Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/245

Rh 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 VIII, make it more difficult to mobilize and wield effectively against an enemy the resources of society. Not 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 destruction 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