The ordinary sort of poor statesmanship which afflicts this world generally meets the assumptions and treasons of a man-mastering caste by concessions. The commercial and manufacturing classes love peace and applaud concessions. But concessions only make matters worse. Concessions to a caste, based upon traditions of oppression, are but fuel to fire. The more privileges are given, the higher blazes its pride, and pride is one of the greatest causes of its noxious activity. Concessions to such a caste are sure to be received as tributes to its superiority. Such concessions are regarded by it not as favors but as rights, and no man ever owed gratitude for a right. There remained then but one way of dealing with it,--that was by overwhelming force; and at the end of the Fifteenth Century that force appeared. The encroachments upon regular central government produced the same results in Spain as in the rest of Europe at about the same time. To one not acquainted with previous history, but looking thoughtfully at the fifteenth century, it must seem strange that just at that time--as by a simultaneous and spontaneous movement--almost every nation in Europe consolidated power in the hands of a monarch. In France, in England, in Italy, as well as in Spain, you see institutions, liberties, franchises, boundaries sacrificed freely to establish despotism. You see Henry VII. in England, Louis XI. in France, Charles V., a little later, in Germany and Italy, Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain--almost all utterly unlovely and unloved--allowed to build up despotisms in all cases severe, and in most cases cruel. Why? Because the serf-owning caste had become utterly unbearable; because one tyrant is better than a thousand. Then the Spanish nobility went into the next phase. Ferdinand, Charles the Fifth, Philip the Second--three of the harshest tyrants known to history,--having crushed out the boldness and enterprise of the aristocracy it passed from what I have called the _Vitriolic_ into what might be called the _Narcotic period_. A period this was in which the noble became an agent in stimulating all evil tendencies in the monarch, and in stupefying all good tendencies in the people. The caste spirit was a drug infused into the body politic, rendering inert all its powers for good. Did Charles the Fifth insult and depose Ximenes,--the nation sleepily permitted it; did Philip the Second lay bigot plans which brought the kingdom to ruin,--the nation lazily fawned upon him for it;[12] did Philip III. and his successors allow the nation to sink into contempt,--there was no voice to raise it. Do you say that this resulted from Ecclesiasticism? I answer that the main reason why Ecclesiasticism became so strong was because it sheltered the lower class from the exactions of the Aristocracy. Do you say that it resulted from Despotism? I answer that Despotism became absolute in order to save the nation from the turbulence of the Aristocracy.[13]