With regard to the human understanding, we perceive a much greater activity, a much greater craving for development, than it had ever felt. This increased activity was the result of various causes, which had been accumulating for ages. For example, there had been times in which heresies sprang up, occupied some space, and fell to be replaced by others; and there had been times in which philosophical opinions held the same course as heresies. The labours of the human mind, both in the religious and philosophical sphere, had been accumulating from the eleventh to the sixteenth century; and the moment was at last come in which they were destined to have a result. Furthermore, all those means of instruction, instituted or authorised in the bosom of the church itself, were far from being fruitless. Schools had been founded, and from these schools issued men not barren in knowledge, whose number increased daily. These men at length insisted upon thinking for themselves, and for their own guidance, for they felt themselves more fortified than they had ever previously been. Finally came that revival and youthful vigorousness imparted to the human intellect by the restoration of antiquity, of which I have before described the progress and effects. All these united causes communicated a highly energetic movement, an imperative necessity for advancement, to the mind of man in the sixteenth century. {204} The situation of the spiritual power, which exercised government over the human understanding, was very different; it had fallen, on the contrary, into a state of inertness and stagnation. The political influence of the church, or of the court of Rome, was much attenuated; the European society was no longer in its exclusive possession, but had passed under the dominion of lay governments. Nevertheless, the spiritual power preserved all its pretensions, all its prominence, and all its external importance. There happened to it what has more than once occurred to old governments. The majority of the complaints that were alleged against it were scarcely better founded than in many such outcries. It is not true that the court of Rome was highly tyrannical in the sixteenth century, or that the abuses, properly so called, were more numerous or glaring than they had been at other times. On the contrary, the ecclesiastical government had never perhaps been more easy, more tolerant, or more disposed to let things take their course, provided the rights it had hitherto enjoyed were so far recognised as not to render them inoperative, provided it were assured its previous existence, and were paid its accustomed dues. It would willingly have left the human mind undisturbed, if the human mind would have been equally complacent with it. But it is precisely when governments have least vigour, when they do least mischief, that they are attacked, because men can then do so, whereas formerly they could not.