knowledge.

Why were these men not overwhelmed with the task set them by the
tradition of their time? It was because the task was not, after all,
so great as a modern man might conceive it to be. Gil Blas, in Le
Sage's famous romance, finds it possible to become a skilled physician
in the twinkling of an eye, when Dr. Sangrado has imparted to him the
secret that the remedy for all diseases is to be found in bleeding the
patient and in making him drink copiously of hot water. When little is
known about things, it does not seem impossible for one man to learn
that little. During the Middle Ages and the centuries preceding, the
physical sciences had a long sleep. Men were much more concerned in
the thirteenth century to find out what Aristotle had said than they
were to address questions to nature. The special sciences, as we now
know them, had not been called into existence.

5. THE MODERN PHILOSOPHY.--The submission of men's minds to the
authority of Aristotle and of the church gradually gave way. A revival
of learning set in. Men turned first of all to a more independent
choice of authorities, and then rose to the conception of a philosophy
independent of authority, of a science based upon an observation of
nature, of a science at first hand. The special sciences came into
being.

But the old tradition of philosophy as universal knowledge remained.
If we pass over the men of the transition period and turn our attention
to Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and Rene Descartes (1596-1650), the two
who are commonly regarded as heading the list of the modern
philosophers, we find both of them assigning to the philosopher an
almost unlimited field.