o of the
future.

Human opinions must hence, of absolute necessity, undergo
transformation. What has been received by one generation as undoubted,
to a subsequent one becomes so conspicuously fallacious as to excite the
wonder of those who do not distinctly appreciate the law of psychical
advance that it could ever have been received as true. These phases of
transformation are not only related in a chronological way, so as to be
obvious when we examine the ideas of society at epochs of a few years or
of centuries apart--they exist also contemporaneously in different
nations or in different social grades of the same nation, according as
the class of persons considered has made a greater or less intellectual
progress.

[Sidenote: Variations in Italian ideas.] Notwithstanding the assertion
of Rome, the essential ideas of the Italian system had undergone
unavoidable modifications. An illiterate people, easily imposed upon,
had accepted as true the asseveration that there had been no change even
from the apostolic times. But the time had now come when that fiction
could no longer be maintained, the divergence no longer concealed. In
the new state of things, it was impossible that dogmas in absolute
opposition to reason, such as that of transubstantiation, could any
longer hold their ground. The scholastic theology and scholastic
philosophy, though supported by the universities, had become obsolete.
With the revival of pure Latinity and the introduction of Greek, the
foundations of a more correct criticism were laid. An age of erudition
was unavoidable, in which whatever could not establish its claims
against a searching examination must necessarily be overthrown.

[Sidenote: The Reformation: its history.] We are thus brought to the
great movement known as the Reformation. The term is usually applied in
reference to the Protestant nations, and therefore is not sufficiently
comprehensive, for all Europe was in truth involved. A clear
understanding of its origin, its process, its effects, is perhaps best
obtained by an examination of the condition of the northern and southern
nations, and the issue of the event in each respectively.

[Sidenote: The preparatory state of Germany, France, England.] Germany
had always been sincere, and therefore always devout. Of her disposition
she had given many proofs from the time when the Emperor Otho descended
into Italy, his expedition having been, as was said, an armed procession
of ec