The fall of the Greek Empire in 1453, while it signalized the extinction of the old order, gave an impulse to the now accumulated forces of the new.

A belief in the identity of the human spirit under all previous manifestations and in its uninterrupted continuity was generated.

Men found that in classical as well as Biblical antiquity existed an ideal of human life, both moral and intellectual, by which they might profit in the present.

The modern genius felt confidence in its own energies when it learned what the ancients had achieved.

The guesses of the ancients stimulated the exertions of the moderns.