Note: The paraphrase of Giordano Bruno’s theory of coincidentia oppositorum which James Joyce quoted in his review of Lewis McIntyre’s life of Bruno in the Dublin Daily Express (20 Oct. 1903) occurs as a footnote in Essay XIII in Coleridge’s The Friend (1818; 1863) - as infra.

Extracts
Essay VIII	Essay XIII	Essay XVI

‘Object and Plan of the Work’ [by STC, [pp.[xi]-xiii]: The whole is divided into two sections: ‘the first comprising a discussion of the principles of political knowledge’, and ‘the second treating the grounds of morals and religion,and revealing the systematic discipline of the mind requisite for a true understanding of the same’, to which is ‘prefixed a general introduction’, and with ‘three several collections of essays, in some degree miscellaneous, and called Landing-Places - interposes in various places for amusement, retrospect, and preparation’. (pp.xii-xiii). Note that H. N. Coleridge writes of the ‘reconciliation of Platonic and Baconian principles of investigation’ in the Third Section. (p.[x].)

Essay VIII
Begins - ‘Monsters and madmen canonised and Galileo blind in a dungeon!’ (p.56 - a statement which the editor, HNC, marks down as ‘not strictly accurate’ since Galileo was sentenced by the Inquisition in Rome on 22 June 1633 but did not become blind until 1637.

‘[...] Perhaps the great majority of men are now fully conscious that they are born with the god-like faculty of reason, and that it is the business of life to develope [sic] and apply it? - The Jacob’s ladder of truth, let down from heaven, with all its numerous rounds, is now the common highway, which which we are content to toil upward to the objects of our desires? We are ashamed of expecting the end without the means?’

[His answer is that to assert this he must have forgotten the ‘animal magnetists’, the ‘infamous empirics’, ‘the vending of [...] poisonous drams’, ‘that mother-vice, the lottery’ and ‘the first years of the French revolution’ (p.57); speaks of ‘noble structures raised by the few, and gradually undermined by the ignorance and profligacy of the many.’ (p.58.)

‘Still, however, there are truths so self-evident, or so immediately and palplably deduced from those that are, or are acknowledged for such, that they are at once intelligible to all men, who possess the common advantages of the social state; although by sophistry, by evil habits, by the neglect, false persuasions, and impostures of an anti-Christian priesthood joined in one conspiracy with the violence of tyrannical governors, the understanding of men may become so darkened and their consciences so lethargic, that a necessity will arise for the republications of these truths, and this too with a voice of loud alarm, and impassioned warning. Such were the doctrines proclaimed by the first Christians to the Pagan world; such were the lightnings flashed by Wickliff, Huss, Luther, Calvin, Zuinglius, Latimer, and [59] others, across the Papal darkness; and such in our own times the agitating truths, with which Thomas Clarkson and his excellent confederates, the Quakers, fought and conquered the legalized banditti of men-stealers, the numerous and powerful perpetrators and advocates of rapine, murder, and (of blacker guilt than either) slavery. Truths of this kind being indispensable to man, considered as a moral being, are above all expedience, all accidental consequences; for as sure as God is holy, and man immortal, there can be no evil so great as the ignorance or disregard of them. [...] (p.60.)

‘The sole condition, therefore, imposed on us by the law of conscience in these cases is, that we emply no unworthy and heterogeneous means to realize the necessary end, - that we entrust the event wholly to the full and adequate promulgation of the truth, and to those generous affections which the constitution of our moral nature had linked to a full perception of it.’ (p.60.)

