Yet, Catholicism did not yield its ancient advantage without a struggle.  As soon as the inevitable tendency of the new art was detected, a restraint upon it, under the form of a censorship, was attempted.  It was made necessary to have a permit, in order to print a book.  For this, it was needful that the work should have been read, examined, and approved by the clergy.  There must be a certificate that it was a godly and orthodox book.  A bull of excommunication was issued in 1501, by Alexander VI., against printers who should publish pernicious doctrines.  In 1515 the Lateran Council ordered that no books should be printed but such as had been inspected by the ecclesiastical censors, under pain of excommunication and fine; the censors being directed “to take the utmost care that nothing should be printed contrary to the orthodox faith.”  There was thus a dread of religious discussion; a terror lest truth should emerge.

But these frantic struggles of the powers of ignorance were unavailing.  Intellectual intercommunication among men was secured.  It culminated in the modern newspaper, which daily gives its contemporaneous intelligence from all parts of the world.  Reading became a common occupation.  In ancient society that art was possessed by comparatively few persons.  Modern society owes some of its most striking characteristics to this change.

Effects of maritime enterprise.  Such was the result of bringing into Europe the manufacture of paper and the printing-press.  In like manner the introduction of the mariner’s compass was followed by imposing material and moral effects.  These were—­the discovery of America in consequence of the rivalry of the Venetians and Genoese about the India trade; the doubling of Africa by De Gama; and the circumnavigation of the earth by Magellan.  With respect to the last, the grandest of all human undertakings, it is to be remembered that Catholicism had irrevocably committed itself to the dogma of a flat earth, with the sky as the floor of heaven, and hell in the under-world.  Some of the Fathers, whose authority was held to be paramount, had, as we have previously said, furnished philosophical and religious arguments against the globular form.  The controversy had now suddenly come to an end—­the Church was found to be in error.

The correction of that geographical error was by no means the only important result that followed the three great voyages.  The spirit of Columbus, De Gama, Magellan, diffused itself among all the enterprising men of Western Europe.  Society had been hitherto living under the dogma of “loyalty to the king, obedience to the Church.”  It had therefore been living for others, not for itself.  The political effect of that dogma had culminated in the Crusades.  Countless thousands had perished in wars that could bring them no reward, and of which the result had been conspicuous failure.  Experience had revealed the fact that the only gainers were the pontiffs, cardinals, and other ecclesiastics in Rome, and the shipmasters of Venice.  But, when it became known that the wealth of Mexico, Peru, and India, might be shared by any one who had enterprise and courage, the motives that had animated the restless populations of Europe suddenly changed.  The story of Cortez and Pizarro found enthusiastic listeners everywhere.  Maritime adventure supplanted religious enthusiasm.