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POLITICAL CONSEQUENCESand evident conditions.It isonly as to the sense in whichthe term " Consequences of the Reformation" may be fairlyused that any observation need be made. On this, howit mustever, the full attention of the reader is required, asnecessarily determine the main features of our inquiry.The consequencesof every event are partly immediate,partly mediate.The character of immediate consequences is that theymust result of themselves from the very nature of a givenevent, and therefore be of the same stamp with it. The immediate consequences of a religiousrevolution can be concerned only with religion and therefore as;regards the revolution we are here speaking o they include nothing butthe changes in doctrine or worship of particular portions ofthe Christian Church.The mediate consequencesof an event differ from theformer in not flowing from the essence of that event, but inbeing produced by accidental relations, connexions, andchanges of circumstance, in such a way, however, as thatwithout the existence of that event they would not themselves have existed.It is at once evident that the sphere of the immediate consequences of every event must be comparatively muchsmaller than that of the mediate. But on this account aview which should be confined only to the former would bevery partial and; althoughitmay be urged that the chainof mediate consequences is endless, and therefore incomprehensible by the eye, since each operation gives an impulseto another and a new one, we must remember that the imperfection of our nature imposes a limit, and by subjectingus to the thraldom of time, restrains our view to that whichis already determined.Moreover we have a standard of easy application bywhich the degrees of distance may be judged. Are all thecircles which we form by throwing a stone into the water tobe held uncertainly defined, because those on the vergegradually escape the eye ?The influence of the Reformation on the politicsand intelligence of Europe belongs to the class of mediate consequences, and the National Institute, by proposing such aquestion, has shown the extent over which it is intended that