These are some of Bruno’s characteristic opinions. Their influence upon subsequent philosophers has been much discussed. His conception of the universe as an “animal” corresponds with Kepler’s well-known view. Spinoza, the great pantheist of the following century, took from him the idea of an immanent God, and the distinction between natura naturans and natura naturata. Schelling, who acknowledged Bruno as his master, found in him the principle of the indifference of contraries; Hegel, that of the absolute identity of subject and object, of the real and the ideal, of thought and things. La Croze discovers in Bruno the germs of most of Leibnitz’s theories, beginning with the monad. Symonds declares that “he anticipated Descartes’s position of the identity of mind and being. The modern theory of evolution was enunciated by him in pretty plain terms. He had grasped the physical law of the conservation of energy. He solved the problem of evil by defining it to be a relative condition of imperfect energy.... We have indeed reason to marvel how many of Bruno’s intuitions have formed the stuff of later, more elaborated systems, and still remain the best which these contain. We have reason to wonder how many of his divinations have worked themselves into the common fund of modern beliefs, and have become philosophical truisms.”[32] Hallam, who strangely undervalued Bruno, states that he understood the principle of compound forces. After making due allowance for the common tendency to read back into men’s opinions interpretations they never dreamed of, we shall find that much solid substance still remains to Bruno’s credit. He is, above all, suggestive.
[32] From J. A. Symonds’s Renaissance in Italy: The Catholic Reaction, chap. ix.
III
We come now to that perplexing question, “Why did he recant? How could he, who was so evidently a freethinker and a rationalist, honestly affirm his belief in the Roman Catholic dogmas?” His confession seems to be straightforward and candid: had he wished to propitiate the Inquisitors, he needed only not to mention his philosophical doubts about the Incarnation and the Trinity; he needed only to admit that there were in his writings errors which he no longer approved, and to throw himself on the mercy of his tribunal. What, then, was the motive? Was it physical fear? Did life and liberty seem too tempting to him who loved both so intensely; preferable to death, no matter how great the sacrifice of honor? Did he simply perjure himself? Or was he suddenly overcome by a doubt that his opinions might be, after all, wrong, and that the Church might be right? He testified, and others testified, that before he had any thought of being brought to trial he had determined to make his peace with the Pope, and to obtain leave, if he could, to pass the remainder of his life in philosophical tranquillity. Did the early religious associations and prejudices, which he supposed had long ago ceased to influence him, unexpectedly spring up, to reassert a temporary tyranny over his reason? Many men not in jeopardy of their lives have had this experience of the tenacious vitality of the doctrines taught to them before they could reason. Did it seem to him a huge Aristophanic joke that a church which then had but little real faith and less true religion in it should call any one to account for any opinions, and that therefore the lips might well enough accept her dogmas without binding the heart to them? Many men, who believed themselves sincere, have subscribed in a “non-natural sense” to the Thirty-nine Articles of Anglicanism; did Bruno subscribe to the Catholic Articles under a similar mental reservation? Or, believing, as he did, that every religion contains fragments of the truth, could he not honestly say he believed in Catholicism, at the same time holding that her symbols had a deeper significance than her theologians perceived, and that the truth he apprehended was immeasurably wider?—just as a mathematician might subscribe to the multiplication table, knowing that it is not the final bound of mathematical truth, but only the first step towards higher and unlimited investigations.
Throughout his examination Bruno was careful to make the distinction between the province of faith and the province of speculation. “Speaking after the manner of philosophy,” he confessed that he had reached conclusions which, “speaking as a Catholic,” he ought not to believe. This distinction, which we now think uncandid and casuistical, was nevertheless admitted in his time. All through that century, men had argued “philosophically” about the immortality of the soul; but “theologically” such an argument was impossible, because the Church pronounced the immortality of the soul to be an indisputable fact. But, we ask, can a man honestly hold two antagonistic, mutually destroying beliefs; saying, for instance, that his reason has disproved the Incarnation, but that his faith accepts that doctrine? Or was Bruno unaware of his contradictions? Of how many of your opinions concerning the ultimate mysteries of life do you, reader, feel so sure that, were you suddenly seized, imprisoned, brought face to face with a pitiless tribunal, and confronted by torture and burning, you—one man against the world—would boldly, without hesitation, publish and maintain them? Galileo, one of mankind’s noblest, could not endure this ordeal, although the evidence of his senses and the testimony of his reason contradicted the denial which pain and dread wrung from him. Savonarola, another great spirit, flinched likewise. These are points we are bound to consider before we pronounce Bruno a hypocrite or a coward.
The last news we have of him in Venice is when, “having been bidden several times,” he rose from his knees, after confessing his penitence, on that 30th of July, 1592. The authorities of the Inquisition at Rome immediately opened negotiations for his extradition. The Doge and Senate demurred; they hesitated before establishing the precedent whereby Rome could reach over and punish Venetian culprits. Time was, indeed, when Venice allowed no one, though he were the Pope, to meddle in her administration; but, alas! the lion had died out in Venetian souls. Finally, “wishing to give satisfaction to his Holiness,” Doge and Senators consented to deliver Bruno up; the Pope expressed his gratification, and said that he would never force upon the Republic “bones hard to gnaw.” So Bruno was taken to Rome. In the “list of the prisoners of the Holy Office, made Monday, April 5, 1599,” we find that he was imprisoned on February 27, 1593. What happened during almost seven years we can only surmise. We may be sure the Inquisitors searched his books for further heretical doctrine. We hear that they visited him in his cell from time to time, and exhorted him to recant, but that he replied that he had nothing to abjure, and that they had misinterpreted him. A memorial which he addressed to them they did not read. Growing weary of their efforts to save his soul, they would temporize no more; on a given day he must retract, or be handed over to the secular arm. That day came: Giordano Bruno stood firm, though he knew the penalty was death.
We cannot tell when he first resolved to dare and suffer all. Some time during those seven years of solitude and torment, he awoke to the great fact that
“’Tis man’s perdition to be safe,
When for the truth he ought to die.”