f his youth. Like all the scholars of his time, he
passed rapidly from one country to another, settling finally in Basel,
then at the height of its reputation as a literary and typographical
centre. The whole intellectual movement of the time centres round
Erasmus, as is particularly noticeable in the career of Ulrich von
Hutten, dealt with in the course of this history. As instances of the
classicism of the period, we may note the uniform change of the
patronymic into the classical equivalent, or some classicism supposed
to be the equivalent. Thus the name Erasmus itself was a classicism of
his father's name Gerhard, the German name Muth became Mutianus,
Trittheim became Trithemius, Schwarzerd became Melanchthon, and so on.

We have spoken of the other side of the intellectual movement of the
period. This other side showed itself in mystical attempts at reducing
nature to law in the light of the traditional problems which had been
set, to wit, those of alchemy and astrology: the discovery of the
philosopher's stone, of the transmutation of metals, of the elixir of
life, and of the correspondences between the planets and terrestrial
bodies. Among the most prominent exponents of these investigations may
be mentioned Philippus von Hohenheim or Paracelsus, and Cornelius
Agrippa of Nettesheim, in Germany, Nostrodamus in France, and Cardanus
in Italy. These men represent a tendency which was pursued by
thousands in the learned world. It was a tendency which had the honour
of being the last in history to embody itself in a distinct mythical
cycle. "Doctor Faustus" may probably have had an historical germ; but
in any case "Doctor Faustus," as known to legend and to literature, is
merely a personification of the practical side of the new learning.

The minds of men were waking up to interest in nature. There was one
man, Copernicus, who, at least partially, struck through the
traditionary atmosphere in which nature was enveloped, and to his
insight we owe the foundation of astronomical science; but otherwise
the whole intellectual atmosphere was charged with occult views. In
fact, the learned world of the sixteenth century would have found
itself quite at home in the pretensions and fancies of our modern
theosophist and psychical researchers, with their notions of making
erstwhile miracles non-miraculous, of reducing the marvellous to
being merely the result of penetration on the part of certain seers
and investigators of the