political application of classical knowledge, which formed the main and almost exclusive object of pursuit. Thus this regeneration, as it was called, was very imperfect and incomplete; and, in a general sense, was really not such;--even in science itself, the advantages which mankind had obtained, and which they were so eager to display, were more like a passing blossom, than a sound and vigorous root. Many of those classical spirits were more conversant and more at home in ancient Rome and Athens, in the manners, history, politics of antiquity, or even in its mythology (then investigated with peculiar fondness and enthusiasm), than in their own age, in the existing relations of society, or in the doctrines and principles of Christianity. The prevailing character of this new epoch of intellectual cultivation, which succeeded to the scholastico-romantic period of European art and science, was by those modes of thinking and those modes of life, which, with more or less modification and variety, it diffused over all the European countries; at the best a very partial enthusiasm for Pagan antiquity, not merely in the department of art, but in the whole compass of literature, nay even in history, politics, and morals also. If we compare with the fearful commotions of the following age this classical enthusiasm, often so ill suited to the existing relations of society; its influence on the world will appear like an enchanting draught, which intoxicated for a while the European nations, drew them after objects totally foreign, made them forget themselves in an illusive consciousness of their intellectual refinement, and lulling them into a false security, blinded them to their own corruption, and the greatness of the impending danger--the yawning abyss on whose verge they then stood. END OF LECTURE XIV. LECTURE XV. General observations on the Philosophy of History.--On the corrupt state of society in the fifteenth century.--Origin of Protestantism, and character of the times of the Reformation.