III. Raymond Lully

In early youth Bruno began the study of one whom he calls "an untutored hermit, filled with divine genius";* one who, so he thought, builded wiser than he knew. Raymond Lully of Minorca (1235-1315), known as "the Enlightened Doctor," was a contemporary of Duns Scotus,
' Bruno; De Monade, passim.
" Agrippa, H. C ; De occulta philosophia.,fol.. Colonics, 1533.
' Bruno, // Cabala con raggiunta de I'asino Cillenico.
' De Lampade Combinatoria.
DISCIPLINE OF BOOKS 27
the "Subtle Doctor." He gave up the life of a man of pleasure for Franciscan severity, and set himself to study in order to qualify himself for persuading the Moslem of the sweet reasonableness of Christianity. LuUy's spirit was unconquerable, and the strange happenings which he encountered in many lands surpass the most extravagant imagination of the novelists of adventure. His zeal for the Faith burned as strong as that of Bruno for philosophic truth, and the example of Lully may have been a spur to Bruno in his youth and may have sustained him later in his chequered and nomadic life.
Lully found time to leave behind him 321 works on all branches of knowledge.^ Of these the most important was his "Great Art" {Ars Magna). Scholasticism found Lully indifferent to it ; but he believed he could prove the truth of Christianity by reason.^ His attempt to do so was judiciously condemned by that great dictatorship in Theology — the University of Paris. Since Lully was a Franciscan, his works proved distasteful to the rival Dominican order, who set to work, and in 1376 a Bull of Gregory XI condemned his works as heretical. But this was said to be a forgery, and was formally annulled by Martin V (1376). The Spaniard's system was highly valued by many distinguished thinkers in the i6th century; but, two years after Bruno left Naples, LuUism was once again attacked as heretical.
The spirit of Neo-Platonism still breathes in "The Great Art," and the work is regulated by Pythagorean teaching as to the mystic nature of numbers. The art is based on the theory that, from certain given ideas, it is possible to disengage all ideas which are implicitly contained
' Antonio, Nicolas ; Bibl. Hispan. vefusj Hispan. scrip, ad a. 1500 ; cur. Bayetio.
" Lullius, R ; De Ariiculis Fidei.
28 GIORDANO BRUNO
in them, and so to track and discover knowledge. LuUy sets down for us what he considers to be those objects of knowledge which are indisputable and universally accepted and acknowledged, and also the methods of procedure by which our intelligence operates. He then places in a circle, called the key to discovery, nine fundamental ques- tions which may be asked. Within this circle, which may be regarded as fixed, are five other concentric circles, which can be made to revolve, each one independently of the others, and each of these circles is divided into 9 compart- ments. By following given rules of a simple character, the middle term of any syllogism was held to be discoverable. For speed in working, the circles and their compartments were indicated by symbols. Bruno saw in this art the germs of that complete and symbolic logic at which LuUy aimed; a vision which also aroused the hope of Leibnitz and which occupied much attention during the last quarter of the last century. He found it invaluable for the purposes of artificial memory, and the first and last of his printed works, as well as many of the volumes which lie between, are devoted to improvements in Lullism. His mastery of the " Enlightened Doctor " proved useful to him as an introduction to scholars and to seats of learning.