THE RENAISSANCE 147 



tended to loosen the authority of legitimism in other 

 countries. 



Towards this general wave of sceptical thought 

 the mechanical philosophy brought an important 

 contribution. The astonishing success of the New- 

 tonian theory in explaining the mechanism of the 

 heavens led to an overestimate of the power of 

 mechanical conceptions to give an ultimate account 

 of the whole universe. As Mach says : " The French 

 Encyclopaedists of the eighteenth century imagined 

 they were not far from a final explanation of the 

 world by physical and mechanical principles ; Laplace 

 even conceived a mind competent to foretell the pro- 

 gress of nature for all eternity, if but the masses, their 

 positions, and initial velocities were given." Few 

 would venture to hold such a sweeping conclusion 

 nowadays, but, when first formulated, it was a natural 

 exaggeration of the power of new knowledge which 

 had impressed the minds of men with its range and 

 scope, before they had realized its necessary limits. 

 In fact, we have a repetition in changed circumstances 

 of the story of the Greek atomists, who extended their 

 successful speculative views of physics to the world 

 of life and thought, all unconscious of the logical 

 chasms which lay between chasms only to be revealed 

 and partially explored, but not bridged, by the tre- 

 mendous accumulations of knowledge of two thousand 

 years. 



Another line of thought which reacted against the 

 belief in the value of steady, unchanging dogma and 

 authority, in religion and philosophy no less than in 

 politics, was the growing idea of the progress of man- 

 kind in moral worth and intellectual power, and the 



