While sensualism was gaining ground in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, rationalism, having its roots in the Platonic system which had prevailed in the fifteenth and sixteenth, was remodeled under the influence of Descartes, Leibnitz, and Wolf, and opposed to the invading tendencies of its antagonist. From causes to be found in the spirit of the age and the political condition of the country, this system was unable to take the place to which it was entitled, though it succeeded in purifying sensualism from its more dangerous consequences, and infusing into it some of its own elements. But the overthrow of that system was completed only by the works of Rosmini and Gioberti. Rosmini (1795-1855) gave a new impulse to metaphysical researches, and created a new era in the history of Italian philosophy. His numerous works embrace all philosophical knowledge in its unity and universality, founded on a new basis, and developed with deep, broad, and original views. His philosophy, both inductive and deductive, rests on experimental method, reaches the highest problems of ideology and ontology, and infuses new life into all departments of science. This philosophical progress was greatly aided by Gioberti (1801-1851), whose life, however, was more particularly devoted to political pursuits. His work on "The Regeneration of Italy" contains his latest and soundest views on Italian nationality. Another distinguished philosophical and political writer is Mamiani, whose work on "The Rights of Nations" deserves the attention of all students of history and political science. As a statesman, he belongs to the National party, of which Count Cavour (1810-1861), himself an eminent writer on political economy, was the great representative, and to whose commanding influence is to be attributed the rapid progress which the Italian nation was making towards unity and independence at the time of his death. FROM 1860 TO 1885.