256 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



works of others, who instituted temples, chapels, 

 hospices, hospitals, colleges, universities, for quite other 

 men than they. These others, even if they are not 

 perfect, will not, like their usurpers, be perverse and 

 pernicious to the world ; they will be useful to the 

 state, skilled in speculative science, studious of morality, 

 fanning zeal and enthusiasm for doing good to one 

 another, and maintaining the common weal for which 

 all laws are ordained. The usurpers are worse than 

 grubs, caterpillars, or destroying locusts, and should be 

 exterminated accordingly." l How is it possible, we 

 read elsewhere, that men should regard that as the 

 highest type of religion which holds behaviour, the 

 doing of good deeds, to be unimportant, or even to be 

 vice and error ; or pretends that the gods do not care 

 for good deeds that through such, however great they 

 are, men are not justified ? 2 This creed was a disease 

 that ran through a man's nature and poisoned it for 

 ever. " When one turned from any other profes- 

 sion or faith to this, his liberality was exchanged for 

 avarice, mildness for insolence, humility for pride ; 

 formerly open handed with his own goods, he now 

 became a robber and usurper of those of others ; a 

 good man became a hypocrite ; a sincere one, cunningly 

 evil ; a simple one, malicious ; he who was once 

 conscious of his own defects became the most arrogant 

 of men ; he who was ready to do any good action, to 

 learn any new knowledge, became prone to every kind 

 of ignorance and ribaldry ; he who had merely the 

 makings of a rogue became the worst possible of men." 3 

 Miracle-working was the universal means by which the 

 supremacy of faith was maintained. Momus therefore 



1 Lag. p. 446. I ff., cf. 447. " Questa fetida Sporcaria del mondo" and 467. 

 2 P. 462. 30. 3 P. 468. 25. 



