278 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



it out of the turmoil of the constant change and 

 vicissitude, to which the vulgar soul is, in common with 

 all living things, subjected. "The beginning, middle, 

 and end, birth, growth, and perfection of all earthly 

 things are from contraries, through contraries, in con- 

 traries, and to contraries ; and where there is contrariety, 

 there is also action, reaction, movement, diversity, 

 multitude, order, degrees, succession, change." " There 

 is never any pleasure," we read elsewhere, " without 

 some bitterness ; nay, if there were not the bitter in 

 things, there would not be the pleasurable, for fatigue 

 makes us to find pleasure in repose, separation causes us 

 to find joy in union, and so everywhere we find that 

 one contrary is the reason of another being desired and 

 pleasing : " l and so it is with pain. None, therefore, 

 are ever satisfied with their state, except the unfeeling 

 or the foolish who have no knowledge of their own ill, 

 but enjoy the present without fear of the future, can 

 find rest in what is, and have no feeling or desire for 

 what might be : " in short have no sense of contrariety, 

 which is figured by the tree of the knowledge of good 

 and evil. 2 " Ignorance is the mother of sensual 

 happiness and joy ; hence " the heroic love (in its 

 beginning) is a torment, for it does not rest in the 

 present, as does sensual love, but feels ambition, emula- 

 tion, suspicious fear for the future, the absent, the 

 contrary." Yet the wise man is neither happy nor 

 miserable, knowing that good and evil are alike 

 relative, alike fading and temporary things, he is neither 

 dismayed nor elated, but becomes continent in his 

 inclinations, and temperate in his pleasures. Pleasure 

 is not really pleasure to him, for he has present to 

 him its ceasing ; pain is not pain, for he has by force 



1 Lag. 634. 4. 2 634. 22. 



