Yet neither any one of these answers taken separately, nor indeed all of them together, will offer a solution of the problem.

By the term Renaissance, or new birth, is indicated a natural movement, not to be explained by this or that characteristic, but to be accepted as an effort of humanity for which at length the time had come, and in the onward progress of which we still participate.

The history of the Renaissance is not the history of arts, or of sciences, or of literature, or even of nations.

It is the history of the attainment of self-conscious freedom by the human spirit manifested in the European races.

It is no mere political mutation, no new fashion of art, no restoration of classical standards of taste.