Page:Essays in Philosophy (1856).djvu/20

 modern reformation of Philosophy was, however, formally inaugurated at a later period. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the recovery and revived use of the remains of antiquity supplied, for the most part, sufficient materials for literary activity. The controversy between the Aristotelians and the Ramists in the sixteenth century had, moreover, diverted men's minds from the production of a Philosophy altogether modern and reformed. The birth of Leibnitz was just subsequent to the time when, the strength of the evangelical movement having unhappily abated in most countries, a movement towards a reform of Philosophy had succeeded. The mind is not likely at any time to be strongly stirred in a science like Theology, without being directed to "the science of sciences." A New Philosophy was making its appearance in England and France. Bacon's "Advancement of the Sciences" appeared in 1605, and the "Method" of Des Cartes in 1637. In each country thought and research had assumed a fundamentally different form. In England, the practical character of the people well agreed with the lessons of comprehensive sagacity that were given forth in the works of Bacon; and these naturally led to the solid and cautious, yet withal little imaginative form, which metaphysical science assumed afterwards in the works of Locke; and through Locke, generally, in British philosophy. In France, on the other hand, the philosophical writings of Des Cartes had awakened that style of speculation which cannot be wholly dormant while the spirit of Plato and St. Augustin attracts sympathy in the world, and which