s were
the only reward for authorship. By the beginning of the sixteenth century
authors became largely appreciated through the press, and received
patronage at the courts of the various {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} who had established
themselves on the ruins of the old republics. In the absence of any law of
copyright there was no protection for them,(313) and consequently no
reward except church patronage, which was therefore conferred
indiscriminately, and tended to foster disbelief in the very recipients of
it. A merely professional hold of religion is the surest road to absolute
disbelief. It is inconceivable that the ecclesiastical scandals which
history blushes to narrate, could have been perpetrated by believers; and
the unbelief imputed to persons in high station, such as Leo X with other
popes, and cardinals such as Bembo, was doubtless, if true, partly the
result of the degrading effects of professional insincerity.

Such a state of unbelief could not be permanent, whether it was the result
of a decaying system, or of the introduction of new influences. Nor would
we use unnecessarily a polemical tone in speaking of a period where there
is so much cause for Christian humiliation; yet it is worthy of notice
that such facts are a refutation of the attack which has frequently been
made on Protestantism, as the cause of eclecticism and unbelief. The two
great crises in church history, when faith almost entirely died out, and
free thought developed into total disbelief of the supernatural, have been
in Romish countries; viz., in Italy in this period, and in France during
the eighteenth century. In both the experiment of the authoritative system
of the catholic religion had a fair trial, and was found wanting.

Other causes besides the classical revival were operating to stimulate
activity of mind and freedom of inquiry. It was an age in which the great
system of the middle ages was finally dissolving. The discovery of new
worlds seemed at once to call to Europe to break connexion with the old
centre of ecclesiastical centralization; and to invite to that study of
nature which should elevate, and as it were emancipate the mind, by
teaching physical truth and the true method of discovery.(314) Political
circumstances too,