Excerpt from The Renaissance Means to find the philosopher's stone, but for something far wider. Rabelais' giant baby, Prince Gargantua, born in the open air, in the midst Of a festival, waking to life parched with thirst and calling loudly for drink, must have been a conscious symbol of the child of the Renaissance, who came forth into the world unswaddled, and athirst, to drink deep and grow strong enough for the overturning Of false barriers, and the re instatement Of those senses which religion had taught him to contemn. Beauty was manifested to man afresh - beauty and joy which he had learnt to regard as the deadly foes Of Christianity. And, inspired by new found marbles and manuscripts, in a kind of intoxication, he once more embraced Paganism and Nature, and acknowledged man's body to be the exponent, not the adversary, Of his soul. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.