The need was felt of new fields outside of the trodden paths. The broad philosophy of the Florentine Academy in reconciling classi cism and Christianity was one of the most characteristic examples of this moral necessity. Other philologists began to explore the Semitic literature; they studied Hebrew and Arabic. Contemporaneously, the Italian language, at once the child and the means of civilization, be came reinvigorated, and resumed the position ' that the ages had awarded it. Finally, Pico della Mirandola formulated the new Nanre (program) affirming the rights of science, and the necessity of learning to know man. in all the Manifestations of his thought the thought of the schools, which Humanism had overthrown. On this point the action of the revival was logical and complete; eclectic mod ern thought was born; a new era commenced. We are witnessing the discovery of a new world.
Undoubtedly classical thought injured the religious fabric of Christianity in the minds of cultured people; but the new thought did not renounce the virtue of Christian morality. It is strange that the fact has not been taken into account that in Italy the only persons who were interested in Grace and Justification were those very Humanists of the 16th century, and the legitimate descendants of the Humanists of the 15th century. And in the very centres of the first period of Humanism those philologists who apparently enjoyed gossip and pleasure were troubled by the same doubts as ourselves, which like great breakers dash here and there, from pole to pole. The two or three Obedi ences; the deposition, the arrest and the con demnation of a fugitive Pope; the long con test between the Council and the Pope, while they attacked the ecclesiastical question and forced the potentates of the Catholic world to a line of defense, placed the thinkers of the day in the identical conditions in which modern thinkers are placed by victorious science. That
is why the Humanists faced the same questions which to-day preoccupy mankind. In their writings breathes the modern thought, and the Renaissance has for half a century attracted the special attention of students who, when they have collected all that has been .published regarding that period, will have a rich and precious library.
The action of Humanism was beneficial in other ways. Many ills for which it is held re sponsible were the effect of very remote causes; and the Renaissance, in which Humanism played so large a part, is one of the glorious victories of civilization. To the lasting con quests that the present age owes to the age of the Renaissance must he added another, which is that science at that period entered the path which has led it to the wonderful discoveries of our times. The study of anatomy first obtained a secure footing in the school of Bologna. In Florence, Toscanelli paved the way for the triumph of Christopher Columbus in the very year in which the Portuguese discovered the African coast. Navigation became a science, opened the unexplored ocean, and Europe be came the watch-tower of the civilization of the world. Meanwhile, independently of Human ism, but always in this 15th century of its activity, printing began to diffuse knowledge and to become the most efficacious means of promoting the brotherhood of humanity! See RENAISSANCE
Consult in English, Burck hardt, Jakob, 'The Civilization of the Renais sance in Italy' (trans. by S. G. C. Middlemore London 1914) ; 'Cambridge Modern
(Vol. I, "The Renaissance," London 1903); Symonds, John Addington,