Brave is the flourish, how over-brave we realize with unexpected intensity as we follow this solemn trial to its last scene. Having recounted the episodes of his life, Bruno proceeds to the explanation and defense of his teachings. At first the new philosophy is presented with no little boldness and confidence, its difference from the formal teaching of Christianity admitted and even pointed out. But always with a certain reserve, as of one who would say, “Yes, I have broken the frame and melted the flesh of your religion, but if you will let me, I will show how much more nobly its divine spirit dwells in the new body I have made for it.” Now this new body differs in no important way from the physical universe as we see it today, so that Bruno’s problem has been the problem of all Christian thought since his time. What Aquinas had done in the way of making the spirit of Christianity at home in the finite heaven-enclosed world of Aristotle, that Bruno felt must be done over again, now that the world was no longer finite and the distinction between Heaven and Earth had vanished. This is the thought that pervades the first days of Bruno’s account of himself before the Venetian tribunal, but as one by one the accusations of Mocenigo’s letter fall on him, he seems to lose hope and confidence in himself. He denies, and denies, and denies! I am not convinced that he is telling the truth in these denials. I am not convinced that Mocenigo’s account of him, barring a few obvious misunderstandings, is false in spirit. No more am I convinced that Bruno has been frightened into lying himself out of danger. He seems to me to say, “Alas! if these matters on which you question me are of the essence of Christianity, then have I been wrong in supposing that the old wine can be put in the new bottle.” Driven and perplexed, he has to decide which lies nearest to his heart, the new bottle or the old wine. Remember him fleeing in his early manhood from his Father’s House, ostensibly in childish fear and unwillingly, but really perhaps because he needed space, endless space, through which to follow the new idea. Remember him coming back to Italy sixteen years later, ostensibly because he realized that his manner of living and thinking had hurt no man and so ought to bring down no judgment on his head, but really perhaps because the craving for the old wine was deeper in him than the enthusiasm for the new bottle. Perhaps then we can understand the closing scene of his trial at Venice. “It may be,” he cries, “in the long time that has passed I have committed other sins and departed from the Church in other ways than those which I have explained, and that I have not cleansed myself of all matters of censure, but although I have thought much over these things, I can recall nothing more. I have confessed, and I now confess anew my errors, and I am here in the hands of Your Most Illustrious Lordships to receive punishment for the saving of my soul.