ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by giving a summary of the human mind’s advance from Rene Descartes to the establishment of the new dynasty. There are two kinds of scientific study: The Search for Facts, and Reasoning Based on Facts, that is, the improvement of general theories. The School extended the approach bequeathed to it by Descartes beyond its natural limits. The School became Newtonian-Lockeian. For almost a century it has utilised the approach bequeathed to it by those two great men. Descartes began by proving that all knowledge acquired before him had only a material value. Descartes, who was as shrewd as he was strong, knew how to shelter himself from the persecutions of the clergy without restricting the development of his thought, without cramping his output. The scientific workshop laboured spiritedly to organise an ideal world, and neglected the study of the real one.
