Page:The Science of History and the Hope of Mankind.djvu/48



Add to this the division of energy that was necessitated by the simultaneous conflict with England and the possibility of a breach with France, and we get an idea of the manner in which the decay of Spain, and the political ascendancy of France, industrial and commercial developments of Protestant countries, and the political and religious independence of the Dutch Republic, came about as the joint products of the same system of European politics. We cannot explain the rise of one people without reference to the fall of another, or the economic prosperity of one if we neglect the political triumph of another.

Just as the interests of the whole of Europe were involved in the continental affairs that ultimately led to the absolute autonomy of the