II. The Incantation of Circe

Books of the period bore odd titles to catch the eye. Bruno called his next work the "Cantus Circaeus" "The Incantation Of Circe." The Homeric sorceress, who trans- forms men into beasts, discusses with her handmaiden the human vice which each kind of beast represents, and each beast and its vice are memorised under initial letters. Now the nature of memory is occult, and the recalling of ideas may be regarded as a sort of magical process. So the art of memory may be regarded as a fascinating in- cantation. The dialogue is full of bitter satire on human depravity. A second dialogue follows with different inter- locutors. It treats more directly and precisely than the previous "Art of Memory" of that subject. There is an attempt to localise the functions of the brain as the physical conditions of mental process.* The principle of the association of ideas is more closely followed than in De Umbris and copious illustrations of method are given. The work abounds in obscurities, which were as attractive to superior minds in that age as in our own. Later on Bruno found it convenient to be occasionally obscure where it was wiser to suggest merely to those few who had the capacity really to understand perilous doctrine. But Bruno never erred on the side of over-caution !
* Tocco, F ; Con/erenza, Firenze, 1886.
' Bruno ; Eroici, Dial. Ill, beginning.
' Cantus Circceus, Dial. II., Prima pars Th., Cap I.,% i.
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