1 6 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



be lawful to coerce heretics by the sword." It was 

 more probably, however, Bruno's attitude towards the 

 Aristotelian philosophy which brought him into conflict 

 with the authorities : Geneva was as thoroughly con- 

 vinced of the all-wisdom of Aristotle as Rome. 1 Beza 

 had written to Ramus that they had decided once 

 for all, ne tantillum ab Aristotelis sententia deflectere^ 

 and Arminius, when a youth of twenty-two, was 

 expelled from Geneva for teaching the Dialectic of 

 Ramus. 



IV 



Lyons. After a short stay in Lyons, where u he could not 



make enough to keep him alive," Bruno passed to 



Toulouse. Toulouse, which boasted then of one of the most 

 flourishing universities in the world. In his account 

 of his life before Venetian tribunal, he gives two years 

 and a half to Toulouse, but he must have left it before 



1579-81. the end of 1581, so that his actual stay was only two 

 years. While he was holding private classes on the 

 Sphere, and other philosophical subjects, a chair at the 

 University fell vacant. Bruno was persuaded to 

 become a candidate ; to that end he took a Doctorate 

 (in Theology), and was allowed to compete. By the 

 free election of the students, as the custom was, he was 

 chosen for the chair, and thereafter for two sessions 

 lectured on Aristotle's De Anima and on other matters. 

 Part of these lectures is perhaps given to us in the 

 works published afterwards at Paris. It was fortunate 

 that the University did not require of its ordinary 

 professors that they should attend mass, as was the case, 

 for example, at the Sorbonne. Bruno could not have 



1 Bartholmess, i. pp. 6z, 63 (with note). 



