indeed, to the laity, but as a thing half dangerous, and declaring that
there was perfect safety only within the walls of the nominally ascetic
Church itself. The intellectual life, also, nearly restricted to priests
and monks, had been formalized and conventionalized, until in spite of the
keenness of its methods and the brilliancy of many of its scholars, it had
become largely barren and unprofitable. The whole sphere of knowledge had
been subjected to the mere authority of the Bible and of a few great minds
of the past, such as Aristotle. All questions were argued and decided on
the basis of their assertions, which had often become wholly inadequate and
were often warped into grotesquely impossible interpretations and
applications. Scientific investigation was almost entirely stifled, and
progress was impossible. The whole field of religion and knowledge had
become largely stagnant under an arbitrary despotism.

To the minds which were being paralyzed under this system, Greek literature
brought the inspiration for which they longed. For it was the literature of
a great and brilliant people who, far from attempting to make a divorce
within man's nature, had aimed to 'see life steadily and see it whole,'
who, giving free play to all their powers, had found in pleasure and beauty
some of the most essential constructive forces, and had embodied beauty in
works of literature and art where the significance of the whole spiritual
life was more splendidly suggested than in the achievements of any, or
almost any, other period. The enthusiasm, therefore, with which the
Italians turned to the study of Greek literature and Greek life was
boundless, and it constantly found fresh nourishment. Every year restored
from forgotten recesses of libraries or from the ruins of Roman villas
another Greek author or volume or work of art, and those which had never
been lost were reinterpreted with much deeper insight. Aristotle was again
vitalized, and Plato's noble idealistic philosophy was once more
appreciatively studied and understood. In the light of this new revelation