Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/245

 little trouble, recast the new provinces in the form of the old, and use the former as freely as the latter. Through the Reformation, indeed, many forms of the one essentially indivisible Christianity have arisen; and among these, in part, a most hostile aversion. Against this source of distraction, however, each State has the easy remedy of peaceful Toleration and equal rights to all; and thus once more, as formerly in the Heathen Roman Empire, Religious Toleration and accommodation in particulars to the manners of other nations, have become an excellent means of making and maintaining conquests; while at the same time, the union of several creeds in one political body efficiently promotes the purpose which, in our former lecture, we have described as the absolute purpose of Christianity,—the complete separation of Religion from the State,—since the State must thus become neutral and indifferent towards all creeds.

This tendency towards a Christian-European Universal Monarchy has shown itself successively in the several States which could make pretensions to such a dominion, and, since the fall of the Papacy, it has become the sole animating principle of our History. We by no means seek by this assertion to determine whether this notion of Universal Monarchy has ever been distinctly entertained as a definite plan;—the Historian may even lead a negative proof, and attempt to show that this thought has never attained a clear and distinct acceptance in any individual mind, without our principle being thereby overthrown. Whether clearly or not,—it may be obscurely,—yet has this tendency lain at the root of the undertakings of many States in Modern Times, for only by this principle can these undertakings be explained. Many States, already powerful in themselves, and indeed the more on that account, have exhibited a marked desire for yet more extensive dominion, and have constantly sought to acquire new provinces by intermarriage, treaty, or conquest;—not