304 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



deceives nor is deceived, and is not envious, but good 

 in the highest degree is indeed truth and goodness 

 itself; so, when he speaks to us of occult things, of 

 mysteries, it must be evident that everything he pro- 

 poses for our belief is true, and that everything he 

 proposes for our doing is good. But God is also the 

 Author of nature, of our senses, of our eyes, and of 

 that truth and evidence which is in them and according 

 to them ; truth does not contradict truth, goodness is 

 not opposed to goodness. The word of God that is 

 spread through the parts of nature, His hand and in- 

 strument, for Nature is either God himself, or the 

 divine force manifest in things, is not opposed to the 

 word of God, from whatever other part or principle it 

 springs. 1 There could be no clearer assertion of the 

 right of philosophy and science to pursue their own 

 way in the discovery of truth. Nothing revealed from 

 above can conflict with truth acquired by the discursive, 

 slow-moving human reason, nor on the other hand 

 can any real truth arrived at by science ever contradict 

 the pure, genuinely - revealed, word of God. The 

 sphere of faith is separated from that of reason ; faith 

 follows the authority of revelation, is an infallible 

 certainty equal to, if not greater than, that of sense- 

 knowledge and the intuition of first principles. Re- 

 vealed truths are outside the sphere of sense and reason, 

 not, however, as opposed or contrary to the truths 

 belonging to that sphere, but as above them. While 

 philosophical faith enables us to act according to reason 

 and human nature, guiding us by principles innate in 

 ourselves, to the perfection of our natural condition, 

 theological faith leads us by supernatural principles to a 

 supernatural end, to become formed in the likeness and 



1 Summa, Ob. Lat. i. 4. 100, 101 (sub. E-vldent'ia}. 



