b. The second object to which Bruno devoted himself was the so-called Lullian Art, which received its name from its first inventor, the Scholastic Raymundus Lullus (_supra_, pp. 92-94). Bruno adopted this and carried it to completion; he termed it also his _ars combinatoria_. This art is in some respects like what we met with in Aristotle under the name of the Topics (Vol. II. pp. 217, 218), seeing that both give an immense number of “places” and determinations which were fixed in the conception like a table with its divisions, in order that these headings might be applied to all that came to hand. But the Topics of Aristotle did this in order to apprehend and determine an object in its various aspects, while Bruno rather worked for the sake of lightening the task of memory. He thus really connected the Lullian Art with the art of mnemonics as practised by the ancients, which has come into notice again in recent times, and which will be found described in greater detail in the _Auctor ad Herennium_ (Libr. III. c. 17, _sqq._). To give an example: one establishes for oneself a certain number of different departments in the imagination, which are to be chosen at pleasure; there may be perhaps twelve of these, arranged in sets of three, and indicated by certain words, such as Aaron, Abimelech, Achilles, Berg, Baum, Baruch, etc., into which divisions one inserts, as it were, what has to be learnt by heart, and forms it into a succession of pictures. In this way when we repeat it, we have not to say it from memory or out of our head, as we are accustomed to do, but we have only to read it off as if from a table. The only difficulty lies in making some ingenious connection between the content in question and the picture; that gives rise to the most unholy combinations, and the art is therefore not one to be commended. Bruno also soon abandoned it, since what had been a matter of memory became a matter of imagination; which was, of course, a descent. But since with Bruno the diagram is not only a picture of external images, but a system of universal determinations of thought, he certainly gave to this art a deeper inward meaning.[81]