50 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



of the Aristotelians, by the words of Aristotle himself, 

 and of Aristotle from the standpoint of Bruno's own 

 physical theory, which he believed to be that of the 

 Pythagoreans and Platonists. The right to criticise the 

 " divine " Aristotle, Bruno claimed on the same grounds 

 as those on which Aristotle himself enjoyed the right of 

 criticising his predecessors : we are to him as he to 

 them : their truth, which to him seemed error, may be 

 right to us again, for opinion, like other history, moves 

 in cycles. And as to authority, the mass of which was 

 against Bruno, " if we are really sick, it helps us nought 

 that public opinion thinks we are really making for 

 health." l " It is a poor mind that will think with 

 the multitude because it is a multitude : truth is not 

 altered by the opinions of the vulgar or the confirma- 

 tion of the many " " it is more blessed to be wise in 

 truth in face of opinion than to be wise in opinion in 

 face of truth." 2 The new philosophy gives wings to 

 the mind, to carry it far from the prison cell in which 

 it has been detained by the old system, and from which 

 it could look out upon the orbs of the stars only through 

 chinks and cracks : to carry it out into infinite space, 

 to behold the innumerable worlds, sisters of the earth, 

 like it in heart and in will, living and life-producing ; 

 and returning, to see within itself " not without, apart, 

 or far from us, but in ourselves, and everywhere one, 

 more intimate, more in the heart of each of us, than we 

 are to ourselves " 3 the divine cause, source, and centre 

 of things. Aristotle and the sources of the scholastic 

 philosophy were occupying Bruno's leisure almost ex- 

 clusively at this time : he had begun the great Latin 



1586 j and " J. B. N. Camoeracensis Acrotumm, etc." Wittenberg, 1588. " Camoera- 

 censis " qualifies Bruni, " of the College of Cambray." Acrotismus is barbarous 

 Latinising of 'Atf/xWts. 



1 Op. Lat. i. i. 63. 2 i. i. 65. 3 Ib. 68, 69. 



