ii THE SCHOLASTICS 137 



contact between Bruno and the great Arabian one was 

 the doctrine that forms, i.e. individual particular objects, 

 are sent out from and therefore originally contained in 

 matter, or, in modern phrase, that the evolution of 

 natural objects is from within outwards, not imposed 

 upon nature by an alien and separate creator : l the 

 other was the theory of a universal intelligence per- 

 vading and illuminating all human minds, yet remaining 

 one and the same in all, itself an emanation from the 

 Divine, and the lowest in the order of intelligences. 2 

 Bruno did not, however, speak of it as separate from the 

 finite minds, but as immanent in them : nor did he 

 regard it as the only immortal element in man. 



Of the Scholastics proper, from whom much at least 

 of Bruno's terminology is derived, two seem to have 

 influenced him most strongly: Albert the Great, whose 

 interest in natural science entitled him to a place in the 

 temple of wisdom : " He had no equal in his time, and 

 was far superior to Aristotle, whose school, in which he 

 ranked according to the conditions of his age, was 

 unworthy of him ; 3 and Thomas Aquinas, the angelic 

 doctor, " honour and glory of all and every race of 

 theologians and of Peripatetic philosophers." 4 Gener- 

 ally speaking, however, the Scholastic is to Bruno the 

 pedant, the dabbler in words, as contrasted with the 

 student of nature or of reality. 5 Under this condemna- 

 tion fell two of the greatest innovators upon the 

 Aristotelian philosophy of his own time, Ramus, and 



1 Cauza, Lag. 271 : on Averroes cf. Op. Lat. i. i. 221, 224, 337, 338, etc. 



2 Her. Fur. Lag. 677. 



3 Of. Lat. i. i. 16. Albertus lived from 1193 to 1280 A. D. There are frequent 

 references to the spurious writings attributed to him, in Bruno's De Magia Mathe- 

 matica, etc. 



4 i. 2. 415. Cf. Sig. Sig. ii. 2. 190, for a reputed miracle related of Saint 

 Thomas. 



5 Cf. the ridicule in Lag. 361 and 563. 