Essay XIII
‘I recur to the dilemma stated in the eighth essay. How shall we solve this problem? Its solution is to be found in that spirit which, like the universal menstruum, sought for by the old alchemists, can blend and harmonize the most discordant elements; it is to be found in the spirit of rational freedom diffused and become national, and in the consequent influence and controul [sic] of public opinion, and its most precious organ, the jury. It is to be found, wherever juries are sufficiently enlightened to perceive the difference, and to comprehend the origin and the necessity of the difference, between libels and other criminal overt-acts, and are sufficiently independent to act upon the conviction, that in a charge of libel, the degree the circumstances, and the intention, constitute - not merely the offence, give it its being, and deterine its legal name. [...] Shame fall on him, and a participation of the infamy on those, who mislead an English jury to the murder of Algernon Sidney (p.94; see note). If I may trust my own memory, it is indeed a very old truth: and yet if the fashion of acting in apparent ignorance thereof be any presumption of its novelty, it ought to be new, or at least have become so by courtesy of oblivion. It is this: that as far as human practice [96] can realize the sharp limits and exclusive proprieties of science, law and religion should be kept distinct, there is, in strictness, no proper opposition but between the two polar forces of one and the same power.* [My italics; see STC’s ftn.]; If I say then, that law and religion are natural opposites, and that the latter is the requisite counterpoise of the former, let it not be interpreted, as if I had declared them to be contraries. The law has rightfully invested the creditor with the power of arresting and imprisoning an insolvent debtor, the farmer with the power of transporting, mediately at least, the pillagers of his hedges and copses; but the law does not compel him to exercise that power, while it will often happen that religion commands him to forego it. Nay, so well was this understood by our grandfathers, that a man who squares his conscience by the law was a common paraphrase or synonyme of a wretch without any conscience at all.

*Every power in nature and in spirit must evolve an opposite as the sole means and condition of its manifestation: and all opposition is a tendency to re-union. This is the universal law of polarity or essential dualism, first promulgated by Heraclitus, 2000 years afterwards republished, and made the foundation both of logic, of physics, and of metaphysics by Giordano Bruno. The principle may be thus expressed. The identity of thesis and antithesis is the substance of all things; their opposition the condition of all existence or being manifested; and every thing or phænomenon is the exponent of a synthesis as long as the opposite energies are retained in that synthesis. Thus water is neither oxygen nor hydrogen, nor yet is it a commixture of both; but the synthesis or indifference of the two: and as long as the copula endures, by which it becomes water, or rather which alone is water, it is not less a simple body than either of the imaginary elements, improperly called its ingredients or components. It is the object of the mechanical atomistic philosophy to confound synthesis with synartesis, or rather with mere juxta-position of corpuscules separated by invisible interspaces. I find it difficult to determine, whether this theory contradicts the reason or the senses most: for it is alike inconceivable and unimaginable.’ (p.97, n.)

Essay XVI [1837 and 1863 Editions]

Note: The quotation from Bruno given below falls on pp.88-89 of The Friend in the 1812 Edn. as part of Essay VI - as attached.

[...]
‘The higher a man’s station, the more arduous and full of peril his duties, the more comprehensive should his foresight be, the more rooted his tranquillity concerning [121] life and death. But these are gifts which no experience can bestow, but the experience from within: and there is a nobleness of the whole personal being, to which the contemplation of all events phaenomena in the light of the three master ideas, announced in the foregoing pages, can alone elevate the spirit. Anima sapiens, says Giordano Bruno, - and let the sublime piety of the passage excuse some intermixture of error, or rather let the words, as they well may, be interpreted in a safe sense - anima sapiens non timet mortem, immo interdum illum ultro appetit, illi ultro occurrit. Manet quippe substantiam omnem pro duratione eternitas, pro loco immensitas, pro actu omniformitas. Non levem igitur ac futilem, atqui gravissimam perfectoque homine dignissimam contemplationis partem persequimur, ubi divinitatis, naturaeque splendorem, fusionem, et communicationem, non in cibo, potu, et ignobiliore quadam materia cum attonitorum secuto perquirimus; sed in augusta Omnipotentis regia, immmso aetheris spatio, in infinita natures geminae omnis fientis et omnia facientis potentia, unde tot astrorum, mundorum, inquam, et numinum, uni altissimo concinentium atqm saltantium absque numero atque fine juxta propositos ubique fines atque ordines contemplamur. Sic ex visibilium aeterno, immenso et innumerabili effectu sempiterna immensa ilia majestas atque bonitas intellecta conspicitur, proque sua dignitate innumerabilium deorum (mundorum dico) adsistentia, concinentia, et gloriae ipsius enarratione, immo ad oculos expressa condone glorificatur. Cui immenso mensum non quadrabit domicilium atque templum; - ad cujus majestatis plentitudinem agnoscendam atque percolendam, numerabilium ministrorum nullus esset ordo. Eis igitur ad omniformis Dei omniformem imaginem conjectamus oculos, vivum et magnum illius admiremur simulacrum! - Hinc miraculum magnum a Trismegisto appellabatur [122] homo, qui in Deum transeat quasi ipse sit Deus, qui amatur omnia fieri sicut Deus est omnia; ad objectum sine fine, ubique tamen finiendo, contendit, sicut infinitus est Deus, immensus, ubiqus totus.* [See STC’s own trans. - as infra.]

