Few now dispute the services of the schoolmen to the intellectual development of Europe.

But conditions had fully ripened, and it was time to complete the movement of Bacon and Descartes by finally placing verbal analysis, verbal definition, verbal inferences, in their right position.

Form was no longer to take precedence of matter.

The Encyclopaedists are never weary of contrasting their own age of practical rationalism with "the pusillanimous ages of taste." A great collection of books is described in one article (_Bibliomanie_) as a collection of material for the history of the blindness and infatuation of mankind.

The gatherer of books is compared to one who should place five or six gems under a pile of common pebbles.