i THE "SPACCIO" 39 



physical and metaphysical, for the belief that the universe 

 is infinite, and is full of innumerable worlds of living 

 creatures ; sense and imagination are shown to be at 

 once the source and the limit of human knowledge. 

 Yet the argument is mainly a priori : the infinite 

 power of the Efficient Cause cannot be ineffective, the 

 divine goodness cannot withhold the good of life from 

 any possible being ; the divine will is one with the 

 divine intelligence and with the divine action : all 

 possible existence falls within the sphere of the divine 

 intelligence, therefore is willed ; but whatever is willed 

 is realised, for the power is infinite ; and whatever is 

 is good, for it is willed by the infinitely good. What- 

 ever really is, is a substance, and therefore immortal. 

 The substance of us is immutable, only the outward 

 face or form of it changes, passes away ; in the whole 

 all things are good ; where things appear evil or 

 defective, it is because we look at the part or the 

 present, not at the whole or the eternal. 



"The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast/* Spaccio 



i o . Vt ! t>estia trion- 



de la bestia trionfante^ 1584, was dedicated to Sir Philip fanu. 

 Sidney. In form an allegorical, satirical prose poem, it 



1 " Parigi. 1 " Translated, except for the introductory letter to Sidney, in Sf. dalla 

 Best. Triom., or the Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast, London, 1713 ; attributed 

 to W. Morehead. 



The Spaccio was in its outward form, no doubt, suggested by Lucian's Parliament 

 of the God*. Fiorentino has pointed out that Niccolo Franco had made use of a 

 similar idea in a dialogue published in 1539, in which he described a journey to 

 heaven, where he was at first refused admittance ; he had a parley with the Gods, 

 until, with the aid of Momus, he obtained permission to enter, conversed with Jupiter, 

 received some favours, and returned. Franco was impaled in 1565 by Pope Pius V., 

 hence perhaps the absence of his name in Bruno. Perhaps the idea of the Spaccio 

 was also determined by a prophecy of the Bohemian Cipriano Leowicz ("On the 

 more signal great conjunctions of the planets," 1564), that about the beginning of 

 April 1584 would occur a reunion of almost all the planets in the sign of Aries, and 

 it should be the last in that sign. It was inferred that the Christian religion would 

 also come to an end then. This would agree with the reason given above for Bruno's 

 preface, viz. that he was leaving England in 1584, Mauvissiere's term having 

 expired. 



