The latter
was the time of the planting of the tree of European culture; all that
followed was merely its growth and ramification. Only exact science had
its origin in the Renascence, and this fact, in historical perspective,
must be regarded as the supreme glory of this period. However
paradoxical it may sound--the "impersonal" science is the perfection of
the European system of individualism, its most potent weapon for taking
spiritual possession of the world and all that the world contains. The
consciousness of personality had to permeate the whole soul before it
could recover its external function: organic existence justified by
itself. While art borrows from nature and mankind all that we ourselves
deem beautiful, perfect, valuable, and imposes on the world a man-made
law--science strives to understand all things and all creatures
according to the law which dominates them; it strives to comprehend
nature and humanity--even where they are foreign and hostile--not
according to human values, but according to their inherent nature--and
this is only possible when the individuality of all things is respected.
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