CHAPTER III THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES Decadence of Scholasticism. Forebodings of the Coming Era. Great Moralists. The Kabbala. Sorcery. CHAPTER IV THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY It Is Fairly Accurate to Consider that from the Point of View of Philosophy, the Middle Ages Lasted until Descartes. Free-thinkers More or Less Disguised. Partisans of Reason Apart from Faith, of Observation, and of Experiment. PART III MODERN TIMES CHAPTER I THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY Descartes. Cartesianism. CHAPTER II CARTESIANS All the Seventeenth Century was under the Influence of Descartes. Port-Royal, Bossuet, Fenelon, Malebranche, Spinoza, Leibnitz. CHAPTER III THE ENGLISH PHILOSOPHERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. Locke: His Ideas on Human Liberty, Morality, General Politics, and Religious Politics. CHAPTER IV THE ENGLISH PHILOSOPHERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY Berkeley: A Highly Idealist Philosophy which Regarded Matter as Non-existent. David Hume: Sceptical Philosophy. The Scottish School: Philosophy of Common Sense. CHAPTER V THE FRENCH PHILOSOPHERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY Voltaire a Disciple of Locke. Rousseau a Free-thinking Christian, but deeply Imbued with Religious Sentiments. Diderot a Capricious Materialist. D'Holbach and Helvetius Avowed Materialists. Condillac a Philosopher of Sensations. CHAPTER VI KANT Kant Reconstructed all Philosophy by Supporting it on Morality. CHAPTER VII THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: GERMANY The Great Reconstructors of the World, Analogous to the First Philosophers of Antiquity. Great General Systems, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, etc. CHAPTER VIII THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: ENGLAND The Doctrines of Evolution and of Transformism: Lamarck (French), Darwin, Spencer. CHAPTER IX THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: FRANCE The Eclectic School: Victor Cousin. The Positivist School: Auguste Comte. The Kantist School: Renouvier. Independent and Complex Positivists: Taine, Renan. INDEX INITIATION INTO PHILOSOPHY PART I ANTIQUITY CHAPTER I BEFORE SOCRATES Philosophical Interpreters of the Universe, of the Creation and Constitution of the World. PHILOSOPHY.--The aim of philosophy is to seek the explanation of all things: the quest is for the first _causes_ of everything, and also _how_ all things are, and finally _why_, with what design, with a view to what, things are. That is why, taking "principle" in all the senses of the word, it has been called the science of first principles. Philosophy has always existed. Religions--all religions--are philosophies. They are indeed the most complete. But, apart from religions, men have sought the causes and principles of everything and endeavoured to acquire general ideas. These researches apart from religious dogmas in pagan antiquity are the only ones with which we are here to be concerned.