 At a time when philosophy in the universities was considered the handmaid of theology, they devoted their considerable philosophical learning to religious and moral issues, to defending the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, and to formulating a practical ethics for Christian conduct. Convinced of the compatibility of reason and faith, hey held the eternal existence of moral principles and of truth, and that the human mind is equipped with the principles of reason and morality. Their optimistic view of human capacities is underscored by their emphasis on the freedom of the will. Their anti-determinism led them to propose arguments for human autonomy. They were all dualists for whom mind is ontologically prior to matter, and for whom the truths of the mind are superior to sense-knowledge. They accepted post-Galilean science, and propounded an atomistic theory of matter. But they repudiated the new mechanistic natural philosophy in favour of the view the fundamental causal principle in the operations of nature is some form of immaterial agent or spirit.