Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/51

Rh polity exhibited the germ of some of those institutions, which, with other nations, and under happier auspices, have formed the basis of a well-regulated constitutional liberty.

But, while in other countries the principles of a free government were slowly and gradually unfolded, their developement was much accelerated in Spain by an event, which, at the time, seemed to threaten their total extinction,—the great Saracen invasion at the beginning of the eighth century. The religious, as well as the political institutions of the Arabs, were too dissimilar to those of the conquered nation, to allow the former to exercise any very sensible influence over the latter in these particulars. In the spirit of toleration, which distinguished the early followers of Mahomet, they conceded to such of the Goths, as were willing to continue among them after the conquest, the free enjoyment of their religious, as well as of many of the civil privileges which they possessed under the