732 REPORT— 1897. 



powerful in making more conspicuous the subject of Labour, especially the position 

 of Employed Labour. 



In another way this subject gains additional prominence, as has been suggested, 

 by the temporary abeyance of other causes of economic embarrassment, and 

 insufficient though this might be as a substantive cause, it is impossible to under- 

 rate its effect as subsidiary in the cause of a change already accomplished and 

 capable of attracting more interest with each fresh access of attention bestowed 

 upon it. 



But even these do not exhaust the number of subsidiary causes to which so 

 much is due. There are others, and though many of them are comparatively 

 unimportant this is far from being the case with one. The age itself and the 

 character of the age has much to do with the attention, and especially with the 

 sympathetic attention, patiently yielded to the problem. To characterise an age is 

 never easy. It is difficult even when the age is far distant and the human 

 memory so far kind as to refuse to retain more than one or two pieces of informa- 

 tion, letting the others slip through and fall into a deep and unrecovered oblivion. 

 How much more difficult when the epoch is our own ? But in this instance 

 there are some few features so marked and so capable of identification, that one 

 pauses to ask in amazement if the age of the Renaissance has not dawned upon us 

 again in an altered guise. The resemblance is the more striking if we take the 

 general characteristics and aspect of the two periods as distinct from the particular 

 direction in which the respective movements trend. A renaissance is twofold. On 

 the one hand it is a time of imrest,' due, indeed, to the breaking down of old 

 ideals and the decay of former springs of conduct and life, but due also to the 

 magnificent new life quivering to its birth. On the other hand, the meaning of 

 the particular renaissance is to be found in the nature of its own ideals and the 

 fresh direction and impetus imparted to life. Briefly, it is not only a change but 

 a particular change. What the new ideals are and what the new direction, will be 

 determined by the past history and the present needs of the nation passing through 

 its time of stress, and groping blindly after the truth which is to give meaning to 

 its actions, and which it must struggle to express in art and literature and by every 

 means at its command. Analogies between this present period and that of the 

 fifteenth and sixteenth centuries present themselves in different ways. Then, as 

 now, the time was one of discovery, for the great geographical discoveries of the 

 earlier epoch find a counterpart in the scientific discoveries which, like them, have 

 had effects both destructive and constructive ; destroying, that is, convictions and 

 opinions resting on certain narrow conceptions of the sphere of life, but giving 

 opportunity on the other hand for new ideas and vaster conceptions. Both are 

 times of a new learning, and though the causes giving rise to the enthusiasm for 

 knowledge may differ, in both cases knowledge has been sought in a return from 

 theories rigid and out of consonance with life to life itself and the facts of life. In 

 the sphere of religion and morals the likeness is strangely evident. In both cases 

 ■the particular form of religion was found inadequate, in both cases there was 

 failure to distinguish between the fleeting form and the abiding reality, and in 

 both cases there were particular tendencies, largely by way of result, affecting 

 morals and conduct. In the fifteenth century, as now, these latter were not so 

 much in the direction of that coarseness which somehow or other is often called 

 immorality, but rather in that of a lack of moral discrimination and will. 

 Prejudices are to be put on one side, prejudices as to morals, prejudices as to 

 the relations of sexes, prejudices as to one thing and the other. What does it 

 mean ? Partly, perhaps, a positive uncertainty — sometimes a pretended un- 

 certainty — as to right and wrong; partly, again, a wanton and curious desire 

 to experiment on all sides and everywhere, to gain emotional experience irrespective 

 of the means and the cost whereby it is gained. Novelty is allowed to cover a 

 multitude of sins. Some such impulse reveals itself in the literature and life of 

 the Renaissance. Do we recognise nothing like it in the present day ? 



This peculiar moral attitude has its bearing on the subject of our consideration. 

 Each age works out its own salvation. The mediaeval Renaissance found its 

 salvation in the emphasis of individuality, alike in religion, in the State, and in 



