Page:The Science of History and the Hope of Mankind.djvu/64



Religious intolerance and persecution in European history and the enforcement of a rigid system of uniformity in religious theory and practice were inevitable when the peoples of Europe were emerging from the conditions of feudalistic disintegration to the new national and unified socio-political existence. A strong monarchy exercising sway over all the spheres of human life was the only means of removing the decentralisation due to diversity and multiplicity of independent states, cities, and principalities. This need of national unity and homogeneous compacture is responsible for the suppression of independence in thought, speech, and action, and accounts for the remarkable preponderance of the states in Spain, France, England, and in more recent times in Prussia and Russia.