Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/465

 452 CEITICAL NOTICES : philosophy within the limits of faith. He represents at once the " return to nature," that is, to the direct vision of things apart from all external authority, the rejection of the " consuetudo credendi " " impedimentum maximum cognitionis," as he calls it and the " return to antiquity," that is, to the study of what had already been achieved by free speculation and free artistic impulse. Now this intellectual and spiritual detachment from the Middle Age, in spite of the progress that has since been made in the practical sphere and in every field of science, has in some respects never been so complete as it was during the Renaissance. What was at first gained by the insight of the few has had to affirm itself in its application to details of life and thought and to diffuse itself by degrees downwards from the sphere of higher speculation. During this process the " consuetudo credendi " has- reaffirmed itself in innumerable reactions, and has often made the systems even of great philosophers other than they would have been had they been determined simply by free speculative activity. If then we are to make a new effort at speculative construction, the philosophers of the Renaissance may be of more importance to us than some later and more celebrated thinkers. It is true that a more exact knowledge of ancient thought, the principal material of the men of the Renaissance, has since become possible ; but this does not by any means destroy the interest of Renaissance speculation. Ideas derived from ancient philosophy were not merely reaffirmed, but gained at once in generality and concentration through the necessity of opposing them to the concentrated and generalised positions of an authori- tative system of received doctrine. Thus it is that in the period of transition before the real beginning of modern philosophy with Descartes, we see better than at any later period what is the permanent character and tendency of the higher speculation of modern times. A new way of thinking as regards the whole is already clearly defined against the mediaeval way of thinking ;. and the influence of the resisting intellectual medium in which the modern spirit is to move has not yet been felt in its full complexity. Some readers will find in Prof. Carriere himself, so far as he aims at a new philosophical synthesis, a certain falling-off from the Italian philosopher for whom he expresses most admiration. Whether we call it a falling-off or an advance, it is certain that he is not so nearly at one with Bruno in his answers to the highest questions as he thinks. To this we shall have to return; but first an attempt must be made to give to English readers some idea of the distinctive features of Prof. Carriere's book as a history of the whole period of intellectual transition from the Middle Age. What is especially worthy of note is the wide range of his sympathies. Revivers of ancient philosophy, scientific investigators, magicians and alchemists, political thinkers, mystics and original philosophers are successively passed in