Those ideas, ideals, and efforts of the aspiring will were, Settembrini said, traditional in his family. He inherited them. Grandfather, son, and grandson, each in his turn, had dedicated to them their entire lives and all their spiritual energy. The father in his own way had done so no less than Grandfather Giuseppe. True, he had not been a political agitator or active combatant in the cause of freedom, but a quiet and sensitive scholar, a humanist sitting at his writing-desk. But what, after all, was humanism if not love of humankind, and by that token also political activity, rebellion against all that tended to defile or degrade our conception of humanity? He had been accused of exaggerating the importance of form. But he who cherished beauty of form did so because it enhanced human dignity; whereas the Middle Ages, in striking contrast, had been sunk not only in superstitious hostility to the human spirit, but also in a shameful formlessness. From the very beginning he had defended the right of the human being to his earthly interests, to liberty of thought and joy in life, and insisted that we could safely leave heaven to take care of itself. Humanism⁠—had not Prometheus been the earliest humanist, and was he not identical with the Satan hymned by Carducci?