THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN SCIENCE 77 



the new learning, he abhorred the teachings of scholasticism 

 and scoffed at the authority of Aristotle. He was the first 

 great figure in the valiant battle, waged against make- 

 believe and superstition, by the rationalists of the fourteenth, 

 fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. 



Neither the reputation which is popularly attached to 

 Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), and others of the human- 

 ists who are known chiefly by the laxness, from a modern 

 viewpoint, of their standards of morality, 5 nor prejudice 

 toward the classical requirements that have hitherto dom- 

 inated western education should conceal the fact that 

 these men occupy an important place in the transition from 

 medieval to modern scientific thought. Humanism may 

 have acted as a temporary check upon the development of 

 interest in the natural sciences. But the study of ancient 

 literature was the most important single factor in the libera- 

 tion of the intellect. Humanism did yeoman service in the 

 advancement of the critical frame of mind which was a 

 necessary preliminary to the constructive rationalism of 

 modern science. In view of their limited knowledge of facts, 

 it is remarkable that the humanists wrought so well. 



By the year 1450 the recovery of the ancient learning 

 was almost complete and the essentially modern culture of 

 the humanists was fast displacing the gloom of the Middle 

 Ages. As we have seen, the first century of the Renaissance 

 (1350-1450) was an age of increasing skepticism and negation 

 while the positive and constructive activities of the period 

 were later accomplishments. After 1450 the study of nature 

 assumed increasing importance. Facts began to accumulate 

 and men awoke to the obvious truths of natural science, so 

 that rapid advances in scientific knowledge became possible. 



More than any other individual Leonardo da Vinci (1452- 



5 The significance of the literary work of Boccaccio is not to be estimated by 

 the salaciousness of the Decameron, but on the basis that, in opposition to the 

 asceticism of the medieval spirit, he "proclaimed the beauty of the world, the 

 godliness of youth and strength and love, unterrified by hell, unappalled by the 

 shadow of impending death." Symonds, J. A., "The Renaissance in Italy." 



