I.] SCIENCE AND CULTURE. 13 



sation in Spain and the great movement of the 

 Crusades had introduced the leaven which, from that 

 day to this, has never ceased to work. At first, 

 through the intermediation of Arabic translations, 

 afterwards, by the study of the originals, the western 

 nations of Europe became acquainted with the writ- 

 ings of the ancient philosophers and poets, and, in 

 time, with the \\I )le of the vast literature of antiquity. 



Whatever there was of high intellectual aspiration 

 or dominant capacity in Italy, France, Germany, and 

 England, spent itself for centuries in taking possession 

 of the rich inheritance left by the dead civilisations 

 of Greece and Home. Marvellously aided by the 

 invention of printing, classical learning spread and 

 flourished. Those who possessed it prided themselves 

 on having attained 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 Renascence to compare with the men 

 of antiquity ; there was no art to compete with 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 acceptance of reason as the sole guide to 

 truth and the supreme arbiter of conduct. 



The new learning necessarily soon exerted a pro- 

 found influence upon education. The language of 

 the monks and schoolmen seemed little better than 

 gibberish to scholars fresh from Virgil and Cicero, 

 and the study of Latin was placed upon a new 



