A production of more than common merit was written by Chasdaï Crescas, now on the brink of the grave, his spirits shattered by persecution. He was a profound, comprehensive thinker, whose mind never lost itself in details, but was forever striving to comprehend the totality of things. His scheme for a work treating, in the manner of Maimuni, of all phases and aspects of Judaism, investigating the ideas and laws out of which Jewish teaching had gradually developed, and reharmonizing the details with the whole where the connection had ceased to be apparent, bears witness to the extraordinary range of his learning and the perspicacity of his mind. The work was to be at once a guide to Talmudical study and a practical handbook. Death appears to have prevented the accomplishment of this gigantic enterprise, only the philosophic portion, or introduction, being completed. In this introduction Chasdaï Crescas deals, on the one hand, with the principles of universal religion, the existence of God, His omniscience and providence, human free-will, the design of the universe, and, on the other, with the fundamental truths of Judaism, the doctrines of the creation, immortality, and the Messiah. Crescas was less dominated by the Aristotelian bias of mediæval philosophy than his predecessors. It had lost its halo for him; he perceived its weaknesses more clearly than others, and probed them more deeply. With bold hands he tore down the supports of the vast edifice of theory constructed by Maimuni on Aristotelian grounds to demonstrate the existence of God and His relation to the universe, and, conversant with the whole method of scholastic philosophy, he combated it with destructive force.