Page:The Science of History and the Hope of Mankind.djvu/53



national unity began to range themselves on the side of religious toleration and freedom of conscience; and so not only theologians and religious leaders, but statesmen and politicians, educationists and literary men as well, regulated the movements of the times. And so the Peace of Westphalia settled not only the religious disputes, but solved also some of the political problems of the age and determined the boundaries of Spain, France, Prussia, Sweden, and Holland.

The ascendancy of Sweden during the Thirty Years' War, and her gradual decadence in later times, as well as the development of Russia and Prussia as independent powers in the state-system of modern Europe, were due to circumstances created by the