360 THE TREND OF THE RACE 
port to the realization of national ambition for power and pres- 
tige, as it has so frequently done in the history of the world, it 
creates a stimulus to strife and a menace to the peaceful relations 
of mankind. 
One of the ways in which religion may affect the inherited 
qualities of mankind is through the persecution of those who do 
not subscribe to prevailing beliefs. While religious persecution 
has been more or less in vogue for long ages, it is only occasionally 
that is has been practiced on a scale sufficiently extensive to make 
it an important influence on racial inheritance. Both Catholic 
and Protestant Christianity show an unenviable record for perse- 
cution which has scarcely been equalled in the known history of 
any pagan religion. The men of superior intellect and force of 
character who during the inquisition have fallen victims to the 
zeal of intolerant devotees of the current creed number many 
thousands. Llorent (Hist. de Vinquisition, tom. iv, pp. 371-372) 
states that the Spanish Inquisition alone burnt more than 31,000 
persons and condemned 290,000 to other forms of punishment. 
According to Lecky (Hist. of Rationalism in Europe, vol. 2, 
Pp. 40-41) “‘the numbers of those who were put to death in the 
Netherlands alone, in the reign of Charles V, has been estimated 
by a very high authority at 50,000 and at least half as many 
perished under his son.” In the 17th century over three hundred 
thousand Protestants were said to have been put to death in 
various ways, and an equal number emigrated. The loss of large 
numbers of the Huguenot stock as a result of persecution has 
generally been adjudged a great damage to the French people, 
although other nations may have been benefited by receiving the 
refugees which escaped imprisonment or death. Without dwell- 
ing further on the gruesome history of persecutions during the 
Christian era, or upon the persecutions which have occurred from 
time to time under various non-Christian religions, it may be said 
that the racial effects of this pernicious practice have probably 
been on the whole dysgenic. Galton, in speaking of the persecu- 
tions in Spain, says that ‘It is impossible that any nation could 
stand a policy like this without paying a heavy penalty in the 
