If the Renaissance be the transition from the mediæval to the modern world,—and it is scarcely possible to regard it otherwise,—then it is one of those great movements of the mind of mankind that almost defy exact description, and there is an elusiveness about it which confounds us when we attempt definition. “It was the emancipation of the reason,” says Symonds, “in a race of men, intolerant of control, ready to criticise canons of conduct, enthusiastic of antique liberty, freshly awakened to the sense of beauty, and anxious above all things to secure for themselves free scope in spheres outside the region of authority. Men so vigorous and independent felt the joy of exploration. There was no problem they feared to face, no formula they were not eager to recast according to their new conceptions.”(17) It was the blossoming and fructifying of the European intellectual life; but perhaps it ought to be added that it contained a new conception of the universe in which religion consisted less in a feeling of dependence on God, and more in a faith on the possibilities lying in mankind. § 2. The Revival of Literature and Art. But the Renaissance has generally a more limited meaning, and one defined by the most potent of the new forces which worked for the general intellectual regeneration. It means the revival of learning and of art consequent on the discovery and study of the literary and artistic masterpieces of antiquity. It is perhaps in this more limited sense that the movement more directly prepared the way for the Reformation and what followed, and deserves more detailed examination. It was the discovery of a lost means of culture and the consequent awakening and diffusion of a literary, artistic, and critical spirit.