    Montaigne rejects the theoretical or speculative way of philosophizing that prevailed under the Scholastics ever since the Middle Ages. According to him, science does not exist, but only a general belief in science. Petrarch had already criticized the Scholastics for worshiping Aristotle as their God. Siding with the humanists, Montaigne develops a sharp criticism of science “à la mode des  Geométriens”,[7]  the mos geometricus deemed to be the most rigorous.  It is merely “a practice and business of  science”,[8]  he says, which is restricted to the University and essentially carried out between masters and their disciples. The main problem of this kind of science is that it makes us spend our time justifying as rational the beliefs we inherit, instead of calling into question their foundations; it makes us label fashionable opinions as truth, instead of gauging their strength. Whereas science should be a free inquiry, it consists only in gibberish discussions on how we should read Aristotle or  Galen.[9]  Critical judgment is systematically silenced.  Montaigne demands a thought process that would not be tied down by any doctrinaire principle, a thought process that would lead to free enquiry. 