Pi: ACE AS A FACTOR IN SOCIAL REFORM. 231 



of Old Fritz of Prussia, " tends to corrupt, enervate, and depress the 

 mind. He who has been accustomed to tremble under the rod of the 

 pedagogue will never look on the sword or spear with an undaunted 

 eye." In the second place, the pursuit of studies and the growth of 

 beliefs not in conformity with those in honor with the central 

 authority, would provoke discord, and, as in the case of Charles V 

 and Henry YIII, make it more difficult to mobilize and wield effec- 

 tively against an enemy the resources of society, l^ot only must the 

 political opinions of subjects be those of the monarch, but there must 

 be adhesion also to his religious beliefs. That was the contention, 

 for example, of Philip II and Louis XIV. To dissent from them 

 was to be guilty of treason; it was to merit death. Hence the 

 paralysis of the French and Spanish intellects that Buckle describes. 

 Hence the rigid censorship that prevails to-day in Germany and 

 Russia and also in Turkey and Persia. It was war, therefore, not 

 religion, that produced Torquemada and the Inquisition, that led 

 to the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the persecution of the Dutch, 

 the extinction of the Albigenses, and the perpetration of all the 

 other crimes committed in the name of Christianity. The same 

 truth explains also the check to Protestantism after the outbreak 

 of the wars of the Reformation and the revival of Catholicism in all 

 the countries that remained loyal to Rome. When we remember 

 that war is the parent of despotism, and despotism the parent of 

 intolerance, we can understand, too, why Protestantism repudiated 

 its allegiance to the principle of private judgment, and like its rival 

 resorted to the rack and fagot to keep the minds of men in subjection. 

 " I should be content," said Frederick the Great during the 

 most trying period of the Seven Years' War, giving a clew to the 

 origin of the moral evils of society, " if I could only first inflict a 

 part of the misery I endure." Since the first object of war is destruc- 

 tion of life and property, anything that promotes this end is right. 

 Indeed, it is not only right, but it is noble. " They boast," says 

 Ammianus Marcellinus, alluding to the Huns, " with the utmost 

 exultation of the number of enemies they have slain, and as the 

 most glorious of all ornaments they fasten the scalps of those who 

 have fallen by their hands to the trappings of their horses." If 

 enemies can be deceived by false statements or sham movements and 

 lured into a trap for easier and safer slaughter, it should be done. 

 If they become prisoners, they should be killed or enslaved. If their 

 wives or daughters are ravished or consigned to a harem, it is only 

 an exercise of legitimate rights over the persons of the conquered. If 

 their property can not be carried away and its further use in resistance 

 to attack prevented, it should be burned. " The northern invaders," 

 says Macaulay, describing the condition of the Italians during the 



