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 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 But Italian Renaissance brought to birth and cherished. Protestants were eager to mould their belief in some limited agreement with the dictates of reason. They acknowledged, within bounds, the Renaissance faith in the power and right of the human intellect to grapple with the mysteries of nature. The dogmas and ceremonies of the old system which signally flouted reason were denounced and rejected. A narrow interpretation of the Renaissance theory of human perfectibility coloured new speculations as to the efficacy of divine grace. But Protestantism declined to take reason as its sole guide or object of worship. Protestantism was the fruit of a compromise between the old conception of faith and the new conception of reason. The compromise was widely welcomed by a mass of enquirers who, though moved by the spirit of the age, were swayed in larger degree by religious emotion, and cherished unshakable confidence in the bases of Christianity. But the Protestant endeavour to accommodate old and new ideas was not acceptable in all quarters. A bold minority in Italy, France and England, either tacitly or openly, spurned a compromise which was out of harmony with the genuine temper of the era. While Roman Catholicism fortified its citadels anew, and Protestantism advanced against them in battle array in growing strength, the free thought and agnosticism, which the unalloyed spirit of the Renaissance generated, gained year by year fresh accession of force in every country of Western Europe. On secular literature the religious reformation, working within its normal limits, produced a far-reaching effect. The qualified desire for increase of knowledge, which Literary characterised the new religious creeds, widely extended the first-hand study of the Holy Scriptures, influence of the Bible. which enshrined the title-deeds of Christianity. Transla tions of the Bible into living tongues were encouraged by all Protestant reformers, and thereby Hebraic sublimity and intensity gained admission to much Renaissance literature. was owing to such turn of events that there met, notably in the great literature of sixteenth century England, the solemnity of Hebraism, with the Hellenist love of beauty and form. The incessant clash of ideas-the ferment of men's thought -strangely affected the moral character of many leaders of the Renaissance in England no less than in Europe. Life was lived at too high a pressure to maintain outward show of unity of purpose. The ethical paradox of the era. A moral chaos often reigned in man's being and vice was entangled inextricably with virtue. The alliance of good and evil. Probably in no age did the elemental forces of good and evil fight with greater energy than in the sixteenth century for the dominion of man's soul. Or rather, never did the two forces make closer compact with each other whereby they might maintain a joint occupation of the human heart. Men who were capable of the noblest acts of heroism were also capable of the most contemptible acts of treachery. An active sense of loyalty to a throne seemed no bar to secret conspiracy against a sovereign's life. When Shakespeare described in his sonnets the two spirits the better angel' and 'the worser spirit,' both of whom claimed his allegiance-he repeated a conceit which is universal in the poetry of the Renaissance, and represents with singular accuracy the ethical temper of the age. paradox of Among the six men whose life and work are portrayed in this volume, three-More, Bacon, and Ralegh- The major forcibly illustrate the mutually inconsistent characteristics with which the spirit of the Renaissance often endowed one and the same man. More, who proved himself in the Utopia an enlightened champion of the freedom of the intellect, and of religious toleration, laid down his life as a martyr to superstition and to the principle of authority (in its least rational form) in matters of religion. Ralegh who preached in his Historie of the World and in philosophic tracts a most elevated altruism and philosophy of life, neglected the first principles of honesty in a passionate greed of gold. Bacon, who rightly believed himself to be an inspired prophet of science, and a clear eyed champion of the noblest progress in human thought, stooped to every petty trick in order to make money and a ,worldly reputation. Happily the careers of the three remaining subjects-Sid ney, Spenser, and Shakespeare-are paradoxical in a minor degree. But the paradox which is inherent in the spirit of the time cast its glamour to some extent even over them. The poets Sidney and Spenser, The minor paradox of Sidney, Spenser, and Shake speare. who preached with every appearance of conviction |