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The Idea of Progress - An inguiry into its origin and growth by J. B. (John Bagnell) Bury
page 43 of 354 (12%)
indicated by the fact that while Bruno and Campanella accepted the
Copernican astronomy, it was rejected by one who in many other
respects may claim to be reckoned as a modern--I mean Francis Bacon.

But the growing tendency to challenge the authority of the ancients
does not sever this period from the spirit which informed the
Renaissance. For it is subordinate or incidental to a more general
and important interest. To rehabilitate the natural man, to claim
that he should be the pilot of his own course, to assert his freedom
in the fields of art and literature had been the work of the early
Renaissance. It was the problem of the later Renaissance to complete
this emancipation in the sphere of philosophical thought. The bold
metaphysics of Bruno, for which he atoned by a fiery death, offered
the solution which was most unorthodox and complete. His deification
of nature and of man as part of nature involved the liberation of
humanity from external authority. But other speculative minds of the
age, though less audacious, were equally inspired by the idea of
freely interrogating nature, and were all engaged in accomplishing
the programme of the Renaissance--the vindication of this world as
possessing a value for man independent of its relations to any
supermundane sphere. The raptures of Giordano Bruno and the
sobrieties of Francis Bacon are here on common ground. The whole
movement was a necessary prelude to a new age of which science was
to be the mistress.

It is to be noted that there was a general feeling of complacency as
to the condition of learning and intellectual pursuits. This
optimism is expressed by Rabelais. Gargantua, in a letter to
Pantagruel, studying at Paris, enlarges to his son on the vast
improvements in learning and education which had recently, he says,
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