VIII.
Comparison between despotisms. - Philip II and Louis XIV. - Cromwell
and Frederick the Great. - Peter the Great and the Sultans. -
Relationship between the tasks the Jacobins are to carry out and the
assets at their disposal. - Disproportion between the burdens they
are to carry and the forces at their disposal. - Folly of their
undertaking. - Physical force the only governmental force they
possess. - They are compelled to exercise it. - They are compelled
to abuse it. - Character of their government. - Character requisite
of their leaders.
Several times, in European history, despotism almost equally harsh
have born down heavily on human effort; but never have any of them
been so thoroughly inept; for none have ever attempted to raise so
heavy a mass with so short a lever.
And to start with, no matter how authoritative the despot might have
been, his intervention was limited. - Philip II. burned heretics,
persecuted Moors and drove out Jews; Louis XIV. forcibly converted
the Protestants; but both used violence only against dissenters, about
a fifteenth or a twentieth of their subjects. If Cromwell, on
becoming Protector, remained sectarian, and the compulsory servant of
an army of sectarians, he took good care not to impose on other
churches the theology, rites and discipline of his own church;[18] on
the contrary, he repressed fanatical outrages; protected the
Anabaptists as well as his Independents.
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