principles which cannot be verified by experience, such as the
universal happiness which equality should bestow upon humanity.


2. The beginnings of the Reformation and its first disciples.


The Reformation was finally to exercise a profound influence upon
the sentiments and moral ideas of a great proportion of mankind.
Modest in its beginnings, it was at first a simple struggle
against the abuses of the clergy, and, from a practical point of
view, a return to the prescriptions of the Gospel. It never
constituted, as has been claimed, an aspiration towards freedom
of thought. Calvin was as intolerant as Robespierre, and all the
theorists of the age considered that the religion of subjects
must be that of the prince who governed them. Indeed in every
country where the Reformation was established the sovereign
replaced the Pope of Rome, with the same rights and the same
powers.

In France, in default of publicity and means of communication,
the new faith spread slowly enough at first. It was about 1520
that Luther recruited a few adepts, and only towards 1535 was the
new belief sufficiently widespread for men to consider it
necessary to burn its disciples.

In conformity with a well-known psychological law, these
executions merely favoured the propagation of the Reformation.
Its first followers included priests and magistrates, but were
principally obscure artisans. Their conversion was effected