political importance. Large sections of the Empire were abandoned to
foreign States. Germany became a desert. But this time the Church did
not remain victorious as she did against the Arian Goths and the
Staufers. It is true she was not laid prostrate; she still remained a
mighty force, and drew new strength from the struggle itself.
Politically the Catholic States, under Spanish leadership, won an
undisputed supremacy. But, on the other hand, the right to spiritual
freedom was established. This most important element of civilization was
retained for humanity in the reformed Churches, and has become ever
since the palladium of all progress, though even after the Peace of
Westphalia protracted struggles were required to assert religious
freedom.

The States of the Latin race on their side now put forward strong claims
to the universal imperium in order to suppress the German ideas of
freedom. Spain first, then France: the two soon quarrelled among
themselves about the predominance. At the same time, in Germanized
England a firs-class Protestant power was being developed, and the age
of discoveries, which coincided roughly with the end of the Reformation
and the Thirty Years' War, opened new and unsuspected paths to human
intellect and human energy. Political life also acquired a fresh
stimulus. Gradually a broad stream of immigrants poured into the
newly-discovered districts of America, the northern part of which fell
to the lot of the Germanic and the southern part to that of the Latin
race. Thus was laid the foundation of the great colonial empires, and
consequently, of world politics. Germany remained excluded from this
great movement, since she wasted her forces in ecclesiastical disputes
and religious wars. On the other hand, in combination with England, the
Low Countries and Austria, which latter had at the same time to repel
the inroad of Turks from the East, she successfully curbed the French