CHAPTER V.THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE: FONTENELLE.
1.
Nine months before the first part of Perrault's work appeared a younger and more brilliant man had formulated, in a short tract, the essential points of the doctrine of the progress of knowledge.

It was Fontenelle.
Fontenelle was an anima naturaliter moderna.

Trained in the principles of Descartes, he was one of those who, though like Descartes himself, too critical to swear by a master, appreciated unreservedly the value of the Cartesian method.

Sometimes, he says, a great man gives the tone to his age; and this is true of Descartes, who can claim the glory of having established a new art of reasoning.

He sees the effects in literature.