270 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



hardly be said, however, that he anticipated the 

 Evolution, evolution theory so far as it involves an identity of 

 origin for human beings and lower animals. The idea 

 that different human beings express different animal 

 types was not a new one. It means in Bruno that such 

 men have animal souls, but this is not because their 

 bodies have reverted to the animal type. It is the soul 

 that moulds the body and gives, in these cases, the 

 animal expression to the face the look of wolf, or 

 bear, or fox, or serpent. There is no question of a 

 physical continuity between animal and man, but there is 

 a psychical continuity, since a soul which is that of an 

 animal in one generation may become that of a man in 

 another. 1 A much nearer approach to the evolution- 

 theory is to be found in the Cabala? where it is said 

 Man and that if a serpent could have its head moulded into that 

 8 ' of a man, its tongue widened, its shoulders broadened, 

 arms and hands branching out from it, and, where the 

 tail now is, a pair of legs, it would think, look, breathe, 

 speak, work, and walk just as a man does, for it would 

 be nothing but a man. Or if the reverse process 

 occurred, in a man (involution), in place of talking he 

 would hiss, in place of walking he would creep, in place 

 of building a palace he would hollow out a hiding-place 

 for himself. This is not, however, because the body of 

 the one had been transformed into that of the other 

 animal, function following structure ; the soul with all 

 its qualities is unchanged it is one and the same in 

 both ; the differences are only in the power of expres- 

 sion. A serpent or any other animal might have a 

 higher intelligence than man, yet remain inferior to him 

 through poverty of instruments. If man had not 

 hands, but two feet in their stead, however high his 



1 Vide infra, ch. vii., re transmigration. 2 Lag. p. 586. II. 



