PORTUGUESE AND SPANIARDS 63 



luxuries was becoming more insistent. Moreover, while 



the Empire decayed, nations were coming into -being in 



the West, nations united, organic, patriotic, whose Kings 



wielded a strength far greater than had belonged to Kings 



and even to Emperors of the Feudal Age. And, moreover, 



these new nations were animated by a new spirit, the 



spirit of the New Birth, which now moved over the face of 



the world, awakening the energies of soul and of mind and 



of body to a new life. To men of the time it appeared that 



all things were made new. There was a new unwillingness 



to acquiesce in authority, in tradition, in custom. The 



mind became active, inquisitive, critical, distrustful of the 



accepted opinion, eager to investigate things anew, and to 



build up a science which should have foundations well and 



truly laid in experience. " To have seen with my own 



eyes," said a scholar, " I believe to be the eighth science." 



There was a new passionate pursuit of things desired, of 



knowledge, of wealth, of honour and glory in the sight of God 



and man ; a new and effectual ambition to face the unknown 



with determination to know, to understand, and to possess. 



Maritime enterprise was an essential expression and method 



of the new spirit ; and the thought came into men's minds 



that it was possible to make use of the new national strength Is there an 



and of the new science to cleave a path by Ocean sea to the ^theEast ? 



end of the earth, and thus renew in splendid ways missions 



and commerce to East and South. 



The Hero of the New Age was Prince Henry " the 

 Navigator" of Portugal, the third son of John "the 

 Great," who, in the late fourteenth century, had made 

 Portugal a nation, united, patriotic, commercial, crusading. 

 The long crusade of Portugal against the Moors of the 

 peninsula had come to an end. But the Crusading spirit 

 lived in the chivalry of Portugal, strong, sincere, fierce as 

 2ver, combining with the new spirit of the Renaissance to 

 drive forth the Knight to seek venture in service of Christ. 

 Prince Henry had his part in the Middle Ages. He won his Henry the 

 sword of knighthood by the long fierce fight which won crusader and 

 "euta from the African Moors, " that most glorious con- " Searcher." 

 luest, of which famous victory the heavens felt the glory 



