Op. Lat. ii. 2. 242.

[221] ii. 2. 61.

[222] Op. Lat. ii. 2. 329, 3. 297.

[223] De Comp. Arch. ii. 2. 42.

[224] i. 1. 17. On Cusanus v. Falckenberg, Grundzüge der Philosophie des Nicolaus Cusanus, 1880, Uebinger, Philosophie des N. C., 1880, and Gotteslehre des N. C., 1888, F. J. Clemens, Giord. Bruno und Nikolaus von Cusa, 1847, Scharpff, Des N. von C. wichstigste Schriften, 1862.

[225] Infinito, Lag. 348.

[226] Cf. Cusanus’ De docta ignorantia.

[227] Spaccio, Lag. 420.

[228] De docta ignorantia, i. 7. Alchoran, ii. 7, 8.

[229] Doct. ignor. ii. 7.

[230] De Possest.

[231] Alchoran, ii. 6.

[232] Cusanus, De Ludo globi, bk. i.

[233] Cusanus, De Idiota, iii. (De Mente, 9).

[234] Cusanus, De Conjecturis, i. 4.

[235] Id. De Visione Dei, 10.

[236] Id. De Venatione Sapientiae.

[237] De occulta philosophia.

[238] De Vanitate Scientiarum.

[239] Tocco. Fonti piu recenti, etc. p. 534.

[240] Theophrastus Bombastes von Hohenheim, 1493–1541.

[241] Lag. 247.

[242] i. 1. 17. In the Sig. Sig. ii. 2. 181, he is put forward as an example of the value of the life of solitude:—“Paracelsus, who glories more in the title of hermit than in that of doctor or master, became a leader and author among physicians, second to none”—a reference to the title of Eremita, which Paracelsus took, however, from his birthplace Einsiedeln, and to his well known and strongly expressed contempt for the learning of books.

[243] 1501–1576 A.D.

[244] The first two books of the De natura rerum were published in 1565.

[245] Op. Lat. i. 1. 17.

[246] Cena, Lag. 124.

[247] Bruno praises and gives long extracts from Copernicus in the De Immenso, bk. iii. ch. 9.

[248] De la Causa, etc.

[249] Lag. 229.

[250] Lag. 229.

[251] De la Causa, principio et uno, 1584.

[252] Lag. 230.

[253] Ib. The terms correspond to Aristotle’s ἀρχή and αἴτιον, respectively; no clear distinction was drawn between their meanings by Aristotle, however. Bruno’s aim is to contrast the inwardly active, immanent principle of life and of movement with the transient, outwardly active cause, and to interpret nature, as a whole, as the manifestation of some such inward principle, rather than as a mechanical system to which the impulse was given from without.

[254] Lag. 231. 38. The Intellectus is identified also with the Pythagorean world-mover (Verg. Aeneid, vi. 726); the “World’s Eye” of the Orphic Poems; the “distinguisher” of Empedocles; the “Father and Progenitor of all things” of Plotinus.

[255] Lag. 232. 24.

[256] Lag. 232. 33 ff.

[257] On Perfection, vide infra, p. 199.

[258] Lag. 233. 27. Cf. Arist. De Anima, ii. 1.

[259] Cf. Arist. De Anima, ii. ch. 1 and 2.

[260] Lag. 238. 34.

[261] Cf. Lucretius.

[262] Lag. 202. 40.

[263] Cf. e.g. 238. 12, when the form or soul is said to be one in all things, and differences are said to arise from the dispositions of matter.

[264] Vide infra, ch. 5.

[265] Lag. 240. 28.

[266] Lag. 242. 7.

[267] Epist. Proëm., Lag. 203. 19. When he wrote the De Minimo the question had at least presented itself to Bruno as requiring solution: vide bk. iv. (Op. Lat. i. 3. 274). Individual differences are referred to two possible sources—the different compositions of the forms or ideal types, and the varied dispositions of matter; and it is suggested that the latter of these may derive from the former.

[268] Lag. 246. 37.

[269] Lag. 248. 17. The apparent conflict between this and the preceding pages will resolve itself below.

[270] Lag. 249. 35.

[271] Pseudo-Timaeus, 94 A.

[272] Lag. 253. 11.

[273] Lag. 257, 258.

[274] Lag. 258–260.

[275] Lag. 261.

[276] Lag. 266.

[277] Supra, ch. i. Cf. Plotinus, Ennead, ii. 4. 4.

[278] Lag. 269.

[279] Lag. 268–271. Bruno refers here to Averroes, and especially to Plotinus, v. ch. i.

[280] Compare the ambiguity in Spinoza’s definition of mind in relation to body.

[281] Lag. 273, 274.

[282] Lag. 277.

[283] Lag. 278. 4.

[284] Lag. pp. 278–281.

[285] Lag. 285. 35.

[286] Lag. 288. 5.

[287] Lag. 288, 289.

[288] Op. Lat. i. 3. 147. 1.

[289] De Immenso: de l’ Infinito: Acrotismus, etc.

[290] Op. Lat. i. 1. p. 202.

[291] Op. Lat. i. 1. p. 203.

[292] De Immenso, bk. i. ch. 6.

[293] Op. Lat. i. 1. p. 222.

[294] P. 227.

[295] P. 231.

[296] Op. Lat. i. 1. p. 232. On Space, cf. Acrot. Art. 31, 33–37 (Vacuum, Ether, etc.), and Infinito, Lag. 365.

[297] P. 234.

[298] P. 235.

[299] Cf. Infinito, Lag. 322. 1 ff. for the argument.

[300] Bk. ii. ch. 2.; cf. Infinito, Dial. v., Lag. 387.

[301] De Imm. i. 1. 264; cf. Inf. 392. 15.

[302] Bk. ii. ch. 4 (267 ff.).

[303] Bk. ii. ch. 6.