There is more difference between the language of the English writings of Sir Thomas More and that of the prose of Chaucer than there is between that of More and of Ruskin.

But it is not till the seventeenth century that the modern spirit, in the fullest sense of the word, comes into being.

Defined it means a spirit of observation, of preoccupation with detail, of stress laid on matter of fact, of analysis of feelings and mental processes, of free argument upon institutions and government.

In relation to knowledge, it is the spirit of science, and the study of science, which is the essential intellectual fact in modern history, dates from just this time, from Bacon and Newton and Descartes.

In relation to literature, it is the spirit of criticism, and criticism in England is the creation of the seventeenth century.