CHAPTER XII 



NEW COSMIC IDEAS AND NEW SCIENTIFIC METHOD 



Opponents of scholasticism during the Middle Ages 



EVEN DURING THE PERIOD whcn mediaeval scholasticism was at the zen- 

 ith of its power, there were not wanting movements hostile to it, the 

 representatives of which, partly by way of logic, like the so-called 

 nominalists, partly by exhortations to empirical observations, like Roger 

 Bacon, previously mentioned, sought to undermine its thought-structure. 

 These movements, besides, very often had points of contact with the mysti- 

 cism which throughout the Middle Ages sought in the sphere of a holy life 

 to induce a spirit of personal sincerity in contrast to the strictly formal piety 

 taught by the Church. When, later on, scholasticism was discredited, owing 

 to the reverence of humanism for antiquity, the field was left open for a 

 philosophy in which all the above-mentioned elements — theoretical specu- 

 lation, empirical observations, mysticism, both Christian and late classical 

 — were included as fundamental components in a fresh conception of exist- 

 ence, out of which our own modern ideas of nature and life gradually 

 developed. 



The first important representative of this fresh view of nature was Nico- 

 LAUS CusANus. He took his name from the village of Kues, or Cusa, near 

 Trier, where he was born in 1401. He received his education amongst the 

 "brothers of the common life," a religious community having a pronounced 

 mystical tendency — an education which had a decisive influence on his 

 entire mode of thought. He had a brilliant career in the service of the Church, 

 into which he shortly afterwards entered. He became a bishop, and later on, 

 as a cardinal, he was one of the most trusted men of the papal supremacy at 

 the time. As such, he acted constantly in the interests of humanity and en- 

 lightenment, ardently opposing the sale of indulgences, trials of witches, 

 and other Church superstitions. He died in Italy in 1464. 



New cosmic ideas 

 In the course of his manifold practical activities, however, Cusanus found 

 time for research work which places him in the first rank among the world's 

 pioneer spirits. The problems he deals with in his numerous writings are, it 

 is true, for the most part theological, but in connexion with them he touches 

 upon the problem of man's place in existence, and it is here that he makes his 

 most important contribution. Curiously interwoven with and derived from 



84 



