ed, the first compulsory Poor Rates were laid. Three or four years
later came an act for setting the poor to labor in workhouses. These
measures failed of the success that met the continental method. Even
compared to Scotland, England developed a disproportionate amount of
pauperism. Some {562} authorities have asserted that by giving the
poor a legal right to aid she encouraged the demand for it. [Sidenote:
1572] Probably, however, she simply furnished the extreme example of
the commercialism that made money but did not make men.

{563}

CHAPTER XII

MAIN CURRENTS OF THOUGHT

Were we reading the biography of a wayward genius, we should find the
significance of the book neither in the account of his quarrels and of
his sins nor in the calculation of his financial difficulties and
successes, but in the estimate of his contributions to the beauty and
wisdom of the world. Something the same is true about the history of a
race or of a period; the political and economic events are but the
outward framework; the intellectual achievement is both the most
attractive and the most repaying object of our study. In this respect
the sixteenth century was one of the most brilliant; it produced works
of science that outstripped all its predecessors; it poured forth
masterpieces of art and literature that are all but matchless.

SECTION 1. BIBLICAL AND CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIP

[Sidenote: Position of Bible in 16th century]

It is naturally impossible to give a full account of all the products
of sixteenth century genius. In so vast a panorama only the mountain
peaks can be pointed out. One of these peaks is assuredly the Bible.
Never before nor since has that book been so popular; never has its
study absorbed so large a part of the energies of men. It is true that
the elucidation of the text was not proportional to the amount of labor
spent on it. For the most part it was approached not in a scientific
but in a dogmatic spirit. Men did not read it historically and
critically but to find their own dogmas in it. Nevertheless, the
foundations were laid for both the textual and the higher criticism.

{564} [Sidenote: The Greek Text]

The Greek text of the New Testament was first published by Erasmus in
March, 1516. Revised, but not always improved, editions were brought
out by him in 1519, 1522 and 1527. For the first edition he had before
him ten manuscripts, all of them minuscules, the oldest of which,
th