The Renaissance proves that the priests were not wrong.

Had the movement occurred a few hundred years earlier, the result would probably have been a universal corruption I do not mean to say that the Church at any time was exactly conscious of what she was doing; she acted blindly under the influence of an instinctive fear.

But the result of all that she did has now proved unfortunate.

What the Roman and Greek civilizations had lost in moral power was given back to the world by the frightful discipline of the Middle Ages.

For a long series of generations the ascetic idea was triumphant; and it became feeble only in proportion as men became strong enough to do without it.