In this connection, we should consider the use which Providence made of Feudalism, that great military organization of the middle ages. It pre-eminently conduced to greater centralization and unity among civilizing powers. After having destroyed the majesty and influence of the Germanic and imperial royalty which Pepin and Charlemagne had revived over the ruins of the Roman world, it rapidly declined and gave place ultimately to popular liberty. "Feudality," says Guizot, "has been a first step out of barbarism--the passage from barbarism to civilization: the most marked character of barbarism is the independence of the individual--the predominance of individualism; in this state every man acts as he pleases, at his own risk and peril. The ascendancy of the individual will and the struggle of individual forces, such is the great fact of barbarian society. This fact was limited and opposed by the establishment of the feudal system of government. The influence alone of territorial and hereditary property rendered the individual will more fixed and less ordered; barbarism ceased to be wandering; and was followed by a first step, a surpassing step toward civilization." Feudalism engendered new institutions, and they entered deeply into the spirit of progress. Such were, for example, the Court of Peers and the Establishments of St. Louis, wherein the first trial was made toward a uniform legislation for the whole nation. The Crusades form also a conspicuous feature in the political activity of the Japhetic nations during the middle ages. The great movement that induced western Europe to rush to the East had, by no means, the expected results; yet its consequences became numerous and beneficial. Oppressing Shem was repulsed in a new direction, and great wealth of science was attained through his avaricious and violent hands. Thus the turbulent energy of the military classes, which threatened the progress of civilization, was exhausted in a distant land; and at the same time the different races of Europe were made to know each other better, and to banish all mental hostility, by uniting in one uniform devotion to a lofty design. Another great consequence of the Crusades was the change of territorial property, the sale of the estates of the nobles, and their division among a great number of smaller proprietors. Hence the feudal aristocracy was weakened, and the lower orders arose with acquired immunities, ennobled by the spirit of independence, and protected by municipal laws.