The history of Europe as it emerged from the Middle Ages affords a
continuous illustration of the truth that the increasing political
efficiency of the several states was proportioned to the exercise of
their powers in a responsible manner. The national development of the
several states was complicated in the beginning by the religious wars;
but those peoples suffered least from the wars of religion who did not
in the end allow them to interfere with their primary political
responsibilities. Spain, for instance, whose centuries of fighting with
the Moors had enormously developed her military efficiency, used this
military power solely for the purpose of pursuing political and
religious objects antagonistic or irrelevant to the responsibilities of
the Spanish kings towards their own subjects. The Spanish monarchy
proclaimed as its dominant political object the maintenance by force of
the Catholic faith throughout Europe; and for three generations it
wasted the superb military strength and the economic resources of the
Spanish people in an attempt to crush out Protestantism in Holland and
England and to reinforce militant Catholicism in France.
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