ledge is indicated by the fact that
while Bruno and Campanella accepted the Copernican astronomy, it was
rejected by one who in many other respects may claim to be reckoned as a
modern--I mean Francis Bacon.

But the growing tendency to challenge the authority of the ancients does
not sever this period from the spirit which informed the Renaissance.
For it is subordinate or incidental to a more general and important
interest. To rehabilitate the natural man, to claim that he should be
the pilot of his own course, to assert his freedom in the fields of art
and literature had been the work of the early Renaissance. It was the
problem of the later Renaissance to complete this emancipation in the
sphere of philosophical thought. The bold metaphysics of Bruno, for
which he atoned by a fiery death, offered the solution which was most
unorthodox and complete. His deification of nature and of man as part of
nature involved the liberation of humanity from external authority. But
other speculative minds of the age, though less audacious, were equally
inspired by the idea of freely interrogating nature, and were all
engaged in accomplishing the programme of the Renaissance--the
vindication of this world as possessing a value for man independent of
its relations to any supermundane sphere. The raptures of Giordano Bruno
and the sobrieties of Francis Bacon are here on common ground. The whole
movement was a necessary prelude to a new age of which science was to be
the mistress.

It is to be noted that there was a general feeling of complacency as to
the condition of learning and intellectual pursuits. This optimism is
expressed by Rabelais. Gargantua, in a letter to Pantagruel, studying
at Paris, enlarges to his son on the vast improvements in learning and
education which had recently, he says, been brought about. "All the
world is full of savants, learned teachers, large libraries; and I am of
opinion that neither in the time of Plato nor of Cicero nor of Papinian
were there such facilities for study as one sees now." It is indeed the
study of the ancient languages and literatures that Gargantua considers
in a liberal education, but the satisfaction at the present diffusion of
learning, with the suggestion that here at least contemporaries have
an advantage over the ancients, is the significant point. [Footnote:
Rabelais, Book ii. chap. 8.] This satisfaction shines through the
observation of Ramus that "in one century we have seen