Such a period were the Middle Ages - the centuries that
separate the ancient from the modern world. They were something more than
centuries of transition, though the genius of a Gibbon has represented them as
a long night of ignorance and force, only redeemed from utter squalor by some
lingering rays of ancient culture. It is true that they began with an
involuntary secession from the power which represented, in the fifth century,
the wisdom of Greece and the majesty of Rome; and that they ended with a
jubilant return to the Promised Land of ancient art and literature. But the
interval had been no mere sojourning in Egypt. The scholars of the Renaissance
destroyed as much as they created.
They overthrew one civilisation to clear the
ground for another. It was imperative that the old canons of thought and
conduct should be reconsidered. The time comes in the history of all
half-truths when they form the great obstacles to the pursuit of truth. But
this should not prevent us from recognising the value of the half-truth as a
guide to those who first discover it; nor should we fall into the error, common
to all reformers, of supposing that they comprehend the whole when they assert
the importance of the neglected half. Erasmus had reason on his side; but so,
too, had Aquinas. Luther was in his rough way a prophet; but St. Bernard also
had a message for humanity.
