is argument, he established the theory of a philosophical
belief, a religion of religions, or 'religione della mente,' as he
phrased it, prior to and comprehensive of all historical creeds. He
speculated, as probabilities, the transmigration of souls, and the
interchangeability of types in living creatures. He further postulated a
concordance between the order of thought and the order of existence in
the universe, and inclined to the doctrine of necessity in morals. Bruno
thus obtained _per saltum_ a prospect over the whole domain of knowledge
subsequently traversed by rationalism in metaphysics, theology and
ethics. In the course of these demonstrations and deductions he
anticipated Descartes' position of the identity of mind and being. He
supplied Spinoza with the substance of his reasoned pantheism; Leibnitz
with his theory of monadism and pre-established harmony. He laid down
Hegel's doctrine of contraries, and perceived that thought was a
dialectic process. The modern theory of evolution was enunciated by him
in pretty plain terms. He had grasped the physical law of the
conservation of energy. He solved the problem of evil by defining it to
be a relative condition of imperfect development. He denied that
Paradise or a Golden Age is possible for man, or that, if possible, it
can be considered higher in the moral scale than organic struggle toward
completion by reconciliation of opposites through pain and labor. He
sketched in outline the comparative study of religions, which is now
beginning to be recognized as the proper basis for theology. Finally, he
had a firm and vital hold upon that supreme speculation of the universe,
considered no longer as the battle-ground of dual principles, or as the
finite fabric of an almighty designer, but as the self-effectuation of
an infinite unity, appearing to our intelligence as spirit and
matter--that speculation which in one shape or another controls the
course of modern thought.[125]

[Footnote 125: It was my intention to support the statements in this
paragraph by translating the passages which seem to me to justify them;
and I had gone so far as to make English versions of some twenty pages
in length, when I found that this material would overweight my book. A
study of Bruno as the great precursor of modern thought in its more
poetical and widely synthetic speculation must be left for a separate
essay. Here I may remark that the most faithful and pithily condensed
abstract