SCIENCE AND CULTURE 7 



and strengthen the rights of science itself. For 

 Descartes insisted that human culture consis- 

 ted essentially in the culture of the reason, 

 which finds its satisfaction in science, as well 

 as in those moral truths which assure the dig- 

 nity of man and direct him towards God. The 

 treatise entitled Regulae ad Directionem In- 

 genii opens with this sentence: 



"Studiorum finis esse debet ingenii directio 

 ad solida et vera de Us omnibus quae occurrunt 

 proferenda judicia. (The aim of study 

 should be the mind's culture, enabling us to 

 utter well founded and true judgments about 

 anything that may occur.) 



The Scholastic logic has been the art of 

 reasoning; the Cartesian logic was the art of 

 thinking. 



Very soon, nevertheless, scientism and in- 

 tellectualism dominated men's minds so com- 

 pletely that they threatened to destroy feeling 

 and spontaneity. That was the time which 

 is called the Epoch of the Enlightenment, 

 whose masterpiece is the "Encyclopedic." 



Then another crisis arose with Rousseau 

 for herald. With a fire and an enthusiasm 



