io8 



SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



facts, almost as readily as to such features as temperature or elevation. 

 In Fig. 4, a number of isopleths illustrating the spread of the Renaissance 

 are charted. 



In diagram I some of the chief teachers of Renaissance ideas about 

 1350, such as Petrarch and Boccaccio, are localised. Later writers dealing 

 with the ' life of the times in living languages ' (a phrase which in part 

 describes the Renaissance) were Wyclif, Froissart and Chaucer. Hence 

 toward the end of the fourteenth century we see the new ideas moving 

 north up the ' Way of Light.' In diagram // (Fig. 4) I have stressed the 

 spread of printing as perhaps the most characteristic feature of the second 

 period of the Renaissance (1450 to 1550). Modern research (by J. H. 

 Hessels and others) seems to refer the invention of movable type to Costar 

 of Haarlem about 1446. It has spread to Mainz and the vicinity by 

 1460, moving along the ' Rhine-Way,' and reached Rome by 1465 and 



Fig. 4. — The spread of Renaissance ideas in three stages, showing the effect of 

 the ' Way of Light ' and the ' Rhine Way.' 



Paris by 1470. We have here an interesting example of a culture spread- 

 ing along a new route, far removed from the familiar ' Way of Light.' 

 Other isopleths showing the rapid spread of printing throughout western 

 Europe by 1480 are also charted. 



In the third diagram of Fig. 4, I have plotted the ' schools ' of the 

 famous teachers in the third period of the Renaissance (1550 to 165c). 

 Here I have not attempted to draw isopleths. But when I labelled each 

 teacher as concerned either with science or letters, it was surprising to 

 find that practically all the former were to be found in the eastern portion 

 of the map, and all the latter in the western part. This is an interesting 

 distribution which is in part no doubt associated with the leading religions 

 of the two areas. The conservative west held by the old Catholic faith 

 for the most part, while the eastern region was that where the reformed 

 religion had the chief control. This distinction in turn is of course bound 

 up with the deep-seated inheritance of Roman culture in France and Italy, 

 which was wanting east of the Rhine. The votaries of mediaeval science 

 were not encouraged by the orthodox Roman Catholic Church, so that 

 naturally they were not numerous in the western part of diagram ///. 



In the social sciences, we are dealing with disciplines of an intermediate" 

 character. In much of their content, they are not so susceptible to 

 rigorous proof as are many of the problems in the physical sciences, and 

 in this they resemble the humanities. But like the latter they have the 



