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At the end of the eighteenth century and at the beginning of the nineteenth culture entered upon an entirely new phase of development in all parts of the civilized world; more quickly in certain parts than in others because the seeds of such development had already begun there to take root. In this work of development John Locke, the English philosopher, was a conspicuous leader. His philosophy formed the starting-point of the new development of the natural sciences, first in France and afterward in Germany and other European countries. Voltaire was the first among the French philosophers to advocate the teachings of Locke in opposition to those of Descartes (i.e., realistic rather than as the result of a priori reasoning). Condillac, another great French philosopher (1715–1780), also expressed himself as approving the views set forth by Voltaire,—that is, in favor of Locke’s philosophy. Diderot and others among the encyclopaedists sanctioned the same teachings. As Hirsch expresses it:—