which disgusts him by its smell of the closet, its continued prating of
Aristotle, and its self-exhaustion in useless verbalism, Sanchez desires
to substitute a knowledge of things. Perfect knowledge, it is true, can be
hoped for only when subject and object correspond to each other. But how
is finite man to grasp the infinite universe? Experience, the basis of
all knowledge, gropes about the outer surface of things and illumines
particulars only, without the ability either to penetrate to their inner
nature or to comprehend the whole. We know only what we produce. Thus
God knows the world which he has made, but to us is vouchsafed merely an
insight into mediate or second causes, _causae secundae_. Here, however,
a rich field still lies open before philosophy--only let her attack her
problem with observation and experiment rather than with words.

The French nation, predisposed to skepticism by its prevailing acuteness,
has never lacked representatives of skeptical philosophy. The transition
from the philosophers of doubt whom we have described to the great Bayle
was formed by La Mothe le Vayer (died 1672; _Five Dialogues_, 1671), the
tutor of Louis XIV., and P.D. Huet(ius), Bishop of Avranches (died 1721),
who agreed in holding that a recognition of the weakness of the reason is
the best preparation for faith.


6. %German Mysticism%.

In a period which has given birth to a skeptical philosophy, one never
looks in vain for the complementary phenomenon of mysticism. The stone
offered by doubt in place of bread is incapable of satisfying the impulse
after knowledge, and when the intellect grows weary and despairing, the
heart starts out in the quest after truth. Then its path leads inward, the
mind turns in upon itself, seeks to learn the truth by inner experience and