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The Idea of Progress - An inguiry into its origin and growth by J. B. (John Bagnell) Bury
page 42 of 354 (11%)
same quality of brain. So long as this paralysing theory prevailed,
it is manifest that the idea of Progress could not appear.

But in the course of the sixteenth century men began here and there,
somewhat timidly and tentatively, to rebel against the tyranny of
antiquity, or rather to prepare the way for the open rebellion which
was to break out in the seventeenth. Breaches were made in the proud
citadel of ancient learning. Copernicus undermined the authority of
Ptolemy and his predecessors; the anatomical researches of Vesalius
injured the prestige of Galen; and Aristotle was attacked on many
sides by men like Telesio, Cardan, Ramus, and Bruno. [Footnote: It
has been observed that the thinkers who were rebelling against the
authority of Aristotle--the most dangerous of the ancient
philosophers, because he was so closely associated with theological
scholasticism and was supported by the Church--frequently attacked
under the standard of some other ancient master; e.g. Telesio
resorted to Parmenides, Justus Lipsius to the Stoics, and Bruno is
under the influence of Plotinus and Plato (Bouillier, La Philosophie
cartesienne, vol. i. p. 5). The idea of "development" in Bruno has
been studied by Mariupolsky (Zur Geschichte des Entwicklungsbegriffs
in Berner Studien, Bd. vi. 1897), who pointed out the influence of
Stoicism on his thought.] In particular branches of science an
innovation was beginning which heralded a radical revolution in the
study of natural phenomena, though the general significance of the
prospect which these researches opened was but vaguely understood at
the time. The thinkers and men of science were living in an
intellectual twilight. It was the twilight of dawn. At one extremity
we have mysticism which culminated in the speculations of Bruno and
Campanella; at the other we have the scepticism of Montaigne,
Charron, and Sanchez. The bewildered condition of knowledge is
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