t of
May 1639.

In philosophy, Campanella was, like Giordano Bruno (q.v.), a follower of
Nicolas of Cusa and Telesio. He stands, therefore, in the uncertain
half-light which preceded the dawn of modern philosophy. The sterility
of scholastic Aristotelianism, as he understood it, drove him to the
study of man and nature, though he was never entirely free from the
medieval spirit. Devoutly accepting the authority of Faith in the region
of theology, he considered philosophy as based on perception. The prime
fact in philosophy was to him, as to Augustine and Descartes, the
certainty of individual consciousness. To this consciousness he assigned
a threefold content, power, will and knowledge. It is of the present
only, of things not as they are, but merely as they seem. The fact that
it contains the idea of God is the one, and a sufficient, proof of the
divine existence, since the idea of the Infinite must be derived from
the Infinite. God is therefore a unity, possessing, in the perfect
degree, those attributes of power, will and knowledge which humanity
possesses only in part. Furthermore, since community of action
presupposes homogeneity, it follows that the world and all its parts
have a spiritual nature. The emotions of love and hate are in
everything. The more remote from God, the greater the degree of
imperfection (i.e. _Not-being_) in things. Of imperfect things, the
highest are angels and human beings, who by virtue of the possession of
reason are akin to the Divine and superior to the lower creation. Next
comes the mathematical world of space, then the corporeal world, and
finally the empirical world with its limitations of space and time. The
impulse of self-preservation in nature is the lowest form of religion;
above this comes animal religion; and finally rational religion, the
perfection of which consists in perfect knowledge, pure volition and
love, and is union with God. Religion is, therefore, not political in
origin; it is an inherent part of existence. The church is superior to
the state, and, therefore, all temporal government should be in
subjection to the pope as the representative of God.

In natural philosophy Campanella, closely following Telesio, advocates
the experimental method and lays down heat and cold as the fundamental
principles by the strife of which all life is explained. In political
philosophy (the _Civitas Solis_) he sketches an ideal communism,
obviously derived from the Platonic, ba