=186. Attention distracted from internal reforms by foreign interests.=—A consciousness that government regulation had gone too far for the interests of commerce grew strong before the end of the eighteenth century, when a school of thinkers, the physiocrats, protested earnestly against it. Their formulas, “don’t govern too much,” “let things alone” (_laisser faire_), were to be realized in the nineteenth century. At the time, however, they had little effect; the faith in the power of government was still strong in the minds of rulers, and their attention was distracted by other interests. When rulers had crushed the resistance of their subjects, and established their absolute authority, they had a surplus of power which they were inclined to apply abroad. The period from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries is filled with strife between the European states, each attempting to get possession of some of the territory and power of a rival. The states of Europe were still young, with all the vigor and all the inexperience of youth, and not until they had tried conclusions with each other were they willing to settle down as they have done in the nineteenth century. It was said above that internal reform was the best object of government expenditure “from the modern standpoint.” Kings and peoples were not modern, and to a king of the time one of the best objects appeared to be a war with another king by which he might get more people under his power. =187. Wars occasioned by religious and dynastic interests.=—In tracing later the commercial histories of the different countries it will be necessary to refer occasionally to these wars, but it will conduce to clearness if we stop a moment here to examine their causes and character. Some of the wars were religious, growing out of the Protestant revolution. The states of the South remained Catholic, and those of the North became Protestant with comparatively little opposition, but in the center, in France and Germany especially, where neither side had at first a clear supremacy, the Protestant movement led to disastrous civil wars. Another series of wars may be called dynastic, as they grew out of the ambitions of rulers to extend their power in Europe at the expense of other ruling families. In the sixteenth century the chief contestants were Spain and France. Spain dropped from the first rank, and France and Austria continued the struggle for supremacy through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The dynastic wars seem to the student of the history of commerce as unfortunate as those that came from religious differences. They diverted men and resources from production to destruction; they checked at the same time commercial development and the reform of government.