"The theoretical developments involving general relativity in the period prior to the renaissance made use of central principles of Einstein’s theory and of his s and methodology; the physicists who pursued these developments mostly did so, however, not to explore general relativity for its own sake but, rather, from an ulterior motive—the construction of some sort of successor theory. This goal they did not achieve. They did not consider general relativity itself to be a theory fundamental enough to warrant detailed theoretical study, nor did they believe that it held much empirical potential beyond what was already known. There was one central exception to this latter belief, and that is cosmology."