GIORDANO BRUNO. 263 other ideas by means of it, and in particular to the doctrine of the permanence of mind. Bruno finds the elements of his theory of metempsychosis in the traditions as to the teachings of the Druids, the Chaldasans, and the Magians, in the opinions ascribed to Pythagoras, and in the doctrines of certain Jewish sects and of some of the Platonic schools. He represents the souls of men, of animals, and even of things commonly called life- less, as alike in substance and differing only as to the kind of body they have last received. According to the nature of their deeds and aspirations when dwelling in one body will be the nature of their next embodiment. Each soul modi- fies the shape of the material substance of its own body as it becomes itself better or worse. Thus from the outward forms of men it may be known whether their next embodi- ment will be of a higher or of a lower kind. In the eternal metamorphoses of matter all souls receive all corporeal forms. Xo soul ever reaches a final state ; all alternately approach and recede from the unity of the absolute intellect, become subject to matter and escape from it. This is figured in mythologies by the legends of gods that have assumed the shapes of beasts and at length by their innate nobility resumed their own forms. Those who aspire to the divinity by intellectual love may be described as changing themselves into gods. That metamorphosis is of all things and is eternal, and that all souls must return from the highest to the lowest and again from the lowest to the highest state, has been taught by all the great philosophers except Plotinus. All the great theologians, on the other hand, with the ex- ception of Origen, have taught that metamorphosis is neither of all things nor eternal, but that those changes which are undergone by a certain number of souls have a period. The doctrine of the theologians is fit to be taught to those who, being now with difficulty restrained from evil, would be re- strained with still more difficulty if they came to believe themselves subject to some lighter conditions of reward and punishment. 1 But that doctrine is to be esteemed true which is taught by " those who speak according to natural reason among the few, the good and the wise ". It is clear from many incidental expressions that, as Bar- tholmess says, Bruno does not advance the theory of me- tempsychosis as a positive doctrine. Yet, as has been seen, 1 Wagner, ii., p. 309. Bruno, however, does not always admit even the utility of the theological dogma in question here. See De Immense, vii., c. 11.
