ance.

[Sidenote: Summary of the Italian system.] From these observations of
the state of the Church at four different epochs of her career we are
able to determine her movement. There is a time of abounding strength, a
time of feebleness, a time of ruinous loss, a time of utter exhaustion.
What a difference between the eleventh and the eighteenth centuries! It
is the noontide and evening of a day of empire.

CHAPTER V.

APPROACH OF THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE.

IT IS PRECEDED BY MARITIME DISCOVERY.

_Consideration of the definite Epochs of Social Life._

_Experimental Philosophy emerging in the Age of Faith._

_The Age of Reason ushered in by Maritime Discovery and the rise of
European Criticism._

MARITIME DISCOVERY.--_The three great Voyages._

COLUMBUS _discovers America_.--DE GAMA _doubles the Cape and reaches
India_.--MAGELLAN _circumnavigates the Earth.--The Material
andintellectual Results of each of these Voyages._

DIGRESSION ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF AMERICA.--_In isolated human
Societies the process of Thought and of Civilization is always the
same.--Man passes through a determinate succession of Ideas and embodies
them in determinate Institutions.--The state of Mexico and Peru proves
the influence of Law in the development of Man._

[Sidenote: Peculiarities of the Age of Reason.] I have arrived at the
last division of my work, the period in national life answering to
maturity in individual. The objects to be considered differ altogether
from those which have hitherto occupied our attention. We have now to
find human authority promoting intellectual advancement, and accepting
as its maxim that the lot of man will be ameliorated, and his power and
dignity increased, in proportion as he is able to comprehend the
mechanism of the world, the action of natural laws, and to apply
physical forces to his use.

[Sidenote: Natural periods merge into one another.] The date at which
this transition in European life was made will doubtless be differently
given according as the investigator changes his point of view. In truth,
there is not in national life any real epoch, because there is nothing
in reality abrupt. Events, however great or sudden, are consequences of
preparations long ago made. In this there is a perfect parity between
the course of national and that of individual life. In the individual,
one state merges by imperceptible degrees into another, each in its
beginning and end being al