hat the only complete
description of the point of view is to be found--in the book itself; it
is too wide and variegated for any other habitation. Yet, if it would be
vain to attempt an accurate and exhaustive account of Rabelais'
philosophy, the main outlines of that philosophy are nevertheless
visible enough. Alike in the giant-hero, Pantagruel, in his father,
Gargantua, and in his follower and boon-companion, Panurge, one can
discern the spirit of the Renaissance--expansive, humorous, powerful,
and, above all else, alive. Rabelais' book is the incarnation of the
great reaction of his epoch against the superstitious gloom and the
narrow asceticism of the Middle Ages. He proclaims, in his rich
re-echoing voice, a new conception of the world; he denies that it is
the vale of sorrows envisioned by the teachers of the past; he declares
that it is abounding in glorious energy, abounding in splendid hope,
and, by its very nature, good. With a generous hatred of stupidity, he
flies full tilt at the pedantic education of the monasteries, and
asserts the highest ideals of science and humanity. With an equal
loathing of asceticism, he satirizes the monks themselves, and sketches
out, in his description of the Abbey of Theleme, a glowing vision of
the Utopian convent. His thought was bold; but he lived in a time when
the mildest speculation was fraught with danger; and he says what he has
to say in the shifting and ambiguous forms of jest and allegory. Yet it
was by no means simply for the sake of concealment that he made his work
into the singular mixture that it is, of rambling narrative,
disconnected incident, capricious disquisition, and coarse humour. That,
no doubt, was the very manner in which his mind worked; and the
essential element of his spirit resides precisely in this haphazard and
various looseness. His exceeding coarseness is itself an expression of
one of the most fundamental qualities of his mind--its jovial acceptance
of the physical facts of life. Another side of the same characteristic
appears in his glorification of eating and drinking: such things were
part of the natural constitution of man, therefore let man enjoy them to
the full. Who knows? Perhaps the Riddle of the Universe would be solved
by the oracle of _la dive Bouteille_.

Rabelais' book is a history of giants, and it is itself gigantic; it is
as broad as Gargantua himself. It seems to belong to the morning of the
world--a time of mirth, and a ti