What the Late-Stoic ethic is for the modern age is shown by Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536), Michel de [pg 068] Montaigne (1533-1592), Pierre Charron (1541-1603), Jean Bodin (1530-1596), and Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), and that whether their ideas run predominantly on Christian or on freethinking lines. To the Later Stoics Erasmus owes it that he can understand the simple gospel of Jesus which was being discovered behind the Church’s dogmas, as being the essence of all ethical philosophizing. It is by finding support in them that Montaigne in his _Essays_ (1580) is saved from falling into complete ethical scepticism. Because he is inspired by the Later Stoics, Bodin in his work _De la république_ (1577), puts forward an ethical ideal of the State to combat the ideas of Machiavelli’s _Prince_ (_Principe_) (1515). Because he draws from the same source, Pierre Charron in his work _De la sagesse_ (1601), ventures to assert that ethics are higher than traditional religion, and can maintain themselves in an independent position in face of it without losing anything of their essential nature or of their depth. Because the work of Marcus Aurelius has preceded him, Hugo Grotius is able in his famous work, _De jure belli ac pacis_ (1625) to lay so securely the foundations of natural and international law, and thereby to champion the claims of reason and humanity in the domain of jurisprudence. Other considerations apart, it would have been the first task of the rising power of natural science to restore to currency the world-view of Epicurus, and Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655)_(_11_)_ attempts it. He fails, however, to accomplish his purpose. By its inward belief in progress the mentality of the modern age is driven in elemental fashion beyond scepticism and sceptical ethics. What is great in Epicurus, viz. that in obedience to the deepest demands of truth he tries to think ethically within a nature-philosophy which does not interpret nature as embodying any purpose, can neither be comprehended nor be put before his own age by the philosopher’s all too clever modern prophet. [pg 069] For the weighty questions of absolute truth that time is by no means ripe. Its capacity is only that of the uncritical. Typical for its spirit is Isaac Newton (1643-1727), who in his investigation of nature is purely empirical, and in his world-view remains simply Christian. Against the difficulties which crop up for ethics and world- and life-affirmation out of a nature-philosophy which works without any presuppositions, the Renaissance and the Post-Renaissance are secure. The belief in progress which arises from the achievements of discovery and invention, and the joy felt in action itself are their world-view.