300 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



for which the laws were ordained. For this reason 

 Alghazel said that the function of the books of the 

 law was not so much to probe the truth of things, or 

 speculation, as to promote good customs/' and to 

 provide for the welfare of republics and of humanity. 

 To use the terms of science where there is no need, is 

 to ask that the vulgar, the foolish many, from whom 

 only conduct is required, shall have a special com- 

 prehension, to ask that the hand shall have the eye, 

 whereas it is not made by nature to see, but to work, 

 and to obey the eye. 1 



The revelation of the Scriptures is accordingly re- 

 duced to that of a moral ideal, to be enforced upon the 

 ordinary man by the threat of future punishment and 

 promise of future reward ; but it is an ideal which the 

 wise man would acquire by the light of reason alone, 

 and which he would pursue for its own sake. 



On the other hand, the ceremonies and worship 

 of the Church were never attacked by Bruno, nor did 

 he ever place himself in open hostility to it ; while he 

 submitted, formally at least, to the rites of the Pro- 

 testant churches in Geneva and Helmstadt. The 

 grounds of this outward conformity may have been 

 various : Bruno had no interest in speculative theology, 

 and probably kept an open mind towards the prevailing 

 dogmas and the ceremonies that symbolised the 

 truths contained in them. He believed with Pom- 

 ponazzi, and others after him, that religion is a good 

 thing for the many, the foolish and ignorant of the 

 world, while knowledge or philosophy takes its place 

 with the wise. The former must be governed by laws 

 which they have blindly to obey, hence the supernatural 



1 Cena, Lag. 169. 17 ff. j cf. Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico politicus, esp. ch. 14 and 

 15, and preface, 24: " Scripturam rationem absolute liberam relinquere et nihil 

 cum philosophia commune habere." 



