242 COSMOS. 



lis were oi^erly taken up, and erroneous cosmical views, whose 

 groundlessness had long been shown by the mathematical 

 school of Alexandria, were revived under the sanction of Chris- 

 tian authority. Thus the dominion of Platonism, or, more 

 correctly speaking, the new adaptations of Platonic views, 

 were propagated far into the Middle Ages, under varying 

 forms, from Augustine to Alcuin, Johannes Scotus, and Bern- 

 hard of Chartres."^ 



When the Aristotelian philosophy gained the ascendency 

 by its controlling influence over the direction of the human 

 mind, its effect was manifested in the two-fold channel of in- 

 vestigation into speculative philosophy and a philosophical 

 elaboration of empirical natural science. Although the former 

 of these directions may appear foreign to the object I have 

 had in view in the present work, it must not be passed with 

 out notice, since, in the midst of the age of dialectic scholas- 

 tics, it incited some few noble and highly-gifted men to the 

 exercise of free and independent thought in the most various 

 departments of science. An extended physical contemplation 

 of the universe not only requires a rich abundance of observ.1- 

 tion as the substratum for a generalization of ideas, but also a 

 preparatory and invigorating training of the human mind, by 

 which it may be enabled, unappalled amid the eternal con- 

 test between knowledge and faith, to meet the threatening 

 impediments which, even in modern times, present them- 

 selves at the entrance of certain departments of the experi- 

 mental sciences, and would seem to render them inaccessible. 

 There are tw^o points in the history of the development of man 

 which must not be separated — the consciousness of man's just 

 claims to intellectual freedom, and his long unsatisfied de- 

 sire of prosecuting discoveries in remote regions of the earth. 

 These free and independent thinkers form a series, which be- 

 gins in the Middle Ages with Duns Scotus, Wilhelm of Oc- 

 cam, and Nicolas of Cusa, and leads from Ramus, Campa- 

 nella, and Giordano Bruno to Descartdfe.t 



The seemingly impassable gulf between thought and act- 



* Fnedrich von Raumer, Ueber die Philosophic des dreizehnten Jahr- 

 hunderts, iu his Hist. Taschenbiich, 1840, s. 468. Oa the teudeucy to- 

 ward Platonism in the Aliddle Ages, and on the contests (>f the schools, 

 see Heinrich Ritter, Geach. der Christl. Philosophic, th. ii., s 159 ; th. iii., 

 s. 131-160, and 381-417. 



t Cousin, Cours de VFIist. de la Philosophic, t. i., 1829, p. 360 and 389- 

 436; Fragmens de Philosophic Cariisienne,p. 8-12 and 403. Compare, 

 also, the recent ingenious work of Christian Bartholoncs, entitled Jor- 

 dano Bruno, 1847, t. i., p. 308; t. ii., p. 409-4 IG. 



