Again, its faults being more human are more easily corrected, and fortunately for the possessor, punish themselves more often.

This favours truthfulness in the mind and humility in the soul--the spirit of the _Confiteor_.

Its dangers are those of too easy assent, of inordinate pursuit of particular good, of inconstancy and variability, of all the humanistic elements which lead back to paganism.

The history of the Renaissance in Southern Europe testifies to this, as it illustrates in other countries the development of the spirit of Nonconformity and revolt.

Calvinism and a whole group of Protestant schools of thought may stand as examples of the spirit of denial working itself out to its natural consequences; while the exaggerations of Italian humanism, frankly pagan, are fair illustrations of the spirit of assent carried beyond bounds.