But perhaps some one may say, Are there not limits to human exertion—­things which no political system, no human power, no matter how excellent its intention, can accomplish?  Men cannot be raised from barbarism, a continent cannot be civilized, in a day!

The Catholic power is not, however, to be tried by any such standard.  It scornfully rejected and still rejects a human origin.  It claims to be accredited supernaturally.  The sovereign pontiff is the Vicar of God upon earth.  Infallible in judgment, it is given to him to accomplish all things by miracle if need be.  He had exercised an autocratic tyranny over the intellect of Europe for more than a thousand years; and, though on some occasions he had encountered the resistances of disobedient princes, these, in the aggregate, were of so little moment, that the physical, the political power of the continent may be affirmed to have been at his disposal.

Such facts as have been presented in this chapter were, doubtless, well weighed by the Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century, and brought them to the conclusion that Catholicism had altogether failed in its mission; that it had become a vast system of delusion and imposture, and that a restoration of true Christianity could only be accomplished by returning to the faith and practices of the primitive times.  This was no decision suddenly arrived at; it had long been the opinion of many religious and learned men.  The pious Fratricelli in the middle ages had loudly expressed their belief that the fatal gift of a Roman emperor had been the doom of true religion.  It wanted nothing more than the voice of Luther to bring men throughout the north of Europe to the, determination that the worship of the Virgin Mary, the invocation of saints, the working of miracles, supernatural cures of the sick, the purchase of indulgences for the perpetration of sin, and all other evil practices, lucrative to their abettors, which had been fastened on Christianity, but which were no part of it, should come to an end.  Catholicism, as a system for promoting the well-being of man, had plainly failed in justifying its alleged origin; its performance had not corresponded to its great pretensions; and, after an opportunity of more than a thousand years’ duration, it had left the masses of men submitted to its influences, both as regards physical well-being and intellectual culture, in a condition far lower than what it ought to have been.

CHAPTER XI.

Science in relation to modern civilization.

Illustration of the general influences of Science from the history of America.

The introduction of science into Europe.—­It passed from Moorish Spain to Upper Italy, and was favored by the absence of the popes at Avignon.—­The effects of printing, of maritime adventure, and of the Reformation—­Establishment of the Italian scientific societies.