At one extremity we have mysticism which culminated in the speculations of Bruno and Campanella; at the other we have the scepticism of Montaigne, Charron, and Sanchez.
The bewildered condition of knowledge is indicated by the fact that while Bruno and Campanella accepted the Copernican astronomy, it was rejected by one who in many other respects may claim to be reckoned as a modern--I mean Francis Bacon.
But the growing tendency to challenge the authority of the ancients does not sever this period from the spirit which informed the Renaissance.
For it is subordinate or incidental to a more general and important interest.

To rehabilitate the natural man, to claim that he should be the pilot of his own course, to assert his freedom in the fields of art and literature had been the work of the early Renaissance.

It was the problem of the later Renaissance to complete this emancipation in the sphere of philosophical thought.

The bold metaphysics of Bruno, for which he atoned by a fiery death, offered the solution which was most unorthodox and complete.

His deification of nature and of man as part of nature involved the liberation of humanity from external authority.