have cost France 400,000 inhabitants, men of notable energy,
since they had the courage to listen to their conscience rather
than their interests.


6. The results of Religious Revolutions.


If religious revolutions were judged only by the gloomy story of
the Reformation, we should be forced to regard them as highly
disastrous. But all have not played a like part, the civilising
influence of certain among them being considerable.

By giving a people moral unity they greatly increase its material
power. We see this notably when a new faith, brought by
Mohammed, transforms the petty and impotent tribes of Arabia into
a formidable nation.

Such a new religious belief does not merely render a people
homogeneous. It attains a result that no philosophy, no code
ever attained: it sensibly transforms what is almost
unchangeable, the sentiments of a race.

We see this at the period when the most powerful religious
revolution recorded by history overthrew paganism to substitute a
God who came from the plains of Galilee. The new ideal demanded
the renunciation of all the joys of existence in order to
acquire the eternal happiness of heaven. No doubt such an ideal
was readily accepted by the poor, the enslaved, the disinherited
who were deprived of all the joys of life here below, to whom an