The river Cusa is mentioned by Pliny, Lib. 5. c. 1. and by Ptolomy.

* %CONTENTS.% INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I. THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION: FROM NICOLAS OF CUSA TO DESCARTES 1.

Nicolas of Cusa 2.

Germany, England, and France claim the honor of having produced the first modern philosopher, presenting Nicolas of Cusa, Bacon of Verulam, and René Descartes as their candidates, while Hobbes, Bruno, and Montaigne have received only scattered votes.

Nicolas of Cusa (1401-64) was the first to announce fundamental principles of modern philosophyhe is the leader in this intermediate preparatory period.

CHAPTER I. THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION: FROM NICOLAS OF CUSA TO DESCARTES.

We must quickly pass over the broad threshold between modern philosophy and Scholastic philosophy, which is bounded by the year 1450, in which Nicolas of Cusa wrote his chief work, the Idiota, and 1644, when Descartes began the new era with his Principia Philosophiae; and can touch, in passing, only the most important factors.

Nicolas of Cusa.% Nicolas was born in 1401, at Cues (Cusa) on the Moselle near Treves.

Scharpff, Des Nikolaus von Cusa wichtigste Schriften in deutscher Uebersetzung, Freiburg i. Br., 1862.] Human knowledge and the relation of God to the world are the two poles of the Cusan's system.

He forms the transition link between Nicolas of Cusa and Leibnitz, as also the link between Cardanus and Spinoza.

Herewith the philosophical application of mathematics loses that obscure mystical character which had clung to it since the time of Pythagoras, and had strongly manifested itself as late as in Nicolas of Cusa.

In the line of development from the speculations of Nicolas of Cusa to the establishment of the English philosophy of nature, of religion, and of the state by Bacon, Herbert, and Hobbes, and to the physics of Galileo, modern ideas have manifested themselves with increasing clearness and freedom.

He published Herodotus, Strabo, Livy, Aulus Gellius, &c. His schoolfellow, Cardinal de Cusa, procured him the bishopric of Arcia, a province in Corsica; and Paul the second afterwards appointed him to that of Aleria, in the same island, where he died in 1493.