he
prodigious works of art left by those two nations--an enduring evidence
of the point to which they had attained--will find himself constrained
to cast aside such idle assertions as altogether unworthy of
confutation, or even of attention.

CHAPTER VI.

APPROACH OF THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE.

IT IS PRECEDED BY THE RISE OF CRITICISM.

_Restoration of Greek Literature and Philosophy in Italy.--Development
of Modern Languages and Rise of Criticism.--Imminent Danger to Latin
Ideas._

_Invention of Printing.--It revolutionizes the Communication of
Knowledge, especially acts on Public Worship, and renders the Pulpit of
secondary importance._

THE REFORMATION.--_Theory of Supererogation and Use of Indulgences.--The
Right of Individual Judgment asserted.--Political History of the Origin,
Culmination, and Check of the Reformation.--Its Effects in Italy._

_Causes of the Arrest of the Reformation.--Internal Causes in
Protestantism.--External in the Policy of Rome.--The Counter-Reformation.
--Inquisition.--Jesuits.--Secession of the great Critics.--Culmination
of the Reformation in America.--Emergence of Individual Liberty of
Thought._

[Sidenote: The rise of criticism.] In estimating the influences of
literature on the approach of the Age of Reason in Europe, the chief
incidents to be considered are the disuse of Latin as a learned
language, the formation of modern tongues from the vulgar dialects, the
invention of printing, the decline of the power of the pulpit, and its
displacement by that of the press. These, joined to the moral and
intellectual influences at that time predominating, led to the great
movement known as the Reformation.

[Sidenote: Epoch of the intellectual movement.] As if to mark out to the
world the real cause of its intellectual degradation, the regeneration
of Italy commenced with the exile of the popes to Avignon. During their
absence, so rapid was the progress that it had become altogether
impossible to make any successful resistance, or to restore the old
condition of things on their return to Rome. The moment that the leaden
cloud which they had kept suspended over the country was withdrawn, the
light from heaven shot in, and the ready peninsula became instinct with
life.

[Sidenote: Use of Latin as a sacred language.] The unity of the Church,
and, therefore, its power, required the use of Latin as a sacred
language. Through this Rome had stood in an attitude strictly European