342 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



mately present, " more intimately than each is to him- 

 self." 1 Other ideas which Sigwart has found common 

 to the Short Tractate and the writings of Bruno, are 

 those of the Love of God as springing from the know- 

 ledge of God ; the correspondence between the degrees 

 or stages of love and those of knowledge ; the inability 

 of our minds to rest in a finite object or finite good, 

 the constant pressure onwards towards other and other 

 objects ; the contrast between sensible love and intellect- 

 ual love ; God as the highest, most complete object, the 

 knowledge of Him above and embracing in itself all other 

 knowledge, making the knower one with his object, 

 transforming him into God himself; the divine Harmony 

 in the soul which ensues ; the love of God which is 

 man's highest blessedness, which is wholly disinterested, 

 and blind to all earthly good or beautiful things ; love 

 which is unlimited in its possibility, as its object is 

 infinite : with this limitless possibility of Love is the 

 idea of immortality connected ; but " Bruno deduces 

 from the immortality of man the possibility of a love 

 which increases infinitely ; while for Spinoza, on the 

 contrary, the infinitely increasing love of God is a 

 ground of proof for immortality. " 2 When there is 

 added to these many instances of doctrines in Spinoza's 

 earlier work which were later modified in the direction 

 of greater rigidity and mechanical systematisation, the 

 fact that the Tractate embraces two tentative dialogues, 

 in one of which Spinoza is represented by a Theophilus 

 (as Bruno in so many of his dialogues is represented), 

 it is impossible not to feel convinced that Spinoza for a 

 period of his life at least was a follower of Bruno. It 

 is true that many of these ideas are not the property of 

 Bruno alone, but of the school of Neoplatonism of 



1 Sigwart, Neuent. Tract., pp. 120-124. 2 ^- P- I2 9- 



