of the One and Many, of Spirit and Nature. Jakobi's friend, Hamann, the "Wizard of the North," the mystical critic of Kantianism, went a step further than Jakobi himself; Bruno's principle of the coincidence of opposites, he said, was of more value to him than all the Kantian criticism. In the pantheistic or monistic side of Bruno's philosophy he found sympathy with his own revolt against the excessive intellectualism and rationalism which seemed to him to be the chief danger of the Kantian philosophy.[665] Goethe also was carried away by the flowing tide of enthusiasm, and, indeed, his own philosophical conception had much affinity with that of the Nolan, although in their inner natures the two men differed _toto coelo_.[666] Buhle--first in his _Comment on the Rise and Progress of Pantheism_ (1790), afterwards in his learned and careful _History of Philosophy_[667]--placed Bruno amongst the highest of pantheistic writers. Even Tennemann[667] grows eloquent over the brilliant effort of Bruno, by which he almost achieved a philosophy of the Absolute two centuries before Schelling and Hegel.[668] Fulleborn is more cautious and critical, but in his _Contributions to the History of Philosophy_ he gives analyses and extracts from several of Bruno's works.[669] Schelling himself, as is clear from the dialogue which he wrote bearing Bruno's name, regarded the Italian as nearest to himself among his forerunners in the philosophy of the absolute. There is obviously a close analogy between the two; and Schelling may be said to take, with regard to the course of philosophy after him, the same place which Bruno took as regards the lines of development in the philosophy of the seventeenth century. Both had a wider view, and perhaps a deeper insight, than their successors, while lacking the power of strenuous thought necessary to carry out their views into the completeness of a philosophical system. It is doubtful, however, whether Schelling knew much more of Bruno than Jakobi's essay and his abstract of the _Causa_ had to tell.