But he is a ruler in the wrong place. He decrees these reforms and then similar shocks, one after another, in countries which, being in spiritual things still wholly under the dominion of the Catholic Church of that time, are not prepared for them, and moreover in other things as well display a specially backward attitude, because they belong to the zone in which the Europe of that day passed over into Asia. The Emperor is therefore unable to count upon either any willingness to make sacrifices in the classes which are to give up their privileges, or upon any understanding of his ideas in the common people. In his attempts to organize the monarchy as a unity and in an effective way for practical purposes, he comes into conflict with the nationalities themselves of which it is composed. The reduction in the number of the religious houses, which he undertakes out of economic considerations, with the introduction of the freedom of the Press and of a system of State education, bring on him the hostility of the Church. Finally, because he is a ruler in the wrong place, this noble reforming emperor dies of a broken heart, while Europe, because the will-to-progress in Austria can accomplish nothing even at the time of its greatest strength, owing to unfavourable circumstances, is condemned to a period of the deepest misery over the problems of that huge State, which have in this way been rendered insoluble, and over the portion of Asia beyond it along the southern Danube. In France, too, the wrong men are in control. There the spread of the new ideas prepares the way splendidly for reform, but the reforms are not undertaken, because its rulers cannot understand the signs of the times, and allow the State to collapse in ruin. Consequently the reform movement has to take the road of violence, whereby it slips away from the guidance of the educated, and falls into the hands of the mob, from which it is taken by the powerful genius of Napoleon. Native of an island in which the Europe of that day passed over into Africa, and lacking all [pg 101] deeper education, he is uninfluenced by the valuable convictions of his time. Guided solely by the force of his own personality, he decides what is to happen in Europe, and hurls it into wars through which it sinks into misery. Thus from East and from West alike disaster overtakes the work of the will-to-progress.