knowledge, combined with a belief in the intuitive forces of the human reason:  so that from the first it showed two sides or faces to the world—­the one positive, scientific, critical, and analytical; the other mystical, metaphysical, subjective.  Modern materialism and modern idealism were both contained in the audacious guesses of Bruno and Campanella; nor had the time arrived for clearly separating the two strains of thought, or for attempting a systematic synthesis of knowledge under one or the other head.

The men who led this weighty intellectual movement burned with the passionate ardour of discoverers, the fiery enthusiasm of confessors.  They stood alone, sustained but little by intercourse among themselves, and wholly misunderstood by the people round them.  Italy, sunk in sloth, priest-ridden, tyrant-ridden, exhausted with the unparalleled activity of the Renaissance, besotted with the vices of slavery and slow corruption, had no ears for spirit-thrilling prophecy.  The Church, terrified by the Reformation, when she chanced to hear those strange voices sounding through ‘the blessed mutter of the mass,’ burned the prophets.  The State, represented by absolute Spain, if it listened to them at all, flung them into prison.  To both Church and State there was peril in the new philosophy; for the new philosophy was the first birth-cry of the modern genius, with all the crudity and clearness, the brutality and uncompromising sincerity of youth.  The Church feared Nature.  The State feared the People.  Nature and the People—­those watchwords of modern Science and modern Liberty—­were already on the lips of the philosophers.

It was a philosophy armed, errant, exiled; a philosophy in chains and solitary; at war with society, authority, opinion; self-sustained by the prescience of ultimate triumph, and invincible through the sheer force of passionate conviction.  The men of whom I speak were conscious of Pariahdom, and eager to be martyred in the glorious cause.  ’A very Proteus is the philosopher,’ says Pomponazzo:  ’seeking to penetrate the secrets of God, he is consumed with ceaseless cares; he forgets to thirst, to hunger, to sleep, to eat; he is derided of all men; he is held for a fool and irreligious person; he is persecuted by inquisitors; he becomes a gazing-stock to the common folk.  These are the gains of the philosopher; these are his guerdon.  Pomponazzo’s words were prophetic.  Of the five philosophers whom I mentioned, Vanini was burned as an atheist, Bruno was burned, and Campanella was imprisoned for a quarter of a century.  Both Bruno and Campanella were Dominican friars.  Bruno was persecuted by the Church, and burned for heresy.  Campanella was persecuted by both Church and State, and was imprisoned on the double charge of sedition and heresy. Dormitantium animarum excubitor was the self-given title of Bruno. Nunquam tacebo was the favourite motto of Campanella.