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 secondary.
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.
DIGRESSION ON THE CONDITION OF ENGLAND AT THE END OF THE AGE OF FAITH.
RESULTS PRODUCED BY THE AGE OF FAITH.
Condition of England at the Suppression of the Monasteries.
Condition of England at the close of the seventeenth Century.—Locomotion, Literature, Libraries.—Social and private Life of the Laity and Clergy.—Brutality in the Administration of Law.—Profligacy of Literature.—The Theatre, its three Phases.—Miracle, Moral, and Real Plays.
Estimate of the Advance made in the Age of Faith.—Comparison with that already made in the Age of Reason.