102 



GIORDANO BRUNO 



PART 



first of all clearing the mind from all prejudices, all 

 traditional beliefs that rested on authority alone, before 

 attempting the pursuit of truth. They were impedi- 

 ments- burdens that delayed or prevented the attain- 

 ment of the goal. The whole of the Cabala is a satire 

 on the quietistic attitude, the standpoint of ignorant 

 and ignoring faith, which regards sense and reason as 

 alike misleading and unnecessary guides, for which 

 science and philosophy are mere troublings of the still 

 waters of life. " Oh, holy asinity " ! one of the sonnets 

 begins, " oh, holy ignorance, holy folly and pious 

 devotion, which alone makest souls so good that human 

 wit and zeal can no further go ; strenuous watchful- 

 ness, in whatsoever art, or invention, or contemplation 

 of the wise, arrives not to the heaven wherein thou 

 buildest thy mansion. Of what avail is your study, ye 

 curious ones, your desire to know how nature works, 

 whether the stars are earth, or fire or sea r Holy 

 asinity for that cares not, but with folded hands and 

 bended knees awaits from God its fate." * 



Having already that touch of vanity in his character 

 which the possession of a quick mind among sluggards or 

 dullards almost inevitably entails, he was thrown, by his 

 attitude towards nature and the Church, more and more 

 back upon himself. At every step he met with a leaden, 

 uncomprehending, but dogged opposition, until he seemed 

 to himself the one seeing man in a world of the blind. 

 At times this belief was expressed only too emphatically ; 

 the reader of Bruno must expect to find a passage in 

 almost every work pointing out that that work is the 

 best of its kind, and dispenses with all others on the 

 subject ; while his opponents in any theory are bedaubed 

 with epithets to which the amenities of modern party 



1 Lag. 564. 25. 



