the Reformation, we shall see that a number of psychological
elements which figured therein were equally active during the
French Revolution. In both we observe the insignificant bearing
of the rational value of a belief upon its propagation, the
inefficacy of persecution, the impossibility of tolerance between
contrary beliefs, and the violence and the desperate struggles
resulting from the conflict of different faiths. We also observe
the exploitation of a belief by interests quite independent
of that belief. Finally we see that it is impossible to modify
the convictions of men without also modifying their existence.

These phenomena verified, we shall see plainly why the gospel of
the Revolution was propagated by the same methods as all the
religious gospels, notably that of Calvin. It could not have
been propagated otherwise.

But although there are close analogies between the genesis of a
religious revolution, such as the Reformation, and that of a
great political revolution like our own, their remote
consequences are very different, which explains the difference of
duration which they display. In religious revolutions no
experience can reveal to the faithful that they are deceived,
since they would have to go to heaven to make the discovery. In
political revolutions experience quickly demonstrates the error
of a false doctrine and forces men to abandon it.

Thus at the end of the Directory the application of Jacobin
beliefs had led France to such a degree of ruin, poverty, and
despair that the wildest Jacobins themselves had to renounce
their system. Nothing survived of their theories except a few