Page:Moral Obligation to be Intelligent.djvu/152

 Nicolete and Britomart had a permanent magic; Eve's beauty was effective only for a moment. Milton was skeptical of magic, not only because he came late in the Renaissance, but because he had an unusual intellect, and a mathematician's sense for order. In him the tradition of virtue as a talisman or miraculous instrument temporarily died out. For example, chivalry had fostered a belief in the magic of being right, the magic on which the institution of judicial combat was founded. He who had the right in any encounter must of necessity prevail. This institution was accepted throughout Spenser's Faerie Queene; unless they had first committed a sin or fallen into an error, the good champions could not be overcome by the powers of evil. We remember, in passing, how Scott accommodated this large faith to modern skepticism, killing off the