to possess capacities hitherto unimagined. On the other hand, the dark curtains which had hitherto restricted man's view of the physical world to a small corner of it were torn asunder, and the strange fact was revealed that that which had hitherto been regarded by men as the whole sphere of physical life and nature, was in reality a mere fragment of a mighty universe of which there had been no previous conception. of the Of the two revelations-that of man's true intellectual capacity and that of the true extent of his physical environThe priority ment-the intellectual revelation came first. The intellectual physical revelation followed at no long interval. It was an accidental conjuncture of events. But each powerfully reacted on the other, and increased its fertility of effect. revelation. The discovery of Greek literature That It was the discovery anew by Western Europe of classical Greek literature and philosophy which was the spring of the intellectual revelation of the Renaissance. discovery was begun in the fourteenth century, when Greek subjects of the falling Byzantine emand philosophy. pire brought across the Adriatic manuscript memorials of Greek intellectual culture. But it was not till the final overthrow of the Byzantine empire by the Turks that all that survived of the literary art of Athens was driven westward in a flood, and the whole range of Greek enlightenment the highest enlightenment that had yet dawned in the human mind-lay at the disposal of Western Europe. It was then there came for the first time into the modern world the feeling for form, the frank delight in life and the senses, the unrestricted employment of the reason, with every other enlightened aspiration that was enshrined in Attic literature and philosophy. Under the growing Greek influence, all shapes of literature and speculation, of poetry influence. and philosophy, sprang into new life in Italy during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the sixteenth century the torch was handed on by Italy to Spain, The France, Germany, and England. In each of those Italian countries the light developed in accord with the national idiosyncrasy, but in none of them did it wholly lose the Italian hue, which it acquired at its first coming into Western Europe. It was mainly through Florence that the newly released stream of Hellenism flowed northwards. The revelation. From another quarter than the East came, a little later, the physical revelation which helped no less to mould the spirit of the era. Until the extreme end of the fifteenth century, man knew nothing of the true physical shape or extent of the planet on which his life was cast. Fantastic theories of cosmography had been evolved, to which no genuine test had been applied. It was only in the year 1492 that Western Europe first learned its real place on the world's surface. The maritime explorations which distinguished the decade 1490-1500 unveiled new expanses of land and sea which reduced to insignificance the fragments of earth and heaven with which men had hitherto been familiar. Maritime tion. To the west was brought to light for the first time a continent larger than the whole area of terrestrial matter of which there was previous knowledge. To the south a Portuguese mariner discovered that Africa, explorawhich was hitherto deemed to be merely a narrow strip of earth forming the southern boundary wall of the world, was a gigantic peninsula thrice the size of Europe, which stretched far into a southern ocean, into the same ocean which washed the shores of India. Such discoveries were far more than contributions to the The discovery of the solar system. science of geography. They were levers to lift the spirit of man into unlooked-for altitudes. They gave new conceptions not of earth alone, but of heaven. The skies were surveyed from points of view which had never yet been approached. A trustworthy study of the sun and stars became possible, and in the early years of the sixteenth century, a scientific investigator deduced from the rich array of new knowledge the startling truth that the earth, hitherto believed to be the centre of the universe, was only one-and that not the largest-of numerous planetary bodies rotating around the sun. If Columbus and Vasco da Gama, the discoverers of new lands and seas, deserve homage for having first revealed the true dimensions of the earth, to Copernicus is due the supreme honour of having taught the inhabitants of the earth to know their just place in the economy of the limitless firmament, over which they had hitherto fancied that they ruled. Whatever final purpose sun, planets and stars served, it was no longer possible to regard them as mere ministers of light and heat to men on earth. The expan sion of thought. So stupendous was the expansion of the field of man's thought, which was generated by the efforts of Columbus and Copernicus, that only gradually was its full significance apprehended. All branches of human endeavour and human speculation were ultimately remodelled in the light of the new physical revelation. The change was in the sixteenth century only beginning. But new ideals at once came to birth, and new applications of human energy suggested themselves in every direction. Dreamers believed that a new universe had been born, and that they were destined to begin a new manner of human life, which should be freed from the defects of the old. The intellectual revelation of a new culture power fully reinforced the physical revelation of new heavenly and earthly bodies. Assured hopes of human perfectibility permeated human thought. The unveiling of the measureless expanse of physical nature made of man, physically considered, a pigmy, but the spirited enterprises whereby the new knowledge was gained, combined with the revelation of the intellectual achievements of the past to generate the new faith that there lurked in man's mind a power which would ultimately yield him mastery of all the hidden forces of animate and inanimate nature. IV The inven tion of printing. The mechanical invention of the printing press almost synchronised with the twofold revelation of new realms of thought and nature. The ingenious device came slowly to perfection, but as soon as it was perfected, its employment spread with amazing rapidity under stress of the prevailing stir of discovery. The printing press greatly contributed to the dissemination of the ideas, which the movement of the Renaissance bred. Without the printing press the spread of the movement would have been slower and its character would have been less homogeneous. The books embodying the new spirit would not have multiplied so quickly nor travelled so far. The printing press distributed the fruit of the new spirit over the whole area of the civilised world. The Re naissance In every sphere of human aspiration through Western Europe the spirit of the Renaissance made its presence felt. New ideas invaded the whole field of human effort in a tumbling crowd, but many traditions of the ancient régime, which the invasion threatened to displace, stubbornly held their ground. Some veteran principles opposed the newcomers' progress and checked and the Church of Rome. the growth of the New Birth of mind. The old Papal Church of Rome at the outset absorbed some of its teaching. The Roman Church did not officially discourage Greek learning and it encouraged exploration. There were humanists among the Popes of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. But the new spirit, in the fulness of time, demanded concessions of the Church which struck at the root of her being. The Church peremptorily refused to remodel her beliefs on the liberal lines that the new spirit laid down. Ultimately she declared open war on the enlightened thought of the Renaissance. Some essayed the subtle task of paying simultaneous allegiance to the two opposing forces. Erasmus's unique fertility of mental resource enabled him to come near success in the exploit. But most found the attempt beyond their strength, and, like Sir Thomas More the greatest of those who tried to reconcile the irreconcilable, sacrificed genius and life in the hopeless cause. The Papacy had more to fear from the passion for enquiry and criticism which the Renaissance evoked than from the The compromise of Protestantism. positive ideals and principles which it generated. The great Protestant schism is sometimes represented, without much regard for historic truth, as a calculated return to the primitive ideals of a distant past, as a deliberate revival of a divinely inspired system of religion which had suffered eclipse. Its origin is more complex. It was mainly the outcome of a compromise with the critical temper, which the intellectual and physical revelations of the Renaissance imposed on men's mind. Protestantism in the garb in which it won its main triumph, was the contribution of Germany to the spiritual regeneration of the sixteenth century, and a Teutonic cloudiness of sentiment overhung its foundations. Protestantism ignored large tracts of the new teaching and a mass of the new ideas which the |