The special sciences, as we now know them, had not been called into existence.
5.

THE MODERN PHILOSOPHY .-- The submission of men's minds to the authority of Aristotle and of the church gradually gave way.

A revival of learning set in.

Men turned first of all to a more independent choice of authorities, and then rose to the conception of a philosophy independent of authority, of a science based upon an observation of nature, of a science at first hand.

The special sciences came into being.
But the old tradition of philosophy as universal knowledge remained.
If we pass over the men of the transition period and turn our attention to Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and Rene Descartes (1596-1650), the two who are commonly regarded as heading the list of the modern philosophers, we find both of them assigning to the philosopher an almost unlimited field.
Bacon holds that philosophy has for its objects God, man, and nature, and he regards it as within his province to treat of "_philosophia prima_" (a sort of metaphysics, though he does not call it by this name), of logic, of physics and astronomy, of anthropology, in which he includes psychology, of ethics, and of politics.