14? PROLOGUE I 



of liberal culture and of national welfare, the 

 humanists were eager to lend a hand to anything 

 which tended to the discomfiture of their sworn 

 enemies, the monks, and they willingly supported 

 every movement in the direction of weakening 

 ecclesiasticaly interference with civil life. But the 

 bond of a common enemy was the only real tie 

 between the humanist and the protestant ; their 

 alliance was bound to be of short duration, and, 

 sooner or later, to be replaced by internecine 

 warfare. The goal of the humanists, whether 

 they were aware of it or not, was the attainment 

 of the complete intellectual freedom of the 

 antique philosopher, than which nothing could be 

 more abhorrent to a Luther, a Calvin, a Beza, or 

 a Zwingli. 



The key to the comprehension of the conduct 

 of Erasmus, seems to me to lie in the clear appre- 

 hension of this fact. That he was a man of many 

 weaknesses may be true ; in fact, he was quite 

 aware of them and professed himself no hero. 

 But he never deserted that reformatory move- 

 ment which he originally contemplated ; and it 

 was impossible he should have deserted the 

 specifically Protestant reformation in which he 

 never took part. He was essentially a theological 

 whig, to whom radicalism was as hateful as it is 

 to all whigs ; or, to borrow a still more appropriate 

 comparison from modern times, a broad church- 

 man who refused to enlist with -either the High 



