ubstantiate his theory of the planetary system. Printing, after
numerous useless revelations to the world of its resources, became an
art in 1438; and paper, which had long been known to the Chinese, was
first made of cotton in Europe about 1000 and of rags in 1319. Gunpowder
entered into use about 1320. As employed by the Genius of the
Renaissance, each one of these inventions became a lever by means of
which to move the world. Gunpowder revolutionized the art of war. The
feudal castle, the armor of the knight and his battle-horse, the prowess
of one man against a hundred, and the pride of aristocratic cavalry
trampling upon ill-armed militia, were annihilated by the flashes of the
cannon. Courage became more a moral than a physical quality. The victory
was delivered to the brain of the general. Printing has established, as
indestructible, all knowledge, and disseminated, as the common property
of everyone, all thought; while paper has made the work of printing
cheap. Such reflections as these, however, are trite and must occur to
every mind. It is far more to the purpose to repeat that not the
inventions, but the intelligence that used them, the conscious
calculating spirit of the modern world, should rivet our attention when
we direct it to the phenomena of the Renaissance.

In the work of the Renaissance all the great nations of Europe shared.
But it must never be forgotten that, as a matter of history, the true
Renaissance began in Italy. It was there that the essential qualities
which distinguish the modern from the ancient and the mediaeval world
were developed. Italy created that new spiritual atmosphere of culture
and of intellectual freedom which has been the life-breath of the
European races. As the Jews are called the chosen and peculiar people of
divine revelation, so may the Italians be called the chosen and peculiar
vessels of the prophecy of the Renaissance. In art, in scholarship, in
science, in the mediation between antique culture and the modern
intellect, they took the lead, handing to Germany and France and England
the restored humanities complete. Spain and England have since done more
for the exploration and colonization of the world. Germany achieved the
labor of the Reformation almost single-handed. France has collected,
centralized, and diffused intelligence with irresistible energy. But if
we return to the first origins of the Renaissance, we find that, at a
time when the rest of Europe was ine