ABSTRACT
Even during the period when mediæval scholasticism was at the zenith of its power, there were not wanting movements hostile to it, the representatives of which, partly by way of logic, like the so-called nominalists, partly by exhortations to empirical observations, like Roger Bacon, previously mentioned, sought to undermine its thought-structure. These movements, besides, very often had points of contact with the mysticism which throughout the Middle Ages sought in the sphere of a holy life to induce a spirit of personal sincerity in contrast to the strictly formal piety taught by the Church. When, later on, scholasticism was discredited, owing to the reverence of humanism for antiquity, the field was left open for a philosophy in which all the above-mentioned elements — theoretical speculation, empirical observations, mysticism, both Christian and late classical — were included as fundamental components in a fresh conception of existence, out of which our own modern ideas of nature and life gradually developed.
