

280 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



desire, fanned by the breath of purpose, they give edge 

 to their senses, and in the sulphur of the thinking 

 faculty enkindle the light of reason, by which they see 

 further than ordinary men. These come in the end to 

 speak and operate not as vases or instruments, but as 

 principal artificers and agents the first have worth or 

 dignity, the second are worthy : or the first are worthy 

 as an ass that carries the sacraments, the second as a 

 sacred thing. In the first we see divinity in effect we 

 admire, adore, obey it ; in the second we see the 

 excellence of our own humanity." l 



The steps towards the highest peak of human 



excellence are compared, after Neoplatonist example, to 



Ascent to- the degrees in intensity of light, as we proceed from 



with the darkness, in which it is entirely absent, to shadow, then 



to t k e co i ours ' m fa^ or d e r from black to white, next 

 to the brightness diffused from polished or transparent 

 bodies, the rays outflowing from the sun, finally to the 

 sjin itself, in which light is most truly and most vividly 

 itself. 2 First of all it is needful for the soul to turn to 

 the light, " by act of conversion to present the light of 

 intelligence to its eyes, so to regain its lost virtue, to 

 strengthen its sinews, to terrify and put to rout its 

 enemies," the lower, sense-feelings and passions. The 

 conversion seems to arise as by an act of grace from 

 above ; or, to express this in other words, the soul or 

 spirit tends towards that with which it has greatest 

 affinity, as the sun-flower tends towards the sun, and 

 this affinity in the human soul is Love. 3 The symbol 



1 Lag. 639. 22 ff. j cf. Sig. Sig. 48, for the first kind of furor (Of. Lot. 

 ii. 2. 191). 



2 Lag. 672. i. 



3 Cf. the Sonnet on p. 631 : 



Amor per cui tant' alto il ver discerno, 

 Ch' apre le porte di diamante nere, 