*[trans. in ftn. p.123] De monade, &c. A wise spirit does not fear death, nay, sometimes - as in cases of voluntary martyrdom - seek it and goes forth to meet it, of its own accord. For there awaits all actual beings, for duration eternity, for place immensity, for action omniformity. We pursue, therefore, a species of contemplation not light or futile, but the weightiest and most worthy of an accomplished man, while we examine and seek for the splendour, the interfusion, and communication of the Divinity and of nature, not in meats or drink, or any yet ignoble matter, with the race of the thunder-stricken; but in the august palace of the Omnipotent, in the illimitable etherial space, in the infinite power, that creates all things, and is the abiding being of all things. There we may contemplate the host of stars, of worlds and their guardian deities, numbers without number, each in its appointed sphere, singing together, and dancing in adoration of the One Most High. Thus from the perpetual, immense, and innumerable goings on of the visible world, that sempiternal and absolutely infinite Majesty is intellectually beheld, and is glorified according to his glory, by the attendance and choral symphonies of innumerable gods, who utter forth the glory of their ineffable Creator in the expressive language of vision! To him illimitable, a limited temple will not correspond - to the acknowledgment and due worship of the plenitude of his majesty there would be no proportion in any numerable army of ministrant spirits. Let us then cast our eyes upon the omniform image of the attributes of the all-creating Supreme, nor admit any representation of his excellency but the living universe, which he has created! - Thence was man entitled by Trismegistus, the great miracle, inasmuch as he has been made capable of entering into union with God, as if he were himself a divine nature; tries to become all things, even as in God all things are; and in limitless progression of limited states of being, urges onward to the ultimate aim, even as God is simultaneously infinite, and every where all! [See variant translation in The Friend, 1812 Edn. - as attached.]

[Continues:] Giordano Bruno, the friend of Sir Philip Sidney and Fulk Greville, was burnt under pretence of atheism, at Rome, on the 17th of February, 1599-1600. (Scioppio ends his narrative in these words: Sic ustalatus misere periit, renunciaturus, credo, in reliquis illis, quae fluxit, mundis, quonam pacta homines blasphemi et impii a Romanis tractari solent. Hic itaque modus in Roma est, quo contra homines impios et monstra hujismodi a nobis solet. - Ed.) His works are perhaps the scarcest books ever printed. They are singularly interesting as portraits of a vigorous mind struggling after [123; note continues over-page] truth, amid many prejudices, which from the state of the Romish Church, in which he was born, have a claim to much indulgence. One of them (entitled Ember Week) is curious for its lively accounts of the rude state of London, at that time, both as to the streets and the manners of the citizens. (La cena de le ceneri. See particularly the second dialogue. - Ed.) The most industrious historians of speculative philosophy, have not been able to procure more than a few of his works. Accidentally I have been more fortunate in this respect than those who have written hitherto on the unhappy philosopher of Nola; as out of eleven works, the titles of which are preserved to us, I have had an opportunity of perusing six. I was told, when in Germany, that there is a complete collection of them in the royal library at Copenhagen. If so, it is unique.

(Wagner has collected and published seven of the Italian works of Bruno: Leipzig, 1830. These are, Il Candelejo; La cena de le ceneri; De la causa, principio et uno; De infinito, universo e mondi; Spaccio de la bestia trionfante; Cabala del caballo Pegaseo; and De gli eroici furori. Two others are mentioned by Bruno himself in the Cena, &c.; namely, L’arca di Noè, and Purgatorio dell’ inferno. Wagner could not discover these. The titles of twenty-three works in Latin are given by Wagner. - Ed.) [p.124]