Rationalism, indeed, is to be found at the very outset of the critical activity of the Renaissance; and Vida's words, already cited, "Semper nutu rationis eant res," represent in part the attitude of the Renaissance mind toward literature. But the "reason" of the earlier theorists was merely empirical and individualistic; it did not differ essentially from Horace's ideal of "good sense." In fact, rationalism and humanism, while existing together throughout the Renaissance, were never to any extent harmonized; and extreme rationalism generally took the form of an avowed antagonism to Aristotle. The complete rationalization of the laws of literature is first evident toward the middle of the seventeenth century. "The rules of the theatre," says the Abbe d'Aubignac, at the beginning of his _Pratique du Theatre_, "are founded, not on authority, but on reason," and if they are called the rules of the ancients, it is simply "because the ancients have admirably practised them." Similarly, Corneille, in his discourse _Des Trois Unites_, says that the unity of time would be arbitrary and tyrannical if it were merely required by Aristotle's _Poetics_, but that its real prop is the natural reason; and Boileau sums up the final attitude of classicism in these words:-- "Aimez donc la _raison_; que toujours vos ecrits Empruntent _d'elle seule_ et leur lustre et leur prix."[433] Here the rationalizing process is complete, and the actual requirements of authority become identical with the dictates of the reason. The rules expounded by Boileau, while for the most part the same as those enunciated by the Italians, are no longer mere rules. They are laws dictated by abstract and universal reason, and hence inevitable and infallible; they are not tyrannical or arbitrary, but imposed upon us by the very nature of the human mind. This is not merely, as we have said, the good nature and the good sense, in a word, the sweet reasonableness, of such a critic as Horace.[434] There is more than this in the classicists of the seventeenth century. Good sense becomes universalized, becomes, in fact, as has been said, not merely an empirical notion of good sense, but the abstract and universal reason itself. From this follows the absolute standard of taste at the bottom of classicism, as exemplified in the passage already cited from La Bruyere, and in such a line as this from Boileau:-- "La raison pour marcher n'a souvent qu'une voie."[435]