The conclusion which the foregoing illustrations seem to warrant is that while corruption is a pathological condition which in an extreme degree may lead to social death, it is also susceptible to treatment which may bring about recovery with renewed and even enhanced vigour. Between these two extremes every degree of partial strength or weakness may exist in a social body as a result of the presence or after effects of corruption. The Roman Church suffered a tremendous loss of influence in Western and Northern Europe as a result of the Reformation. It has never recovered this territory, but it survived as an institution which, modified by internal reforms, has acquired a greater influence and a greater number of communicants than the mediæval church ever dreamed of. Spain, partly through corruption, lost her colonial empire, but the mother country remains intact. True Lord Salisbury called it a “decadent nation,” but at least it is not in ruins. Germany was victor over corrupt imperial France in the last great European war. The progress of the _Vaterland_ since that event seems phenomenal, but already uneasy voices, troubled at contemporary conditions, particularly in the army and the emperor’s immediate entourage, are raising the question: “What does the future hold for us,—Jena or Sedan?” Conquered in 1870-’71, the French, in Gambetta’s deathless words, nevertheless remained “a great nation which does not wish to die.” The history of the Third Republic has been besmirched at times by scandals of the most offensively corrupt character. Yet in spite of this and other national weaknesses the outside world is probably altogether too much inclined to underestimate the latent strength of modern France.