in the supernatural. The fourteenth, fifteenth, and eighteenth centuries are marked by great outbreaks of that influence, or by the spread of public immorality; but a keen faith still lurked in the popular mind, and the Church could successfully appeal to it. A Savonarola could meet and stem a veritable tide of Hellenism. In the present division of the world of thought and the imposing opposition to ecclesiastical teaching, that simple faith must be, and is, deeply affected; and erotism gains proportionately in power and stability. The second consideration is that this erotism, or revolt against traditional ethics, has become speculative and ratiocinative, and seeks to organise its votaries and systematise its protest. The decadence is, perhaps, midway between practical and organised immorality; however, it is a great literary power, very widespread in France, and on the increase in England and Germany. The free-love movement has also assumed important proportions, and counts some eminent literary exponents. Most important of all, there is an æsthetic and Hellenistic school which will prove a serious adversary of traditional ethics. In practice, by a kind of economia, it adheres to a severe Puritanism; in theory it is revolutionary. It cherishes the higher Greek ideal of love (as found in Plato); venerates the writings of Whitman, Nietzsche, and Carpenter; has all the fervour of youth and the fanaticism of ascetics.
