264 THOMAS WHITTAKEE : GIOEDANO BEUNO. he conveys under the imaginative form of this theory some of the principal ideas of his philosophy. From his mode of combining the idea of metempsychosis with that of meta- morphosis it may be inferred that his doctrine of " the immortality of the soul " is not a doctrine of personal im- mortality. This indeed is evident from the frequency with which he speaks of the souls as drinking of Lethe before passing into a new state of existence. Of this idea as well as of his doctrine of " the soul of the world " he finds an expression in Virgil ; and he finds it in the passage from which he has taken the lines that have already been quoted, in the speech of Anchises which, according to tradition, contains an account of the doctrines of Pythagoras. 1 Virgil in the latter part of this passage makes Anchises tell how the souls that have attained Elysium become willing to enter into new bodies. Has omnes, ubi mille rotam volvere per annos, Lethaeum ad fluvium Deus evocat agmine magno ; Scilicet immemores, supera ut convexa revisaut, Rursus et iiicipiant in corpora velle reverti. Or as Bruno expresses it in the language of his own philosophy, the transmigrating souls, by the compassion of Fate, are caused to drink of the waters of Lethe before receiving new forms, in order that they may suffer as little pain as possible from the inevitable contradiction of their desire to maintain their states, and that after every change of embodiment they may remain equally desirous of preserving themselves in their new state of being. In the foregoing article the aim has been to explain the ideas of Bruno in their relations to one another. Before continuing the study by any attempt at a critical estimate, it seems well to wait for the appearance of the book on " The Life and Works of Giordano Bruno " which has been for some time announced by Messrs. Triibner. 1 Mneid, vi., 724-751. Bruno refers to Virgil as the " Pythagorean poet ".
