We need no further follow the speculations of this school. We see already abundant reason why the reform of the methods of pursuing science could not proceed from the Platonists. Instead of seeking knowledge by experiment, they immersed themselves deeper than even the Aristotelians had done in traditionary lore, or turned their eyes inwards in search of an internal illumination. Some attempts were made to remedy the defects of philosophy by a recourse to the doctrines of other sects of antiquity, when men began to feel more distinctly the need of a more connected and solid knowledge of nature than the established system gave them. Among these attempts were those of Berigard[107], Magernus, and especially Gassendi, to bring into repute the philosophy of the Ionian school, of Democritus and of Epicurus. But these endeavours were posterior in time to the new impulse given to knowledge by Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, and were influenced by views arising out of the success of these discoveries, and they must, therefore, be considered hereafter. In the mean time, some independent efforts (arising from speculative rather than practical reformers) were made to cast off the yoke of the Aristotelian dogmatism, and to apprehend the true form of that new philosophy which the most active and hopeful minds saw to be needed; and we must give some account of these attempts, before we can commit ourselves to the full stream of progressive philosophy. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 86: Gratian published the _Decretals_ in the twelfth century; and the Canon and Civil Law became a regular study in the universities soon afterwards.] [Footnote 87: Tenneman, ix. 4.] [Footnote 88: Tenneman, ix. 25.] [Footnote 89: "Jam nobis manifestum est terram istam in veritate moveri," &c.--_De Doctâ Ignorantiâ_, lib. ii. c. xii.] [Footnote 90: _De Doct. Ignor._ lib. i. c. i.] [Footnote 91: _De Conjecturis_, lib. i. c. iii. iv.] [Footnote 92: Born in 1433.] [Footnote 93: Born 1529, died 1597.] [Footnote 94: _Aristoteles Exotericus_, p. 50.] [Footnote 95: Tiraboschi, t. vii. pt. ii. p. 411.] [Footnote 96: "Franciscus Patricius, novam veram integram de universis conditurus philosophiam, sequentia uti verissima prænuntiare est ausus. Prænunciata ordine persecutus, divinis oraculis, geometricis rationibus, clarissimisque experimentis comprobavit. Ante primum nihil, Post primum omnia, A principio omnia," &c. His other works are _Panaugia_, _Pancosmia_, _Dissertations Peripateticæ_.] [Footnote 97: Tiraboschi, t. vii. pt. ii. p. 411.] [Footnote 98: _Dissert. Perip._ t. ii. lib. v. sub fin.] [Footnote 99: Tenneman, ix. 148.] [Footnote 100: Tenneman, ix. 167.] [Footnote 101: _Ibid._ 158.] [Footnote 102: Agrippa, _De Occult. Phil._ lib. i. c. l.] [Footnote 103: Written in 1526.] [Footnote 104: Philip Aurelius Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, also called Paracelsus Eremita, born at Einsiedlen in Switzerland, in 1493.]