148 SCIENCE AND CULTURE vi 



classical learning spread and flourished. Those 

 who possessed it prided themselves on having at- 

 tained the highest culture then within the reach 

 of mankind. 



And justly. For, saving Dante on his solitary 

 pinnacle, there was no figure in modern literature 

 at the time of the Eenascence to compare with 

 the men of antiquity; there was no art to com- 

 pete witli their sculpture; there was no physical 

 science but that which Greece had created. 

 Above all, there was no other example of perfect 

 intellectual freedom — of the unhesitating accept- 

 ance of reason as the sole guide to truth and the 

 supreme arbiter of conduct. 



The new learning necessarily soon exerted a 

 profound influence upon education. The language 

 of the monks and schoolmen seemed little better 

 than fi^ibberish to scholars fresh from Tir;>;il and 

 Cicero, and the study of Latin was placed upon a 

 new foundation. Moreover, Latin itself ceased to 

 afford the sole kev to knowledc^e. The student 

 who sought the highest thought of antiquity, 

 found only a second-hand reflection of it in Roman 

 literature, and turned his face to the full light 

 of the Greeks. And after a battle, not altogether 

 dissimilar to that which is at present being fought 

 over the teaching of physical science, the study 

 of Greek was recognised as an essential element 

 of all higher education. 



Then the TTumanists, as they were called, won 



