This growing intelligence and strength among the masses, with the habit of ruling themselves under feudal forms, made a conflict with the two arrogant despotisms inevitable in the near future. Feudal institutions were still a serious and vexatious embarrassment to freedom of movement, and a very heavy tax on industry, and the only legal way to remove it was by strengthening the central or kingly power, which continued to increase for more than a hundred years; but the conflict with priestly despotism was entered on at once. A vast rebellion against the church commenced, called “The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century,” which embraced nearly all the most enterprising and commercial nations. SECTION XVI. THE SITUATION ON THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 1. We have said that great men were a kind of summary of the tendencies of their period; an expression of a wide-spread thought or state of mind, which their fortunate combination of faculties and more favorable circumstances enabled them first to state, or embody, with distinctness; that the great following they obtained, and the extensive influence which enabled them to make great changes, were due to a coincident development in their generation of the same thoughts and tendencies. This explains the existence of _eras_ in all departments of life. Men grow, or progress, silently, from one to the other; when the general progress has reached the suitable point it breaks out in a leader more bold and positive than the rest. The discovery of America was such an era; and the sudden advance in many ways at about the same time was the result of gradual growth during many centuries. It was shown by the sudden appearance of great men in different spheres. Columbus lived in the midst of a great era. Printing, the use of the compass, the science of astronomy and the successful protest against spiritual despotism all commenced their great career just before, or just after him. The great painters, whose works are now so much esteemed, were all living in 1500. Copernicus discovered the true planetary system in the year Columbus died. Gunpowder, which enabled Cortez to conquer the Mexican Empire, came into general use about the same period. Luther commenced the Reformation, while the first adventurers were creeping, with amazed curiosity, around the shores of the American continent. The foundation of all the sciences was then laid. Correct principles were enunciated for religion, government and thought; and the laws of nature, of human relations and of religious liberty were promulgated almost simultaneously.