The Frenchmen, Helvetius, Voltaire, Rousseau, Maupertius, Condillac, Diderot, d'Alembert, La Mettrie and Baron Holbach, were quick to become infected, and in Germany, despite the essentially aristocratic influence of Leibnitz,[39] Kant was the first to follow suit. Begun in this way, English philosophical speculation, as Dr. Max Schasler says, was forced to grow ever more and more materialistic[40] in character, and, if "Science has already come very generally to mean, not that which may be known, but only such knowledge as every animal with faculties a little above those of an ant or a beaver can be induced to admit," and if "incommunicable knowledge, or knowledge which can be communicated at present only to a portion--perhaps a small portion--of mankind, is already affirmed to be no knowledge at all,"[41] it is thanks to the efforts of the fathers of English thought. Hence Nietzsche's cry, that "European ignobleness, the plebeian ism of modern ideas--is England's work and invention."[42] But it is not alone in its vulgarization of the concept of knowledge, or in its materialistic tendency, that English influence has helped to reduce the dignity of man and to level his kind; the utilitarians from Bentham to John Stuart Mill and Sidgwick, by taking the greatest number as the norm, as the standard and measurement of all things, ably reflected the Christian principle, of the equality of souls, in their works, and, incidentally, by so doing, treated the greatest number exceedingly badly. For what is mediocre can neither be exalted nor charmed by values drawn from mediocrity, and is constantly in need of values drawn from super-mediocrity, for its joy, for its love of life, and for its reconciliation with drabby reality.[43] [37] It is important here to note, first, that Roger Bacon was an Aristotelian through his intimate study of the Arabian treatises on the Greek philosopher, and, secondly, that although Greek speculation was governed more by insight than experience, Aristotle forms a striking exception to this rule. [38] _G. E._, p. 210: "What is lacking in England, and has always been lacking, that half-actor and rhetorician knew well enough, the absurd muddle-head Carlyle, who sought to conceal under passionate grimaces what he knew about himself: namely, what was lacking in Carlyle--real power of intellect, real depth of intellectual perception, in short, philosophy." [39] In reply to those who said, "Nothing exists in the intellect but what has before existed in the senses," Leibnitz replied: "Yes, nothing but the intellect." [40] _Kritische Geschichte der Æsthetik_ (1872). Speaking of the English Æstheticians, he says (p. 285), "The fact that there is no decrease, but rather an increase of Materialism in their thought, no purification in their meditation from the coarseness of experience, but rather a gradual immersion in the same, may also be regarded as characteristic of the development of the English spirit in general."