Nature; but they contrariwise have wronged, abused, and 
traduced Nature.” (63)

How far did the mass-produced page of print become a 
substitute for auricular confession?

*     Early in The Advancement of Learning  (p. 23), Bacon has a 
compact history of Renaissance prose that illuminates the role 
of printing indirectly:

     Martin Luther, conducted no doubt by a higher 
     providence, but in discourse of reason finding what a 
     providence he had undertaken against the bishop of 
     Rome and the degenerate traditions of the church, and 
     finding his own solitude, being no ways aided by the 
     opinion of his own time, was enforced to awake all