absorbed. The other was the Alexandrist, so called
from following Alexander of Aphrodisias,(323) which consisted in a
tendency to pure materialism, an absolute denial of immortality and of
religion, which almost reaches the incredulity earlier expressed in the
legend of the Three Impostors. Pomponatius is the declared representative
of the latter view soon after the beginning of the century.(324)
Frequently however the unbelief was secret, and a seeming show of
orthodoxy was maintained by drawing a broad distinction between philosophy
and theology; and by teaching that these views, though seen to be true in
the one, were to be accounted false in obedience to the teaching of the
other.

It is customary to class along with the Averroists some philosophers of a
more original turn; some of whom were only indirectly connected with
Padua, but rather were examples of an attempt to substitute a philosophy
in place of that which was expiring. They are said to have manifested the
same kind of pantheism, and to have been led by it to similar disbelief.
Such are Cesalpini, Cardan,(325) Bruno, and Vanini. The charge is perhaps
unfair against the two former, as they seem to have held the separate
immortality of souls, which is more compatible with theism. The two latter
represent the two schools just noticed, about the end of the sixteenth
century.

Bruno(326) belonged mainly to the Averroist school, though his views were
probably formed independently, and certainly extended farther. He not only
held the existence of a soul pervading the universe, which is the form of
Pantheism which has been already considered, but followed the earlier
philosophy of the Neo-Platonists in identifying the soul with the matter
which it animates; regarding the one as an emanation from the other, in
the same manner as an effect is merely cause or force transferred. It is
this belief which occurs in Spinoza, which is properly denominated
Pantheism, where the Creator is forgotten in creation. The former line of
Pantheism noticed in Averroes approaches more nearly to theism. Bruno's
unbelief was not gay and flippant, but sombre and earnest. With a
fantastical conceit which can hardly be explained, he travelled as the
missionary to propagate his own views like a knight errant tilting at all
opinions, with a soul especially embittered against the Christian
priesthood.(327) On his return to Italy from his travels he fell into the
hands of the church, and suff