England, and the British colonies, the Scandinavian countries are the most advanced in democratic development. In lands where Protestantism and Catholicism are on a more or less equal footing, such as Germany, Holland, and Hungary, the Protestants are the sustainers of parliamentarism. Protestant Finland may be classed with the Scandinavian countries.
To-day, however, many Catholic lands have a constitution, and not a few are familiar with parliamentary institutions; France is actually a republic. But the political development of France was peculiar. During the eighteenth century, France was influenced in political matters by England and America; and after a number of sanguinary revolutions the establishment of the democratic French republic may be regarded as now fairly secure. In like manner it was only after a revolution or a series of revolutions that a constitution was introduced into other Catholic lands. The political development of the Protestant peoples has been comparatively regular, has been less turbulent than that of Catholic countries.
Yet it must be admitted that in America, too, the republic came into being as the outcome of revolution; and in England and all the Protestant lands revolution occurred concomitantly with the reformation. But herein lies the great difference, that the Protestants effected their political revolution simultaneously with the ecclesiastical and religious revolution, whereas in Catholic countries revolutions have remained purely political, have at most in the religious sphere brought about some loosening of the bonds between church and state, so that their influence upon religion has been indirect merely.
Protestantism has furthered democratisation from within outwards.
The subjectivism and individualism manifested in the reformation brought about a weakening of Catholic objectivism and of the authority of a wholly objective revelation. Priesthood was abolished by the reformation; the subjective individual consciousness was raised to the rank of an authority; in place of the pope of Rome, every layman became his own pope. Catholic passivism and conservative stagnation were replaced by Protestant progressive activism; selfgoverning Protestant churches occupied the ground that had been held by priests, by their aristocratic hierarchy, and by
