0"T' LAERT> "! - USP

290
RECENT TIMES.
influence on other countries, especially upon Germany and
the Netherlands as the names of ALBRECHT DURER, HANS
HOLBEIN and LUCAS CRANACH testify. At Niirnberg the
arts of the wood carver and the goldsmith reached high
perfection. The free towns of Germany produced a race
of citizens manifesting taste and intelligence in art and
combining a more cheerful enjoyment of life with moral
seriousness. Among them artistic and scientific efforts
' found zealous disciples and representatives. In the field of
science humane learning was cultivated chiefly by the
learned societies which arose on all sides after the pattern
of the so-called Platonic Academies. The Rhenish Society
was the best known of them, among its members being
such men as the learned Abbot TRITHEMIUS and WiLLiBALD
PIRKHEIMER the patrician of Niirnberg, besides RUDOLF
AGRICOLA, the poet CONRAD CELTES, JOH. REUCHLIN,
ERASMUS of Rotterdam and others.
The first result of the growing interest taken in Greek
and Roman Literature was, that the manuscripts which had
been handed down from former times were compared, and
a text was furnished resting upon considerations of grammar^
and of sense, which seems to have answered all requirements.
This formed the commencement of the scientific
treatment of philology which exerted such a very far-*
reaching influence upon the development of the culture of
the following periods. Philology played the part of the
magician who set free the Dormant Beauty of science,
locked in a sleep of a thousand years, and afterwards
remained to her a fatherly protector watching her first
steps with anxipus care. The sciences, and by no means
least of all the natural sciences, have to thank philology
that they hit upon the right method of investigation : for
they learnt from it painful accuracy in sifting scientific
material and severe criticism of results won.
Td medicine also in its new form philology afforded
essential service. -Editions of most of the medical authors
of antiquity were prepared.. The doctors who devoted