76 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



Church, so that he might be able to live quietly in 

 Rome. The prisoner was then cross-examined, and 

 submitted a list of his works, published and unpublished. 

 In these he claimed to have spoken always " philo- 

 sophically, and according to the light of nature, having 

 no special regard to what ought to be believed accord- 

 ing to the faith : his intention had been not to impugn 

 Phiiosophi- religion, but only to exalt philosophy, although many 

 theological impieties might have been uttered on the strength of 

 truth. kis natural light. Directly he had taught nothing con- 

 trary to the Christian Catholic religion ; thus in Paris 

 he had been allowed to vindicate the articles against the 

 Peripatetics and others, by natural principles, without 

 prejudice to the truth according to the light of the 

 faith : indirectly, Aristotle's and Plato's works were as 

 contrary, indeed much more contrary, to the faith than 

 the articles philosophically propounded and defended 

 by him." He proceeded to give an admirable state- 

 ment of his " philosophical " creed which might have 

 Bruno's fired the hearts of his judges : " I believe in an infinite 

 universe, the effect of the infinite divine potency, be- 

 cause it has seemed to me unworthy of the divine 

 goodness and power to create a finite world, when able 

 to produce besides it another and others infinite : so 

 that I have declared that there are endless particular 

 worlds similar to this of the Earth ; with Pythagoras I 

 regard it as a star, and similar to it are the moon, the 

 planets, and other stars, which are infinite, and all these 

 bodies are worlds, and without number, constituting 

 the infinite all (universita) in an infinite space ; while 

 the latter is called the infinite universe, in which are 

 innumerable worlds ; so that there are two kinds of 

 .infinity, one in the magnitude of the universe, the other 

 in the multitude of worlds, by which indirectly the 



