sation and refined in manners.
The gentleman must be acquainted with antiquity sufficiently to admire
the great men of the past and to reverence the saints of the church.
He must understand archaeology in order to speak intelligently of the
ancient achievements of the classical people. But this refinement was
to a large extent conventional, for there was a lack of genuine moral
culture throughout the entire renaissance.

These moral defects of Italy in this period have often been the
occasion of dissertations by philosophers, and there is a question as
to whether this moral condition was caused by the revival of classical
learning or the decline of morality in the church. It ought to be
considered, without doubt, as an excessive development of certain lines
of intellectual supremacy without the accustomed moral guide. The
church had for years assumed to be the only moral conservator, indeed
the only one morally responsible for the conduct of the world. Yet its
teachings at this time led to no self-developed morality; helped no one
to walk alone, independent, in the dignity of manhood, for all of its
instructions were superimposed and not vital. At last the church fell
into flagrant discord under the rule of worldly popes, and this gave a
great blow to Italy through the loss of the one great moral control.

But the renaissance had in its day a wide-spread influence throughout
Europe, and gave us as its result a vitalizing influence to the whole
world for centuries to come, although Italy suffered a decline largely
on account of its lack of the stable moral character of society. The
awakening of the mind from lethargy, the turning away from dogmatism to
broader views of life, enlarged duties, and new surroundings causing
{372} the most Intense activity of thought, needed some moral stay to
make the achievements permanent and enduring.

_Relation of Humanism to Science and Philosophy_.--The revival of the
freedom of thought of the Greeks brought an antagonism to the logic and
the materialistic views of the times. It set itself firmly against
tradition of whatsoever sort. The body of man had not been considered
with care until anatomy began to be studied in the period of the
Italian renaissance. The visionary notions of the world which the
people had accepted for a long time began gradually to give way to
careful consideration of the exact facts. Patience and loving
admiration in the study of man and nature yiel