Author: Henri van Laun

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2015-06-25

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 9781440040481

Excerpt from History French Literature, Vol. 2: From the Classical Renaissance Until the End of the Reign of Louis XIV The mighty flood of new ideas, inventions, restorations, emancipations of thought and belief, which flowed in upon the human mind as soon as the Renaissance had broken down the accumulated obstructions of the Middle Ages, was not permitted to advance without many a check and hindrance. The jealousy of scholasticism, which saw the very foundations of its pseudo-ancient learning undermined; the hatred of the Church, whose power and influence were threatened by the revindication of reason and private judgment; the tyranny of constituted authorities, who were not slow to catch the contagion of fear, and listened eagerly to the timid counsels of their advisers - these, as we have seen, set their faces against every manifestation and development of the spirit of innovation, and succeeded only too often in their crusade of suppression. Of all the engines employed in this war against light and liberty the most effective was found in the Society of Jesus, which, by a decree of Parliament, I was authorised to open its schools and lecture-rooms independently of tho Universities. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.