EFFECT OF THE RENAISSANCE ON THE ESSAY
Supporting the whole theory and practice of Montaigne, undoubtedly, stood the Renaissance itself. This “re-birth” of the human mind, this new awakening of vital energies and intellectual powers, involved a new way of looking at the world. Nothing seemed quite the same as it had been. Church and empire and feudal system were apparently weakening; new nationalities, new languages were to be reckoned with; new continents were explored, new inventions altered the face of daily life; a new intellectual confidence, inquiry, criticism, supplanted the mediæval obedience to authority. There was a new “weighing,” “assaying” of all things. The actual world was changing before men’s eyes, and the inner world changed no less. There was universal curiosity about individual capacities and opinions, experiences and tastes. The whole “undulating and various” scheme of things—to use a favorite expression of Montaigne—was a direct provocative of the essay state of mind; and the essay form, in turn, in its looseness, vagueness, and range, was singularly adapted to the intellectual spirit of the period.