The refutation of the Cartesian criterion (which De Sanctis thought "complete," the "last word of criticism"[34]) is the negative aspect of Vico's theory of knowledge. Its positive side, absent in the _De antiquissima,_ is developed as we have said in the _Scienza Nuova,_ where the human knowledge of the mind and of history is raised to the level of divine knowledge. And since some critics have not only chosen to ignore the obvious difference between these two phases of Vico's thought but have spoken of a too easy transition from the one to the other, it will be well to observe that this transition was for Vico if not entirely conscious at least very slow and very difficult. He must at one time have shared Descartes' and Malebranche's contempt for history; in the speech of 1701 he even echoed a saying of Descartes against philologists:--"You, Philologist, boast of knowing everything about the furniture and clothing of the Romans and of being more intimate with the quarters, tribes and streets of Rome than with those of your own city. Why this pride? You know no more than did the potter, the cook, the cobbler, the summoner, the auctioneer of Rome."[35] But eleven years later, in the second reply to the _Giornale dei letterati,_ Vico refers to the same phrase with the contrary conclusion, and deplores that "the study of languages is to-day considered profitless, thanks to the authority of Descartes, who says that to know Latin is to know no more than did Cicero's servant-girl."[36] Vico had in the meantime become conscious of the importance of the "probable" knowledge of history and politics. He refers to his former anti-historical Cartesianism in a passage of the _De constantia philologiae_ which has generally escaped notice. Speaking of philology he says: "I, who have all my life delighted in the use of reason more than in memory, seem to myself the more ignorant the more facts I know in philology. Whence René Descartes and Malebranche were not far wrong when they said that it was alien to the philosopher to work much and for long at philology." But he adds that later he perceived that "these two most notable philosophers ought, it they had been zealous for the common glory of Christendom, not for the private glory of philosophers, so to have pressed forward the study of philology as to see whether philology could be attached to the principles of philosophy (_ut viderent philosophi an philologiam ad philosophiae principia revocare possent_)."[37] The elevation of philology to the rank of philosophy, of the knowledge of the world of man to the level of divine knowledge, is the positive aspect of Vico's theory of knowledge. It is this that is developed in the _Scienza Nuova,_ towards which the _De antiquissima,_ with the indication of the historical sciences as against Cartesianism, only prepared the way.