SECOND BOOK
the great systems
The new interests, viewpoints, and discoveries of the Renaissance naturally gave rise to a desire to elaborate a new world-theory, one which would be inherently consistent and at the same time conform to the new thought. It was but natural that men should be anxious to follow the new ideas to their ultimate consequences. The human mind always shows a certain tendency, more or less pronounced, towards the systematization of knowledge into a unitary theory, and the more peaceful period which followed the turmoil and strife of the Renaissance furnished a splendid opportunity for the development of this tendency. It assumed the task of combining the new worldview and the new science with the philosophy of mind or spirit. Here Bruno had prepared the way. He had not however completely grasped the new scientific method. He was unable to apply the mechanical conception—by means of which a multitude of problems can be stated with far greater precision—to the statement of his problem.
Of the four fundamental problems of philosophy, the problem of Being now takes first rank. Compared with this, other problems, despite the fact of their frequent and perplexing obtrusiveness, fall into the background. The constructive method was courageously applied to the solution of the profoundest problems of human thought. Descartes, the first of the group of the great systematizers, both in his preliminary essays as well as in the later more positive statement of his theory, still reveals a distinct
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