To sum up: If I look at contemporary humanity from the point of view of its moral state as revealed by its political life, I see (_a_) A mass in whom realist passions in its two chief forms--class passion, national passion--has attained a degree of consciousness and organization hitherto unknown; (_b_) A body of men who used to be in opposition to the realism of the masses, but who now, not only do not oppose it, but adopt it, proclaim its grandeur and morality; in short, a humanity which has abandoned itself to realism with a unanimity, an absence of reserve, a sanctification of its passion unexampled in history. This remark may be put in another form. Imagine an observer of the twelfth century taking a bird’s-eye view of the Europe of his time. He would see men groping in the obscurity of their minds and striving to form themselves into nations (to mention only the most striking aspect of the realist will); he would see them beginning to succeed; he would see groups of men attaining consistency, determined to seize a portion of the earth and tending to feel conscious of themselves as distinct from the groups surrounding them. But at the same time he would see a whole class of men, regarded with the greatest reverence, labouring to thwart this movement. He would see men of learning, artists and philosophers, displaying to the world a spirit which cared nothing for nations, using a universal language among themselves. He would see those who gave Europe its moral values preaching the cult of the human, or at least of the Christian, and not of the national, he would see them striving to found, in opposition to the nations, a great universal empire on spiritual foundations. And so he might say to himself: ‘Which of these two currents will triumph? Will humanity be national or spiritual? Will it depend on the will of the laymen or of the “clerks”?’ And for long ages the realist cause will not be completely victorious; the spiritual body will remain faithful to itself long enough to our observer to be uncertain of the result. To-day the game is over. Humanity is national. The layman has won. But his triumph has gone beyond anything he could have expected. The ‘clerk’ is not only conquered, he is assimilated. The man of science, the artist, the philosopher are attached to their nations as much as the day-labourer and the merchant. Those who make the world’s values, make them for a nation; the Ministers of Jesus defend the national. All humanity including the ‘clerks’, have become laymen. All Europe, including Erasmus, has followed Luther.