New ideas must be accepted, diffused, used, and adapted to new conditions. It would seem that Europe had sufficient knowledge of life contributed by the Orient, by Greek, Roman, and barbarian to go forward; but first must come a period of readjustment of old truth to new environment and the discovery of new truth. For several centuries, in the Dark Ages, the intellectual life of man lay dormant. Then must come a quickening of the spirit before the world could advance. However, in considering human progress, the day of small things must "not be despised." For in the days of confusion and low tide of regression there are being established new modes of life and thought which through right adaptation will flow on into the full tide of progress. Revivals come which gather up and utilize the scattered and confused ideas of life, adapting and utilizing them by setting new standards and imparting new impulses of progress. {348} _The Revival of Progress Throughout Europe_.--Human society, as a world of ideas, is a continuous quantity, and therefore it is difficult to mark off any definite period of time to show social causation. Roughly speaking, the period from the beginning of the eighth century to the close of the fifteenth is a period of intellectual ferment, the climax of which extended from the eleventh to the close of the fifteenth century. It was in this period that the forces were gathering in preparation for the achievements of the modern era of progress. There was one general movement, an awakening along the whole line of human endeavor in the process of transition from the old world to the new. It was a revival of art, language, literature, philosophy, theology, politics, law, trade, commerce, and the additions of invention and discovery. It was the period of establishing schools and laying the foundation of universities. In this there was a more or less continuous progress of the freedom of the mind, which permitted reflective thought, which subsequently led on to the religious reformation that permitted freedom of belief, and the French Revolution, which permitted freedom of political action. It was the rediscovery of the human mind, a quickening of intellectual liberty, a desire of alert minds for something new. It was a call for humanity to move forward.