He thought that
knowledge comes primarily from experience rather than from the
mind, so that observation and experimentation are necessary to
find truth. Immanuel Kant from Prussia, who became a professor of
logic and metaphysics, was also impressed by Newton's findings and
expressed his philosophy that man has perceptions in space and
time and can have some descriptive knowledge of his world by using
purely intellectual concepts such as possibility, existence,
necessity, and substance. He thought of God as theological
perfection, and morality as practical perfection. The British
primarily adopted the views of their own Hobbes and Locke, and
Bacon before them.
At Oxford and Cambridge Universities, there were the most
enlightened theologians, classicists, orientalists, philologists,
mathematicians, chemists, architects, and musicians. There were
professors of Anglo-Saxon, Hebrew, and Arabic. John Locke's
influence caused modern philosophy to supercede traditional
scholasticism. There were no more disputations to qualify for
degrees. Some of the students were the sons of noblemen and sat at
meals with the heads, tutors, and fellows of the colleges. Most
students were the sons of landowners, clergymen, professional men,
or prosperous men of business. They were known as the gentlemen
commoner students. The few poor students were known as servitors
and paid for their education by menial work.
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