9. Origin and early history of the modern system of patents for inventions. [Same references; Encyc., article Patents.] BIBLIOGRAPHY See preceding chapter. CHAPTER XXVI THE GERMAN STATES =289. Political survey of Germany about 1500.=—After considering a country in which the central government was, so to speak, too strong for the interests of commercial development, it will be instructive to take up countries in which it was certainly too weak, Germany and Italy. Germany presented a striking contrast in its political and in its economic development at the beginning of the period, about 1500. In political organization, the central government had almost no power; it was the mere shadow of a reality. The real power rested in hundreds of petty states, of which some were but a few square miles in extent. There was no authority which could keep in order these little states and the different classes of people which composed them. The history of Germany in this period is a sad story of conflicts between classes,—peasants, burghers, knights, and princes; conflicts between Catholics and Protestants; conflicts between the states themselves. In these struggles the best energies of the Germans were absorbed; they were marking time or even going backward while the more fortunate peoples of Europe were advancing. The Germans learned at last to despair of realizing their dream of a national government. Not all parts of the country, however, were equally unfortunate; some came under the rule of princes who managed to build up a strong power at home and abroad. Two of these local states are of especial importance, for between them they have divided the fragments of the old Germany, and made great states in modern Europe. One of them, Prussia, is the nucleus of what we now call Germany. The other, Austria, which included the Germans of the South, added to them fragments of territory peopled by other races, and made the state of Austria-Hungary. [Illustration: GERMANY IN THE 18th CENTURY _Boundary of the Empire_ The objects of the map are: (1) to show the possessions of the Hohenzollerns (Prussian) and Hapsburgs (Austrian); (2) to show the small fragments of which remaining Germany was composed. To preserve clearness, many of the smaller fragments are not indicated. Note that the Empire included some states not German (Flanders), and did not include all German states (East Prussia, Silesia). ]