Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/472

 M. CARRIERS, DIE REFORMATIONSZEIT. 459 and even to recognise it as superior to theology. The religion of philosophy is for the few, the religion of faith for the many, who are unable to rise to philosophic virtue or have not sufficient natural goodness to act rightly without external law. By those who are only capable of faith and not of reason, the moral precepts of religion must be accepted as commands, and the theologians, having practice alone in view, may attach to them as sanctions doctrines which the philosophers from the point of view of free speculation may reject. But when false leaders arise who, seeking their own gain under the pretext of promoting religion, teach that the gods care only for the beliefs of men, when they extol ignorance and credulity as superior to knowledge and reason, and persecute those who hold other opinions, they are to be regarded as Hydras and Chimaeras worse than those of old time ; and to overcome them is the task of the heroes of the present world. " True fathers and shepherds of the people " have never prejudiced the liberty of philosophers. This attitude of Bruno explains perfectly his partial submission to the Church hefore the Venetian tribunal. As Prof. Carriere says, he had no intention of recanting his philosophical ideas. "He recanted his ecclesiastical heresies, not his philosophy." And in return for this purely formal submission in matters of theology, he wished to be free to pursue his philosophical career, not merely as a student but as a writer, without molestation. His hope was that the fury of the Catholic reaction had abated, and that the new Pope, who was said to be favourable to learning, might accept the dedication of a book he had just composed. Some have found a difficulty in reconciling with this submission his subsequent refusal to recant certain propositions drawn from his writings. The difference, however, from Bruno's point of view, between a submission to the Church in theology, implying only that he had no intention of directly attacking the popular faith and was not an adherent of any new sect, and the uncon- ditional recantation of propositions of his own philosophy, seems sufficiently obvious. At the end of his exposition Prof. Carriere makes some interest- ing and instructive comparisons of Bruno with later philosophers. The analogy with Spinoza has always been the first to suggest itself. This analogy Prof. Carriere draws out in the manner already indicated. In Bruno he finds the original harmony of the doctrines of the unity of the world and the individuality of its parts that were developed in a one-sided manner by Spinoza and Leibniz ; and he further contends that to the Spinozistic notion of substance Bruno added the conception of a divine ' f self-consciousness ". This last contention, although not admis- sible in the precise form in which Prof. Carriere defends it, has yet an element of truth. Bruno, like Spinoza, calls the extended world an " attribute " of God ; but with Bruno thought is not simply an attribute parallel with extension, but, as absolute, is