HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.

107 By Modern Philosophy is meant philosophy since the discon- tinuance of its condition of subserviency to theology (which character- ized it in its scholastic form), in its gradual development into an inde- pendent science, having for its subject the essence and laws of nature and mind, as enriched and deepened by prior growths, and exerting an influence upon contemporaneous investigations in positive science and upon social life, and being in turn reacted upon by these.

Its chief diisions are : 1 The Transitional Period, beginning with the renewal of Platonism ; 2 The epoch of Empiricism, Dogmatism, and Skepticism, from Bacon and Descartes to the Encyclopedists and Hume ; and 3 The epoch of the Kantian Criticism and of the systems issuing from it, from Kant till the present time.

108 The first division of Modern Philosophy is characterized by the transition from mediaeval dependence on the authority of the Church and of Aristotle, first, to the independent choice of authorities, and then to the beginnings of original and imcontrolled investigation, yet without a complete emancipation of the new philosophical efforts from the domination of the mediaeval spirit, and with no rigidly methodical development of independent systems.

109 Among the events which introduced the transition from the Middle Ages to modern times, the earliest was the revival of classical studies.