ii INSTINCT AND INTELLIGENCE 219 



Bruno rejected l the popular notion that the behaviour 

 of ants, spiders, and other animals does not spring from 

 their proper foresight and artifice, but from divine, 

 unerring intelligence acting upon them from without, 

 giving them those " thrusts " (spinte) which are called 

 "natural instincts" a term which he regarded as 

 meaningless. " Is this ' natural instinct ' sense or 

 intellect? If the former, is it internal or external? 

 Clearly it is not external ; but if internal, where is 

 the internal sense from which they could have their 

 foresight, their arts and artifices, their precautions, 

 expeditions, to meet various conditions, both present 

 and future ? There must be some proximate principle, 

 i.e. a form of intelligence peculiar to each animal, 

 which determines its actions. The divine and universal 

 intelligence is merely the principle that gives it intelli- 

 gence, through which it understands." 2 The action of 

 animals of a given kind were supposed to be after one 

 perfect model, and to be undeliberate. Bruno there- 

 fore placed their intelligence higher than that of man, 

 nearer the level of that of the world-souls. "The 

 swallow makes its nest, the ants their cave, the spiders 

 their web or nets, in one way only, than which they 

 could not make them more admirably or suitably. . . . 

 Who knows whether the spirit of man is rising upwards, 

 that of others moving downwards ? At least it is to 

 be referred to a defect of light and divine force that 

 men hesitate and deliberate in all that belongs to the 

 means of life, the modes of worship and defence, for if 

 all knew perfectly, all would be governed in the best, 

 and consequently in one way only." It is, then, on 

 the analogy of these supposed higher, unerring faculties 

 of animals that Bruno considers the souls of the worlds 



1 Ccna, Lag. 185. 4. 2 Cabala, p. 587. 23 ff. 



