Men wished to live as they
pleased, but by no means to renounce the family, even when they were
not sure that it was all their own. Nor did the race sink, either
physically or mentally, on this account; for that apparent intellectual
decline which showed itself towards the middle of the sixteenth century
may be certainly accounted for by political and ecclesiastical causes,
even if we are not to assume that the circle of achievements possible
to the Renaissance had been completed. Notwithstanding their
profligacy, the Italians continued to be, physically and mentally, one
of the healthiest and best-born populations in Europe, and have
retained this position, with improved morals, down to our own time.
When we come to look more closely at the ethics of love at the time of
the Renaissance, we are struck by a remarkable Contrast. The novelists
and comic poets give us to understand that love consists only in
sensual enjoyment, and that to win this, all means, tragic or comic,
are not only permitted, but are interesting in proportion to their
audacity and unscrupulousness. But if we turn to the best of the lyric
poets and writers of dialogues, we find in them a deep and spiritual
passion of the noblest kind, whose last and highest expression is a
revival of the ancient belief in an original unity of souls in the
Divine Being.
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