o the
different forms and bodies in which it operates. Hence, of animate
things some are inferior by reason of the meanness of the organ in which
they operate; others are superior through the richness of the same. Thus
we see that Bruno anticipates the doctrine, proclaimed later by Goethe
and by Darwin, of the transformation of species and of the organic unity
of the animal world; and this alternation from segregation to
aggregation, which we call death and life, is no other than mutation of
form.

After having criticised and scourged the religions of chimera, of
ignorance, and hypocrisy, in "Lo Spaccio della Bestia Trionfante" and in
"L'Asino Cillenico," the author, in "Gli Eroici Furori," lays down the
basis for the religion of thought and of science. In place of the
so-called Christian perfections (resignation, devotion, and ignorance),
Bruno would put intelligence and the progress of the intellect in the
world of physics, metaphysics, and morals; the true aim being
illumination, the true morality the practice of justice, the true
redemption the liberation of the soul from error, its elevation and
union with God upon the wings of thought. This idea is developed in the
work in question, which is dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney. After
treating of the infinite universe, and contemplating the innumerable
worlds in other works, he comes, in "Gli Eroici Furori," to the
consideration of virtue in the individual, and demonstrates the potency
of the human faculties. After the Cosmos, the Microcosm; after the
infinitely great, the infinitely small. The body is in the soul, the
soul is in the mind, the mind is in God. The life of the soul is the
true life of the man. Of all his various faculties, that which rules
all, that which exalts our nature, is Thought. By means of it we rise to
the contemplation of the universe, and becoming in our turn creators, we
raise the edifice of science; through the intellect the affections
become purified, the will becomes strengthened. True liberty is
acquired, and will and action becoming one through thought, we become
heroes.

This education of the soul, or rather this elevation and glory of
thought, which draws with it the will and the affections, not by means
of blind faith or supernatural grace, not through an irrational and
mystical impulse, but by the strength of a reformed intellect and by a
palpable and well-considered enthusiasm, which science and the
contemplation of Nature alone c