VI. The Fastenings of Kind

During his second and longer stay at Frankfurt, Bruno wrote with his own hand "The Fastenings Of Kind,"^ which he never finished. A part of this was copied by Besler, pretty certainly at Padua, and detail was added. Both MSS., which were discovered in Paris during the last century, are now preserved at Moscow with the other " NorofF Manuscripts."
This treatise is on Moral Science from an objective point of view, the passions being dealt with in the cold, detached manner of an impartial observer. The different kinds of love which bind the human spirit are discussed, and sexual attraction is discussed in a singularly straightforward, naturalistic way, unrelieved by the smallest dash of senti- ment. Here and there, passages from the Italian works are repeated. As in De Magia, an attempt is made to reduce the attractions and repulsions to be found in Nature no less than in human feelings and emotions to the con- trary and opposite principles of Love and Hate. As with Dante, Hate is regarded as Love inverted. After ^ De Vinculis in genere.
THE GREAT LATIN POEM AND LAST BOOKS 245
all, these two final contraries turn out to be one at bottom.
Bruno opines that the fear of hell is more dreadful than the place itself would be: it is a powerful chain to the human mind, acting through the imagination.*
Tocco's judgement of this quite unfinished work is that it " shows an experience of life, a sobriety in speculation and a delicacy of observation far from common," ^
' Bruno ; Op. lat. cura Tocco &• VitelH, III, p. 638. ' Tocco, F ; Op. ined. di G. B., p. 257.