50 TWO THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE 



Science owed their success. Had they devoted 

 themselves to the mere study of sensations of blue 

 things and green things, of hard things and soft 

 things, of loud things and silent things Science as 

 an efficient and co-ordinated system would never 

 have come into being. 



Having struck the right path, they moved rapidly 

 along it, leaving the Schoolmen and Philosophers 

 behind them, suspicious, hostile, and amazed. 



But Philosophy did not remain altogether 

 negative. The new movement extended itself to 

 Metaphysics, and under the leadership of Descartes 

 a resolute effort was made to reform Philosophy on 

 sympathetic lines. 



It was in the true spirit of Socrates that Descartes 

 advanced his famous method of Doubt. The whole 

 fabric of beliefs and rational principles was to be 

 subjected to a re-examination, and Descartes found 

 himself on bedrock when he touched his famous 

 Cogito, ergo sum. The simple fact or act of Doubt 

 implied the Activity the Reality therefore of the 

 Doubter. But the cogitant subject was reduced 

 very much to the condition of a tabula rasa, and when 

 Descartes proceeded to fill up the blank with a re- 

 discovery on more scientific lines of the essentials 

 of Cognition he found his basal feature in Extension. 



