each other. In Dante the great artistic power of the
Neo-Latin race appeared for the first time in its full intensity; it
took possession of the whole visible universe, and poured new beauty
into the traditional myths of Christendom. Eckhart experienced and
recreated the shapeless depths of the soul, the regions of the blending
of the soul with God. With these two men Europe definitely severed
herself from antiquity and barbarism, henceforth to follow her own star.

The new world had come into existence! Renascence, the lucky heir,
gathered the ripe fruit from the tree of art which had blossomed so
marvellously. God was no longer sought in the depth of the soul, all
emotion was projected into the world of sense. Churches were built, not
from an irresistible impulse, but as store-houses of the pictures which
were painted with amazing rapidity. The fundamental principle of
personality was externalised in the Renascence. Vanity and boasting,
traces of which frequently appeared in the age of chivalry, grew
exuberantly. No less manifest than the incomparable genius and _esprit_
of the heyday of the Renascence--although far less frequently commented
on--was the desire to be conspicuous, to shine, to display wealth and
learning. The essence of personality, instead of being sought in the
soul, was sought in outward magnificence. As a matter of fact, the much
extolled Renascence only perfected the various branches of art and
poetry, which had sprung up in the period of the Crusades. The latter
was the time of the planting of the tree of European culture; all that
followed was merely its growth and ramification. Only exact science had
its origin in the Renascence, and this fact, in historical perspective,
must be regarded as the supreme glory of this period. However
paradoxical it may sound--the "impersonal" science is the perfection of
the European system of individualism, its most potent weapon for taking
spiritual possession of the world and all that the world contains. The
consciousness of personality had to permeate the whole soul before it
could recover its external function: organic existence justified by
itself. While art borrows from nature and mankind all that we ourselves
deem beautiful, perfect, valuable, and imposes on the world a man-made
law--science strives to understand all things and all creatures
according to the law which dominates them; it strives to comprehend
nature and humanity--even where they are foreign