He was not acquainted with the speculation, or conception (as the Philotheistic philosopher himself called it) of Giordano Bruno, that _deformium animalium formæ, formosæ sunt in cœlo_. Nor would he have assented to some of the other opinions which that pious and high minded victim of papal intolerance, connected with it. That _metallorum in se non lucentium formæ, lucent in planetis suis_, he might have supposed, if he had believed in the relationship between metals and planets. And if Bruno's remark applied to the Planets only, as so many other worlds, and did not regard the future state of the creatures of this our globe, the Doctor might then have agreed to his assertion that _non enim homo, nec animalia, nec metalla ut hic sunt, illic existunt_. But the Philotheist of Nola, in the remaining part of this his twelfth _Conceptus Idearum_ soared above the Doctor's pitch: _Quod nempe hic discurrit_, he says, _illic actu viget, discursione superiori. Virtutes enim quæ versus materiam explicantur: versus actum primum uniuntur, et complicantur. Unde patet quod dicunt Platonici, ideam quamlibet rerum etiam non viventium, vitam esse et intelligentiam quandam. Item et in Primâ Mente unam esse rerum omnium ideam. Illuminando igitur, vivificando, et uniendo est quod te superioribus agentibus conformans, in conceptionem et retentionem specierum efferaris._ Here the Philosopher of Doncaster would have found himself in the dark, but whether because “blinded by excess of light,” or because the subject is within the confines of uttermost darkness, is not for me his biographer to determine. CHAPTER CCXIV. FURTHER DIFFICULTIES.—QUESTION CONCERNING INFERIOR APPARITIONS.—BLAKE THE PAINTER, AND THE GHOST OF A FLEA. _In amplissimâ causâ, quasi magno mari, pluribus ventis sumus vecti._ PLINY. There was another argument against the immortality of brutes, to which it may be, he allowed the more weight, because it was of his own excogitating. Often as he had heard of apparitions in animal forms, all such tales were of some spirit or hobgoblin which had assumed that appearance; as, for instance that _simulacrum admodum monstruosum_, that portentous figure in which Pope Gregory the ninth after his death was met roaming about the woods by a holy hermit: it was in the form of a wild beast with the head of an ass, the body of a bear, and the tail of a cat. Well might the good hermit fortify himself with making the sign of the cross when he beheld this monster: he approved himself a courageous man by speaking to the apparition which certainly was not “in such a questionable shape” as to invite discourse: and we are beholden to him for having transmitted to posterity the bestial Pope's confession, that because he had lived an unreasonable and lawless life, it was the will of God and of St. Peter whose chair he had defiled by all kinds of abominations, that he should thus wander about in a form of ferine monstrosity.