his _Principia Philosophiae_; and can touch, in passing, only the most
important factors. We shall begin our account of this transition period
with Nicolas, and end it with the Englishmen, Bacon, Hobbes, and Lord
Herbert of Cherbury. Between these we shall arrange the various figures
of the Philosophical Renaissance (in the broad sense) in six groups:
the Restorers of the Ancient Systems and their Opponents; the Italian
Philosophers of Nature; the Political and Legal Philosophers; the Skeptics;
the Mystics; the Founders of the Exact Investigation of Nature. In Italy
the new spiritual birth shows an aesthetic, scientific, and humanistic
tendency; in Germany it is pre-eminently religious emancipation--in the
Reformation.


%1. Nicolas of Cusa.%

Nicolas[1] was born in 1401, at Cues (Cusa) on the Moselle near Treves.
He early ran away from his stern father, a boatman and vine-dresser named
Chrypps (or Krebs), and was brought up by the Brothers of the Common Life
at Deventer. In Padua he studied law, mathematics, and philosophy, but the
loss of his first case at Mayence so disgusted him with his profession that
he turned to theology, and became a distinguished preacher. He took part
in the Council of Basle, was sent by Pope Eugen IV. as an ambassador to
Constantinople and to the Reichstag at Frankfort; was made Cardinal in
1448, and Bishop of Brixen in 1450. His feudal lord, the Count of Tyrol,
Archduke Sigismund, refused him recognition on account of certain quarrels
in which they had become engaged, and for a time held him prisoner.
Previous to this he had undertaken journeys to Germany and the Netherlands
on missionary business. During a second sojourn in Italy death overtook
him, in the year 1464, at Todi in Umbria. The first volume of the Paris
edition of his collected works (1514) contains the most important of his