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Orientalism conquer Greece. Under Scholasti-
cism it was the fate of great minds to retrace worn
paths in the cage of a system of conclusions deter-
mined by external authority; and the obligation
to uphold the established precluded any practi-
cal recognition of the reconstructive function of
thought. With the Renaissance -- that Indian
summer of Greek culture -- the dream of a re-
moulded world found voice again. Campanella,
through the darkness of his prison cell, achieved
the vision of a communist utopia; and other stu-
dents of the rediscovered Plato painted similar
pictures. Indeed this reawakening of Plato's in-
fluence gave to the men of the Renaissance an
inspiriting sense of the wonders that lay potential
in organized intelligence. Again men faced the
task of replacing with a natural ethic the falling
authoritarian sanctions of supernatural reli-
gion; and for a time one might have hoped that
the thought of Socrates was to find at last its due
fruition. But again men lost themselves in the
notion of a cultured class moving leisurely over
the backs of slaves; and perhaps it was well that
the whole movement was halted by the more
Puritan but also more democratic outburst of the
Reformation. What the world needed was a
method which offered hope for the redemption
not of a class, but of all. Galileo and Roger Bacon
opened the way to meeting this need by their
emphasis on the value of hypothesis and experi-
ment, and the necessity of combining induction

-68-

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Publication Information: Book Title: Philosophy and the Social Problem. Contributors: Will Durant - author. Publisher: Macmillan. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1917. Page Number: 68.
    
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