In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, after the heated conflicts between nominalism and realism, another species of philosophy, mysticism, separated itself from all other systems, acquired consciousness of itself, exposed its own theory, and by its own name was called. Near the close of his life, Petrarch abandoned literary pursuits, in order to devote himself to contemplative philosophy, was a mystic in belief, and died in 1374. Most of the remarkable men of this epoch were disciples of the same transcendental faith. Such were John Tauler, the celebrated preacher at Cologne, and the still more illustrious author of the "Imitation of Jesus Christ." Whether that work belongs to Gerson, or to Thomas à Kempis, it may be regarded as the most perfect reflection of philosophy in those foreboding times, when the thoughtful, oppressed with doubt, aspired after relief through reliance on the mercy of God. Scholasticism ceased at the beginning of the fifteenth century, and was succeeded by mysticism, which continued till the opening of the seventeenth century, when modern philosophy, properly so called, began, and is now molding a grander philosophic age. The mystical polemics which brought all learning to a low ebb at the epoch of the decline of ancient literature, long lurked faintly among the cloisters, by the dim lamp of dreaming solitaries, to whom true science was an unfathomable ocean, of which they vainly strove to sound the depths, while their only object should have been to sail across it. But their dogmatical fixedness was overruled for good, since all the great elements of speculative thought were thus conserved, and progressive philosophy, nevertheless, like its type and hero, through night and tempest westward took its course.