nnomics.
Terror, the usual instrument in propagating religions, was never more
mercilessly applied. Any one who questioned the doctrines was a heretic
and deserved a heretic's fate. And, as in most religious movements, the
milder and less unreasonable spirits succumbed to the fanatics. Never
was the name of reason more grievously abused than by those who believed
they were inaugurating her reign.

Religious liberty, however, among other good things, did emerge from the
Revolution, at first in the form of Separation, and then under the
Concordat. The Concordat lasted for more than a century, under
monarchies and republics, till it was abolished in December, 1905, when
the system of Separation was introduced again.

In the German States the history of religious liberty differs in many
ways, but it resembles the development in France in so far as toleration
in a limited form was at first brought about by war. The Thirty Years'
War, which divided Germany in the first half

[118] of the seventeenth century, and in which, as in the English Civil
War, religion and politics were mixed, was terminated by the Peace of
Westphalia (1648). By this act, three religions, the Catholic, the
Lutheran, and the Reformed [4] were legally recognized by the Holy Roman
Empire, and placed on an equality; all other religious were excluded.
But it was left to each of the German States, of which the Empire
consisted, to tolerate or not any religion it pleased. That is, every
prince could impose on his subjects whichever of the three religions he
chose, and refuse to tolerate the others in his territory. But he might
also admit one or both of the others, and he might allow the followers
of other creeds to reside in his dominion, and practise their religion
within the precincts of their own houses. Thus toleration varied, from
State to State, according to the policy of each particular prince.

As elsewhere, so in Germany, considerations of political expediency
promoted the growth of toleration, especially in Prussia; and as
elsewhere, theoretical advocates exercised great influence on public
opinion. But the case for toleration was based by its German defenders
chiefly on legal, not, as in

[119] England and France, on moral and intellectual grounds. They
regarded it as a question of law, and discussed it from the point of
view of the legal relations between State and Church. It had been
considered long ago from this standpoint by an original I