TRANSITION The changes and disturbances which accompanied the dissolu tion of the Roman Empire, the gradual formation thereafter of a new philosophical synthesis within the Church, and lack of con tact with Greek thought prevented for centuries anything like a revival of ancient scepticism. The Sic et Non of Abelard (d. 1142) with its list of contradictories about 158 questions, re calls the outlook of the "tropes," but there is no reason to regard them as sources; the same may be said of the critical subtleties of Occam (d. During the Italian Renaissance revolts against dogma and clericalism appeared, but no systematic scep ticism. Nor can it be affirmed that French scepticism thereafter, although its debt to the Greek schools is obvious, became defi nitely systematic. Montaigne (1533-92), a practical sceptic in his attack upon abuses, diffused an atmosphere of inquiry; so did Charron (1541-1603) in his philosophy of living and appeal to natural reason. Sanchez, in his Tractatus de multum nobili et
prima universali scientia quod nihil scitur (A Treatise on the Noble and High Science of Nescience, 1580, with its derivation of knowledge from the senses; and la Mothe-le-Vayer (1586 1672), who calls Sextus Empiricus "our beloved sceptic," paved the way for Bayle's Dictionnaire historique et critique (1697), a quarry for contradictions calculated to set natural reason and supernatural revelation by the ears. Bayle maintained that the dubiety of knowledge points to renunciation of inquiry and ac ceptance of revelation. In a word, be reason what it may, the authority of faith in its own sphere remains unimpaired. Hence we have a form of Christian scepticism, either genuine or as sumed as a precaution.