n6 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



his stay at Wittenberg. 1 The books of Aristotle treated are the 

 five books of the Physica, the De generatione et corruptions, the 

 Meteorologica, Book IV. There is an introduction on the methods 

 of the sciences, and other matters, by Bruno himself; the remainder 

 follows closely the text of Aristotle, except in the fourth and fifth 

 books, where Bruno is much less exact. 



6. De Magia, et Theses de Magia. The MS. of this work is in 

 the Erlangen Codex, by Besler, and also in the Moscow (Noroff) 

 collection, by the same hand ; the former is a copy of the latter, 

 which was dictated by Bruno in the early part of 1590 at 

 Helmstadt. 



It deals with one of the three divisions of Magic, viz. Natural or 

 Physical Magic (the others being Divine, Metaphysical or Super- 

 natural, and Mathematical that of symbols, numbers, etc.). 

 Physical magic is shown to be a natural consequence, first, of the 

 fact that the same soul, the soul of the world, is in all things, of 

 which the individual finite soul of each thing is a temporary mode 

 or phase ; hence all things are linked one with another, through 

 their spiritual identity, in a bond of sympathy ; secondly, of the 

 hierarchy of beings the principle that all finite things are emana- 

 tions, in increasing degree of imperfection, from the Divine. The 

 Theses represent a summary of the De Magia, and in the latter the 

 headings of the former are referred to throughout, except in two 

 episodes or excursus not strictly connected with natural magic (on 

 spirit-charms and spirit-analogies) : the work is referred to in the 

 De Minima, i. 3. 210 (re the magical influences of bodies newly 

 dead ; " the soul everywhere recognises the matter of its own body, 

 as we have shown in the book on physical magic "). 



7. De Magia Mathematica. Merely a collection of excerpts 

 from writers on Magic Tritemius, Agrippa, Pietro Di Abano, the 

 (Pseudo-) Albertus Magnus. (Noroff MSS. The title is that ot 

 the Italian editors.) 



8. De Rerum Principiis et Elementis et Causis. (Noroff MSS. 

 The writing was begun on the i6th of March 1590, in Helmstadt, 

 by Besler, to Bruno's dictation.) 



It contains the theory of the natural and material elements or 



1 Vide Op, Lat. iii., Introduction by Vitelli ; but according to Stbizle (Archi-v fur 

 Gesch. d. PhiL iii. 1890) and Tocco (Op. Ined., p. 99) they belong to the first stay 

 in Paris. The latter adds that they may have been repeated in Wittenberg. 



