However, before submitting for three centuries to come, to the all-absorbing authority of the State, the masses of the people made a formidable attempt at reconstructing society on the old basis of mutual aid and support.  It is well known by this time that the great movement of the reform was not a mere revolt against the abuses of the Catholic Church.  It had its constructive ideal as well, and that ideal was life in free, brotherly communities.  Those of the early writings and sermons of the period which found most response with the masses were imbued with ideas of the economical and social brotherhood of mankind.  The “Twelve Articles” and similar professions of faith, which were circulated among the German and Swiss peasants and artisans, maintained not only every one’s right to interpret the Bible according to his own understanding, but also included the demand of communal lands being restored to the village communities and feudal servitudes being abolished, and they always alluded to the “true” faith—­a faith of brotherhood.  At the same time scores of thousands of men and women joined the communist fraternities of Moravia, giving them all their fortune and living in numerous and prosperous settlements constructed upon the principles of communism.(1) Only wholesale massacres by the thousand could put a stop to this widely-spread popular movement, and it was by the sword, the fire, and the rack that the young States secured their first and decisive victory over the masses of the people.(2)

For the next three centuries the States, both on the Continent and in these islands, systematically weeded out all institutions in which the mutual-aid tendency had formerly found its expression.  The village communities were bereft of their folkmotes, their courts and independent administration; their lands were confiscated.  The guilds were spoliated of their possessions and liberties, and placed under the control, the fancy, and the bribery of the State’s official.  The cities were divested of their sovereignty, and the very springs of their inner life—­the folkmote, the elected justices and administration, the sovereign parish and the sovereign guild—­ were annihilated; the State’s functionary took possession of every link of what formerly was an organic whole.  Under that fatal policy and the wars it engendered, whole regions, once populous and wealthy, were laid bare; rich cities became insignificant boroughs; the very roads which connected them with other cities became impracticable.  Industry, art, and knowledge fell into decay.  Political education, science, and law were rendered subservient to the idea of State centralization.  It was taught in the Universities and from the pulpit that the institutions in which men formerly used to embody their needs of mutual support could not be tolerated in a properly organized State; that the State alone could represent the bonds of union between its subjects; that federalism and “particularism” were the enemies of progress,