Such an attitude would be impossible now; the present age has a real past of science behind it. But it was necessary then the past which lay directly behind Descartes, with a few bright exceptions like Bruno and Campanella, was a past of slavish sub mission to authority, both in action and in thought; and the utter demolition of this past was the self-chosen task of the great recluse philosopher, who believed he had stript himself of every clog that the heritage of antiquity had placed upon man's intellect.

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