otism of Rome and
the false traditions of the Church. By thousands of books written by
themselves, they raised the consciences of the people, for the greatest
spiritual struggle that had ever taken place since the Star of
Bethlehem had appeared to the human race; and again through thousands
of books, after the first victory, they consecrated anew for their
people all earthly relations, the duties and rights of men, of the
family, and of the governing powers, as the first educators and
teachers of the great multitude.

But it was not the pleasure derived from the ancient poets and statues,
nor the mighty struggle which was carried on concerning the teaching of
the Church, nor the theologians and the philologists of the sixteenth
century, that were the greatest blessings bestowed by the new art; it
is not they alone that have given richness to thought, and security to
judgment, and made love and hatred greater. This was brought about in
yet another way--through the medium of types and woodcuts; slowly,
imperceptibly, to contemporaries, but to us wonderfully.

Men learnt gradually a different mode of seeing, observing, and
judging. Sharp as was the mental activity of individuals in the middle
ages, the impressions which were conveyed to their minds from the outer
world were too easily distorted by the activity of their imagination,
which united dreams, forebodings, and immature combinations with the
object. Now the distinct black upon white was always at work, to give a
durable, unvarying report of multitude of new conceptions upon the
mutual relations of the State, and the position held in it by the
individual man. How various have been the lawgivers who have dominated
over the lives of individuals--the Jewish priests, the community of
apostles, the Jurist schools of ancient Rome, the Longobard kings and
the ambitious popes; and, again, together with laws which had
originated in past ages and nations, there were the reminiscences from
German antiquity--legal decisions, ordinances, codes of law,
regulations and privileges. According to their decisions a man
preserved or lost his house and farm, wife and child, and his property,
either inherited or acquired. And just after the great war, the
despotic will of the ruler, and the tyrannical power of a heartless
system, had exalted itself above all law. Amid such a chaos of laws,
and the suppression of rights by the power of the State, the minds of
men sought a firm support.