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OF THE REFORMATION.and France should severally stand to Germany. Neverthehowever important these points may be, and with howless,ever much justicewe may consider thisof the German constitution, such as it was uptions of our own day too much is ;undoubtedlytreaty as the basisto the revoluascribed toit, when, as often is the case, it is also considered as theorigin of the balance of power in Europe.It never occurredto the negotiators of the peace to regulate the general principles of European policy, nor indeed could it, since theyhad no commission so to do. The most important and intricate relations existing between the chief powers of Europewere, therefore, naturally left unexamined, nay, in partwholly unmentioned. The war between Spain and Francelasted fiill ten years more, down to the Pyrenean peace ;thequestion whether Portugal should maintain its independenceof Spain, was still longer doubtful. Not a thought even wasbestowed upon the continental relations of England, becausein those days such relations were not in existence ;whilethose of the east of Europe remained undetermined in theirmain features till the peace of Oliva, which was twelve yearslater (1660). Although, therefore, we find the Westphalianpeace treated in historical works as the origin of the balanceof power in Europe,this isonly one of the many instanceswhich occur, of historians dealing with that as a general principle, which can be truly affirmed only in a narrower sense.The first half, therefore, of the seventeenth century was theperiod during which the political influence ofthe Reformationipon almost every part of the European political system wasit its height, especially since England was also involved, atthis very time, in civil wars, caused by religious sects, andleading to the establishment of a national church and;theparty of the Hugonots was "forciblydisarmed in France.But the springs of action in morals and in politics gradually lose their strength, like those in material mechanism :and this was the case with the Reformation.it we shall presentlyfind inof the seventeenth century.The proof ofthe history of the second partFOURTH PERIOD, 1643 1702.The government of France is entitled to the credit ofhaving been the first to raise itself above the narrow views