and not carried out with sufficient consistency.  The dispute between the two remaining contestants may be easily and equitably settled by making the simple distinction between forerunner and beginner, between path-breaker and founder.  The entrance of a new historical era is not accompanied by an audible click, like the beginning of a new piece on a music-box, but is gradually effected.  A considerable period may intervene between the point when the new movement flashes up, not understood and half unconscious of itself, and the time when it appears on the stage in full strength and maturity, recognizing itself as new and so acknowledged by others:  the period of ferment between the Middle Ages and modern times lasted almost two centuries.  It is in the end little more than logomachy to discuss whether this time of anticipation and desire, of endeavor and partial success, in which the new struggles with the old without conquering it, and the opposite tendencies in the conflicting views of the world interplay in a way at once obscure and wayward, is to be classed as the epilogue of the old era or the prologue of the new.  The simple solution to take it as a transition period, no longer mediaeval but not yet modern, has met with fairly general acceptance.  Nicolas of Cusa (1401-64) was the first to announce fundamental principles of modern philosophy—­he is the leader in this intermediate preparatory period.  Descartes (1596-1650) brought forward the first system—­he is the father of modern philosophy.

A brief survey of the literature may be added in conclusion: 

Heinrich Ritter’s Geschichte der neueren Philosophie (vols. ix.-xii. of his Geschichte der Philosophie), 1850-53, to Wolff and Rousseau, has been superseded by more recent works, J.E.  Erdmann’s able Versuch einer wissenschaftlichen Darstellung der neueren Philosophie (6 vols., 1834-53) gives in appendices literal excerpts from non-German writers; the same author’s Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie (2 vols., 1869; 3d ed., 1878) contains at the end the first exposition of German Philosophy since the Death of Hegel [English translation in 3 vols., edited by W. S. Hough, 1890.—­TR.].  Ueberweg’s Grundriss (7th ed. by M. Heinze, 1888) is indispensable for reference on account of the completeness of its bibliographical notes, which, however, are confusing to the beginner [English translation by G.S.  Morris, with additions by the translator, Noah Porter, and Vincenzo Botta, New York, 1872-74.—­TR.].  The most detailed and brilliant exposition has been given by Kuno Fischer (1854 seq.; 3d ed., 1878 seq.; the same author’s Baco und seine Nachfolger, 2d ed., 1875,—­English translation, 1857, by Oxenford,—­supplements the first two volumes of the Geschichte der neueren Philosophie).  This work, which is important also as a literary achievement, is better fitted than any other to make the reader at home in the ideal world of the great philosophers,