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SECTION 3. THE LIBERAL-ROMANTIC APPRECIATION. (CIRCA 1794-c. 1860)
At about the end of the eighteenth century historiography underwent a profound change due primarily to three influences: 1. The French Revolution and the struggle for political democracy throughout nearly a century after 1789; 2. The Romantic Movement; 3. The rise of the scientific spirit. The judgment of the Reformation changed accordingly; the rather unfavorable verdict of the eighteenth century was completely reversed. Hardly by its extremest partisans in the Protestant camp has the importance of that movement and the character of its leaders been esteemed so highly as it was by the writers of the liberal-romantic school. Indeed, so little had confession to do with this bias that the finest things about Luther and the most extravagant praise of his work, was uttered not by Protestants, but by the Catholic Döllinger, the Jew Heine, and the free thinkers, Michelet, Carlyle, and Froude.
[Sidenote: The French Revolution]
The French Revolution taught men to see, or misled them into construing, the whole of history as a struggle for liberty against oppression. Naturally, the Reformation was one of the favorite examples of this perpetual warfare; it was the Revolution of the earlier age, and Luther was the great liberator, standing for the Rights of Man against a galling tyranny.
[Sidenote: Condorcet]
The first to draw the parallel between Reformation and Revolution was Condorcet in his noble essay on The Advance of the Human Spirit, written in prison and published posthumously. Luther, said he, punished the crimes of the clergy and freed some peoples from the yoke of the papacy; he would have freed all, save for the false politics of the kings who, feeling instinctively that religious liberty would bring political enfranchisement, banded together against the {714} revolt. He adds that the epoch brought added strength to the government and to political science and that it purified morals by abolishing sacerdotal celibacy; but that it was (like the Revolution, one reads between the lines) soiled by great atrocities.
In the year 1802, the Institute of France announced as the subject for a prize competition, "What has been the influence of the Reformation of Luther on the political situation of the several states of Europe and on the progress of enlightenment?" The prize was won by Charles de Villers [Sidenote: Villers] in an essay maintaining elaborately the thesis that the gradual improvement of the human species has been effected by a series of revolutions, partly silent, partly violent, and that the object of all these risings has been the attainment of either religious or of civil liberty. After arguing his position in respect to the Reformation, the author eulogizes it for having established religious freedom, promoted civil liberty, and for having endowed Europe with a variety of blessings, including almost everything he liked. Thus, in his opinion, the Reformation made Protestant countries more wealthy by keeping the papal tax-gatherers aloof; it started "that grand idea the balance of power," and it prepared the way for a general philosophical enlightenment.
[Sidenote: Guizot]
The thesis of Villers is exactly that maintained, with more learning and caution, by Guizot. According to him: