through Latin.

That the study of nature--further than was requisite for the
satisfaction of everyday wants--should have any bearing on human life
was far from the thoughts of men thus trained. Indeed, as nature had
been cursed for man's sake, it was an obvious conclusion that those who
meddled with nature were likely to come into pretty close contact with
Satan. And, if any born scientific investigator followed his
instincts, he might safely reckon upon earning the reputation, and
probably upon suffering the fate, of a sorcerer.

Had the western world been left to itself in Chinese isolation, there
is no saying how long this state of things might have endured. But,
happily, it was not left to itself. Even earlier than the thirteenth
century, the development of Moorish civilization in Spain and the great
movement of the Crusades had introduced the leaven which, from that day
to this, has never ceased to work. At first, through the
intermediation of Arabic translations, afterwards by the study of the
originals, the western nations of Europe became acquainted with the
writings of the ancient philosophers and poets, and, in time, with the
whole of the vast literature of antiquity.

Whatever there was of high intellectual aspiration or dominant capacity
in Italy, France, Germany, and England, spent itself for centuries in
taking possession of the rich inheritance left by the dead civilization
of Greece and Rome. Marvelously aided by the invention of printing,
classical learning spread and flourished. Those who possessed it
prided themselves on having attained the highest culture then within
the reach of mankind.

And justly. For, saving Dante on his solitary pinnacle, there was no
figure in modern literature at the time of the Renaissance to compare
with the men of antiquity; there was no art to compete with their
sculpture; there was no physical science but that which Greece had
created. Above all, there was no other example of perfect intellectual
freedom--of the unhesitating acceptance of reason as the sole guide to
truth and the supreme arbiter of conduct.

The new learning necessarily soon exerted a profound influence upon
education. The language of the monks and schoolmen seemed little
better than gibberish to scholars fresh from Vergil and Cicero, and the
study of Latin was placed upon a new foundation. Moreover, Latin
itself ceased to afford the sole key to knowledge. The student who
sought the hig