humanists from the noble simplicity of Hellenic art.

The Renaissance movement in Italy was not only, like the German
Reformation, anticlerical; it was atheist and immoral, at least in its
later degenerate period, and it is likely that the representatives of
the latest modernism who met and aired their views in the Florentine
salons at the end of the sixteenth century, were inspired as much by
hatred of religion, or by what is called love of freedom, as by
enthusiasm for art. Hitherto the Renaissance had taken little notice
of music. It was a barbarian art; how could Florentine exquisites,
disciples of Machiavelli, men of the vein of Lorenzo di Medici, Leo
X., and Baldassari Castiglione be expected to occupy themselves with
the art of men bearing such names as Okeghem or Obrecht? Popes and
Cardinals, however, had shown themselves much better connoisseurs of
art than the humanists, and had brought these barbarians to Italy, had
given them high appointments and become their pupils. The fact that
the antipathy of the humanists to music was extended to that of their
own great countrymen, to Palestrina, Vittoria, Suriano, cannot be
entirely accounted for by their dislike of everything clerical, still
less by want of taste. The cause lay far deeper. It was the transition
from the old order to the new, from mediaeval faith to modern
rationalism, from art to science.

Art and science both contemplate Nature, and seek to turn her gifts to
account to better and ennoble human life. Art accepts the beautiful
objects of Nature as they are, without questioning. The artist says:
"Let me lead you by the hand; I have seen something new and beautiful;
here it is; try to see it too, with my help, that we may both enjoy it
together." But he uses no compulsion; with those who turn a deaf ear
to him he is powerless. Science on the other hand tries to compel