Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/271

 GIORDANO BRUNO. 259 It has already been seen that Bruno regarded the super- natural sanction of morality as having some value for those whose actions must be regulated by external law. Since the fear of human justice is not sufficient to repress wrong- doers, it has been necessary, in his view, that the fear of divine justice should be added. The anthropomorphic gods may preserve their existence by doing reverence to the Truth that is above them and by making themselves the guardians of morality. An episode of the Spaccio which has much interest in relation to Bruno's philosophy of religion is the discussion of Greek and Egyptian polytheism in the third dialogue. It is contended that both the Greeks and the Egyptians worshipped under many forms the one divinity that is latent in all things ; the Egyptians chiefly under the forms of animals, the Greeks chiefly under the forms of men. Jupiter was once a king of Crete and a mortal man ; the name of Jupiter was given to the divinity seen under a certain aspect, not because it was supposed that the mortal Jupiter was a god, but because it was held that the divinity was in Jupiter as in all things, and because in the extraordinary magna- nimity or justice of Jupiter was seen the magnanimity or justice of the divinity. As the Greeks gave the names of men who had once lived on earth, and in whom more than in others certain divine qualities had been present, to parti- cular aspects of the divinity, so the Egyptians gave the names of various animals to aspects of the same divinity manifested in its descent to the production of natural things. It is maintained by Isis in the assembly of the gods that the wisdom of the Egyptians consisted in knowledge of the processes by which the life that is manifested in the multi- plicity of things returns to its source, and that this know- ledge was embodied in the Egyptian religion. The Greek and Egyptian deities complain that the Jews and the Chris- tians, having really fallen into the errors from which their own worshippers have been proved to be exempt, and being besides open to every accusation they can bring against others, yet reproach with idolatry those whose knowledge of the divinity was far greater than theirs. Isis declares that the followers of new religions have triumphed, not by their own merits, but because fate, in the vicissitudes of things, gives its time to darkness. The prophecy is ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus, that after the ancient religions have fallen there shall come a time when darkness shall be pre- ferred to light and death to life, when those who attach themselves to "the religion of the mind" shall not be per-