is Humanism.

At the time men hardly felt that they were passing into a new age of
civilization, nor did the culture of the Renaissance immediately produce
any open or general intellectual rebellion against orthodox beliefs. The
world was gradually assuming an aspect decidedly unfriendly to the
teaching of mediaeval orthodoxy; but there was no explosion of
hostility; it was not till the seventeenth century that war between
religion and authority was systematically waged. The humanists were not
hostile to theological authority or to the claims of religious dogma;
but they had discovered a purely human curiosity about this world and it
absorbed their interest. They idolized pagan literature which abounded
in poisonous germs; the secular side of education became all-important;
religion and theology were kept in a separate compartment. Some
speculative minds, which were sensitive to the contradiction, might seek
to reconcile the old religion with new ideas; but the general tendency
of thinkers in the Renaissance period was to keep the two worlds
distinct, and to practise outward conformity to the creed without any
real intellectual submission.

[74]

I may illustrate this double-facedness of the Renaissance by Montaigne
(second half of sixteenth century). His Essays make for rationalism, but
contain frequent professions of orthodox Catholicism, in which he was
perfectly sincere. There is no attempt to reconcile the two points of
view; in fact, he takes the sceptical position that there is no bridge
between reason and religion. The human intellect is incapable in the
domain of theology, and religion must be placed aloft, out of reach and
beyond the interference of reason; to be humbly accepted. But while he
humbly accepted it, on sceptical grounds which would have induced him to
accept Mohammadanism if he had been born in Cairo, his soul was not in
its dominion. It was the philosophers and wise men of antiquity, Cicero,
and Seneca, and Plutarch, who moulded and possessed his mind. It is to
them, and not to the consolations of Christianity, that he turns when he
discusses the problem of death. The religious wars in France which he
witnessed and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day (1572) were
calculated to confirm him in his scepticism. His attitude to persecution
is expressed in the remark that "it is setting a high value on one's
opinions to roast men on account of them."

The logical results of Montaigne's scepticism