GIORDANO BRUNO. 241 of an infinite space in which there are innumerable systems like the solar system, having the so-called fixed stars for their centres. But he still thought Copernicus inferior to no astronomer who had been before him. He saw in him the thinker who had set himself free from the opinions of the multitude, and had first made possible the more complete emancipation of the intellect that is the consequence of the substitution of the conception of an infinite for that of a finite universe. This new philosophical conception seemed to him to bring with it far greater good than the discovery of new continents. Those who have discovered new conti- nents, he says, have found out the way to disturb the peace of nations, to multiply vices, to propagate tyrannies, while the new philosophy, on the other hand, liberates the mind from chimeras and shows it how to ascend to the stars. Though Bruno satirised the humanists, he had himself much classical learning. His biographers have remarked the evidences of extensive reading that are to be found in his works. He had studied with special interest the records of the teachings of the pre-Socratic philosophers. He was of opinion that Pythagoras and other early speculators had had a truer View of the universe than that which had triumphed through the authority of Aristotle. He claimed to have revived this earlier and truer philosophy, of which the fragments had first been gathered together by Coper- nicus, although, for the reason that has been mentioned, Copernicus had not been able completely to convict " the vulgar philosophy " of falsehood. Another branch of learning to which Bruno had given special attention was the study of mythology ; not only the mythology of the Greeks but also that of the Egyptians and of the ancient nations of the East so far as knowledge of it was accessible to him. He had, as Bartholmess points out, the idea of a science of comparative mythology. The polemic of Bruno against Aristotle is chiefly directed against his cosmology. He acknowledges his pre-eminence in rhetoric, in politics, in logic, and often quotes his opinions with approval even in physics and in metaphysics ; but he accuses him of misrepresenting the opinions of the earlier philosophers who were superior to him. At the same time, in opposing the established cosmological system, he brings against those who appeal to authority the argument that the moderns are really older than the ancients. He preferred Plato to Aristotle, and it is evident that he had been influ- enced by the Platonists of his own and the preceding age as well as by the Alexandrian Neo-Platonists. Yet he often
