The basic structure of the volumes corresponds to the way an educated 17th century European might have organised the domain of philosophy. Thus, the history of science, religious doctrine, and politics feature very prominently. The narrative that unfolds begins with an intellectual world dominated by a synthesis of Aristotelianism and scholastic philosophy, but by the end of the period the mechanistic or corpuscularian philosophy has emerged and exerted its full impact on traditional metaphysics, ethics, theology, logic, and epistemology.