... a number of centuries, and in part due to the efforts of Thomas Aquinas, it had become integrated with Christianity. Aristotelianism was both scientifically and theologically the accepted philosophical paradigm. The fact that it provided a comprehensive system and that it had widespread religious support made it something of an impenetrable fortress. Rene Descartes (1596-1650), received what would have been deemed in his day a 'good education', its foundations firmly embedded in Aristotelian principles. Descartes, however, was not satisfied with what he had been taught and set about formulating an alternative to Aristotelianism. He recognised the need to establish a complete system, identifying the failure of those before him who had not attacked Aristotelianism as a whole: Other early workers, like Paracelsus, Telesio or Campanella also attacked certain parts of Aristotelian philosophy, but none before Descartes had sought to replace it entirely with a comprehensive alternative philosophy.5 Descartes' mechanical philosophy was to completely ...

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