d in high esteem
by any one. Frederick, by an effort as sudden and quite as terrific as
that of Peter of Russia, changed this attitude of contempt into one of
fear. The internal affairs of Prussia were arranged so skillfully that
the subjects had less reason for complaint than elsewhere. The treasury
showed an annual surplus instead of a deficit. Torture was abolished.
The judiciary system was improved. Good roads and good schools and good
universities, together with a scrupulously honest administration, made
the people feel that whatever services were demanded of them, they (to
speak the vernacular) got their money's worth.

After having been for several centuries the battle field of the French
and the Austrians and the Swedes and the Danes and the Poles, Germany,
encouraged by the example of Prussia, began to regain self-confidence.
And this was the work of the little old man, with his hook-nose and his
old uniforms covered with snuff, who said very funny but very unpleasant
things about his neighbours, and who played the scandalous game of
eighteenth century diplomacy without any regard for the truth, provided
he could gain something by his lies. This in spite of his book,
"Anti-Macchiavelli." In the year 1786 the end came. His friends were
all gone. Children he had never had. He died alone, tended by a single
servant and his faithful dogs, whom he loved better than human beings
because, as he said, they were never ungrateful and remained true to
their friends.

THE MERCANTILE SYSTEM

HOW THE NEWLY FOUNDED NATIONAL OR DYNASTIC STATES OF EUROPE TRIED TO
MAKE THEMSELVES RICH AND WHAT WAS MEANT BY THE MERCANTILE SYSTEM

WE have seen how, during the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries,
the states of our modern world began to take shape. Their origins
were different in almost every case. Some had been the result of the
deliberate effort of a single king. Others had happened by chance. Still
others had been the result of favourable natural geographic boundaries.
But once they had been founded, they had all of them tried to strengthen
their internal administration and to exert the greatest possible
influence upon foreign affairs. All this of course had cost a great deal
of money. The mediaeval state with its lack of centralised power did not
depend upon a rich treasury. The king got his revenues from the crown
domains and his civil service paid for itself. The modern centralised
state was a more complicated