Now, in the case of Holland, the struggle for a great principle, persevered in against all discouragements, had gradually established in the nation just such a morality, which during the years of the truce and for some thirty years later was to demonstrate its value in practically every department of human activity. To higher learning and research, to the practical affairs of life, such as manufactures, commerce, banking, engineering, agriculture, and dairy-farming, to questions of disease and hygiene, and to the systematizing of the legal relations as well of nations as of individuals, the Dutch brought the application of a new principle, substituting for empiricism and _laissez-faire_ the method of approach and treatment that we now call scientific. It is a term, by the way, that from time to time has been assumed to be antagonistic to morality; whereas, if properly considered, it should and does surely represent a morality of the most exacting and, frequently, the most disinterested kind. One after another, then, the Dutch in those days of newly realized nationality confronted the problems of intellectual, material, and social progress, bringing to their study a keen analysis, and handling their solution with integrity and thoroughness. With morality such as this conspicuously abroad in the community, it would have been strange if her artists had not reproduced it in their own special field; if to directness and sanity of vision they had not brought a scrupulous artistic conscience, that resulted in integrity and thoroughness of craftsmanship. That certain of them at some period of their careers deviated, as we shall see, from this high standard does but emphasize the existence of the latter, which, too, was reached, not by a few individuals, but by the artists as a body; so that in no other school of painting can you find such wide-spread excellence of technique. This, indeed, if we may anticipate the sequel, proved to be one of the causes of the school’s subsequent decline. Technique came to be pursued as a [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST GERARD TERBORCH HAGUE MUSEUM] motive. But this was itself a symptom of a deeper cause--the freshness of the original motive had been outworn, its vigor slackened. The nation itself had by that time lost the simple directness of its early ideal and become enamoured of the sophistries of a world-wide ambition.