The monasteries, however, in the course of time ceased even to be centres of historical study. The Dominicans had produced Zamora, the Franciscans Simón, and the Augustinians San Nicolás, but the orders developed no successors to these writers; rather, in the presence of the intellectual awakening, they assumed an attitude of protest and denial. They disputed the affirmations of Galileo and the conclusions of other scientific investigators; and thus, with the progress of the inquiries instituted by Mutis and carried on by his pupils and followers, there appeared a widening breach between the monasteries, representing mediævalism, and the investigators of nature, presaging a new day. [Sidenote: Francisco Antonio Moreno] It was clear to some minds that in order to make continuous the forces of intellectual progress it was necessary to reorganize the schools of the country and to bring them into harmony with the new views of knowledge. In sympathy with this thought Viceroy Guirior commissioned Francisco Antonio Moreno to form a new plan of instruction, that would provide not only for a new curriculum, but also for the establishment of a school wherever one had been closed by the expulsion of the Jesuits. In the judgment of the persons most eminent in the affairs of New Granada Moreno appeared admirably fitted for this undertaking. He was born in Mariquita on October 25, 1736, and was educated at Bogotá, his studies taking a somewhat wider range than that provided by the conventional curriculum. He held in succession various high offices in the viceregal government, to which he was promoted with the spontaneous support of the viceroy, the secular cabildo, the university, the archbishop, and the audiencia. Towards the end of his career he was appointed an oidor, or judge, of the audiencia at Lima; a little later he was transferred to Chile as regent, and died at Santiago on February 24, 1792.[211] [Sidenote: Revolt of the Comuneros]