4 



BRUXO. 



79 



Universal Force, a force which leads to steps corre- 

 sponding in the world of organized beings to a 

 gradated scale of development (like the scale of 

 Aristotle, or, later, of Bonnet, in which each form 

 was a starting-point for the next). Therefore 

 Bruno saw in plants the latent forces of the gene- 

 ration of animals ; in stones, the collective kinds 

 of plants ; in man, the whole lower creation. 

 GiJttler traces Bruno's philosophy to Nicolas of 

 Cusa, and characterizes it as monistic. Lange and 

 Erdmann more accurately speak of his system as 

 pantheistic. In profession, but not in method, 

 Bruno was scientific. He followed Aristotle, and ' 

 forestalled Bacon, in teaching Induction ; one of 

 his chief maxims being that "the investigation 

 of Nature in the unbiased light of reason is our 

 onlv ffuide to truth." Bruno's admirers have re- 

 cently claimed for him anticipation not only of the 

 method of Bacon, but of the ' perfection ' doctrine 

 and the theory of monads of Leibnitz, and point 

 out in his physical teachings the theory of the 

 centre of gravity of planets, of the elliptical orbits 

 of comets, and the perfect sphericity of the earth. 



By selecting certain passages from his profuse 

 writings, we may credit Bruno with teaching some 

 elements of the Evolution idea; but we must first 

 see how such special passages are enlarged by 

 others, in order to reach Bruno's real conceptions. 

 In estimating his originality, we must be familiar 

 with Greek, Arabic, and Oriental writings, from 



