Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/254

 242 THOMAS WHITTAKER : opposes the Platonic doctrines no less than those of the official Peripatetic philosophy. A more directly metaphysical impulse was received by Bruno from Nicholas of Cusa than from any other modern thinker. Cusa has been described as the first German who, in the fifteenth century, attached himself to the study of Grecian antiquity. He was known as a reformer within the limits of Catholicism, took part in the Council of Basel, and was made a Cardinal. There are said to be suggestions of some of the new astronomical doctrines in his chief work, De docta lynorantia. The most important idea that Bruno derived from him was that of " the coincidence of con- traries". He thought that "the divine Cusanus," as he sometimes calls him, would have been still greater as a philosopher if he had not been restricted through his posi- tion in the Church ; for Cusa had tried to reconcile his philo- sophical system with the dogmas of Catholicism. Bruno ascribed some of the ideas of the Cardinal of Cusa to the influence of Kaymond Lully (1235-1315), famous in tradition as an alchemist. Lully was the author of a system of logic by which the Mohammedans were to be converted to Christianity. His disciples maintained that his logical system was a means of discovering all truth. It is worthy of remark that he had not subordinated philosophy to theology ; the doctrines of Catholic theology were to emerge as the result of a logical process. Bruno made additions to Lully 's system, and during the whole period of his philoso- phical activity spent much time in writing expositions of it and in teaching it both publicly and privately. That which attracted him in it was probably the conception of the unity of knowledge, expressed in the doctrine that the mind may pass from any one idea to any other idea. But no relation except this very general one can be traced between the logi- cal and mnemonic art of Lully and Bruno's own philosophi- cal doctrines. If the exposition of the mnemonic art in the De Uiribris Idearum may be taken as an example, Bruno's treatment of the details of the system founded by him on that of Lully is very obscure. Other passages in his Latin works are affected with an obscurity similar to that of the " Lullian jargon ". But this occasional obscurity does not affect the essential character of Bruno's writings. As in the De Umbris Idearum, the passages that are of philosophical interest are always per- fectly clear. And in the obscure passages themselves there is nothing of the nature of imperfect articulation. It is diffi- cult to believe that they were intended to be understood.