CHAPTER VII 



THE HIGHER LIFE 



WE now turn to the higher moral life, which is at the 

 same time the religious life, of the heroic soul in its 

 struggle towards perfection. This perfection consists 

 in comprehension of the world as infinitely perfect, 

 in the union with God as the source from which the 

 world flows, the spirit in which it lives, and in the Love 

 of God as at once infinite beauty and infinite goodness. 



We have seen that there are to Bruno, as to Plato 

 and to Aristotle, two classes of men, the " vulgar " and 

 the " heroic," 1 the lower or subject, and the upper or 

 ruling classes : as in each of us there are two principles, 

 a higher, intellect or reason or mind, and a lower, sense 

 and sensual passion. The danger is as great to the 

 world when the lower class attempts to usurp the place 

 of the higher, as it is to the individual soul when passion 

 overwhelms reason. The spread of pedantry, in the 

 universities and in the churches, greater in his time and 

 more menacing to human progress than it had ever 

 been, was an illustration to Bruno's eye of the results 

 ensuing when lower minds tampered with divine 

 knowledge. 2 



The heroic soul is raised by the divine spirit within 



1 There is a mingling, in Bruno's use of this word, of meanings derived from 

 and from Plato's fyws. 2 Lag. 717. 39 ff. 



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