Notwithstanding such criticism on the part of a few scholarly churchmen, the influence of Rome and of the Church generally, during the earlier work of the printers, was very largely favourable and had not a little to do with the support given to the work which might easily otherwise have been given up for lack of adequate business return. The Church of Rome felt itself at this time sufficiently secure in its control of the minds of men to be prepared to utilise to full advantage all methods for distributing its doctrinal literature, and to have no dread as to these same means being used for the scattering of heretical teachings. The popes of the time, largely influenced by the spirit of the Renaissance, gave a cordial welcome to the revival of scholarly interests and to the printing-press as an important means for furthering the general education and the intellectual development of the community. Their interest was by no means limited to the distribution of doctrinal works, but in these earlier years of publishing they welcomed, and to a considerable extent co-operated in, the production of editions, for general circulation, of the works of the pagan classics. Hegel says, in his _Philosophy of History_, that the renewed interest in the studying of the writings of the ancients found an important support in the service of the printing-press. He goes on to point out that the Church felt no anxiety concerning this renewed interest in pagan literature, and evidently did not imagine that this literature was introducing into the minds of men a new element of suggestion and of inquiry. It may be considered as one of the fortunate circumstances attending the introduction of the art of printing that the popes of the time were largely men of liberal education and of intellectual tastes, while one or two, such as Nicholas V., Julius II., and Leo X., had a very keen personal interest in literature and were collectors of books. The fact that Leo X. was a luxury-loving, free-thinking prince rather than a devoted Christian leader or teacher, may very probably have been in the end a service for the enlightenment and development of his own generation and of the generations that were to come. An earnest and narrow-minded head of the Church could, during the first years of the sixteenth century, have retarded not a little the development of the work of producing books for the community at large.