little spots, at the two extremities of the old Teutonic world, had fared equally well.  At the mouth of the Rhine the little Dutch communities were prepared to lead the attack in the terrible battle for freedom with which the drama of modern history was ushered in.  In the impregnable mountain fastnesses of upper Germany the Swiss cantons had bid defiance alike to Austrian tyrant and to Burgundian invader, and had preserved in its purest form the rustic democracy of their Aryan forefathers.  By a curious coincidence, both these free peoples, in their efforts towards national unity, were led to frame federal unions, and one of these political achievements is, from the stand-point of universal history, of very great significance.  The old League of High Germany, which earned immortal renown at Morgarten and Sempach, consisted of German-speaking cantons only.  But in the fifteenth century the League won by force of arms a small bit of Italian territory about Lake Lugano, and in the sixteenth the powerful city of Bern annexed the Burgundian bishopric of Lausanne and rescued the free city of Geneva from the clutches of the Duke of Savoy.  Other Burgundian possessions of Savoy were seized by the canton of Freiburg; and after awhile all these subjects and allies were admitted on equal terms into the confederation.  The result is that modern Switzerland is made up of what might seem to be most discordant and unmanageable elements.  Four languages—­German, French, Italian, and Rhaetian—­are spoken within the limits of the confederacy; and in point of religion the cantons are sharply divided as Catholic and Protestant.  Yet in spite of all this, Switzerland is as thoroughly united in feeling as any nation in Europe.  To the German-speaking Catholic of Altdorf the German Catholics of Bavaria are foreigners, while the French-speaking Protestants of Geneva are fellow-countrymen.  Deeper down even than these deep-seated differences of speech and creed lies the feeling that comes from the common possession of a political freedom that is greater than that possessed by surrounding peoples.  Such has been the happy outcome of the first attempt at federal union made by men of Teutonic descent.  Complete independence in local affairs, when combined with adequate representation in the federal council, has effected such an intense cohesion of interests throughout the nation as no centralized government, however cunningly devised, could ever have secured.

Until the nineteenth century, however, the federal form of government had given no clear indication of its capacity for holding together great bodies of men, spread over vast territorial areas, in orderly and peaceful relations with one another.  The empire of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius still remained the greatest known example of political aggregation; and men who argued from simple historic precedent without that power of analyzing precedents which the comparative method has supplied, came not unnaturally to the conclusions