Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/474

 M. CAEEI^EE, DIE REFORMATIONSZEIT. 461 the ground of an evolutionary theory. Individual things are represented as all in perpetual mutation, some approaching and some receding from the absolute unity ; every soul or central monad occupying in turn all positions in " the wheel of meta- morphosis ''. If those interpreters of Hegel are right who say that he teaches no real evolution in time but only a " dialectical " evolution, then Bruno's philosophical doctrine is more nearly than Hegel's an anticipation of the tendency of modern science. In his attitude towards science, as Prof. Carriere says, Gior- dano Bruno is a guiding star for philosophers. His boldness in taking up the Copernican astronomy into his system, has been entirely justified by the succeeding centuries. That theory, in his day, was in the position of the theory of organic evolution before Darwin ; and it ought to be remembered that he not only accepted the theory of Copernicus but made an extension of it which has also become a permanent scientific possession. Isolated suggestions of ideas that have since become important or cele- brated have frequently been pointed out. The saying, for example, that the moderns are in reality older than the ancients, occurs in Bruno. The preference he expressed for the earlier philosophers of Greece in physics and metaphysics, while allowing the supremacy of Aristotle in "the humanistic sciences," has been shared by many later students. He in a manner anticipated " the Cartesian doubt," as is pointed out by Prof. Carriere, but did not make it the beginning of a systematic theory of know- ledge. In all that relates to " theory of knowledge," indeed, it must be admitted that Bruno remains outside the specifically modern philosophic movement. The modern distinction of subject and object, dating from Descartes, could not of course be present to him. This makes it difficult to compare his philosophy with any system that starts from Cartesianism. His general doctrine, when compared with Spinoza's parallelism of the attributes of extension and thought, appears to be predominat- ingly idealistic ; and this brings him nearer in some respects to later philosophy ; but his idealism cannot be identified with any form of post-Cartesian idealism. At the same time it is not mere Platonism, Bruno's doctrine of matter in Delia Causa is alone sufficient to distinguish him from the ordinary Platonists. The ideas of his philosophy, like those of the pantheistic philosophy of the Eenaissance in general, are of course largely drawn from Neo-Platonist sources. And his predecessors in the theory of matter Avicebron and David of Dinant started from mediaeval Platonism. Bruno, however, does not simply pass on their theory, as has sometimes been assumed, but, while com- mending them for what they affirm as to the permanence of the material principle of things, finds their usual mode of expression inadequate, as not taking account of the formal principle which is eternally conjoined with matter, but only of accidental forms. With Bruno's doctrine of matter goes his substitution of an