ABSTRACT
In the seventeenth century the idea of monarchical absolutism was in the ascendancy in many countries. The rise of absolutism caused the decline of many German territorial diets, although they preserved some of their influence in many German states. Particularism has contributed a great deal to the development of German peculiarities, both in a good and in a bad sense. In the eighteenth century, it was, in particular, an obstacle to the rise of national sentiment. The peace tried to terminate the bitter struggles between the religions by establishing compromises, and prescribed a constitution which definitely reduced the central power to a minimum, and barred the way to national unification. The result was a system of political and social separatism and of loses federalism, which was later called particularism and was entirely in contrast to the idea of a unitary national state obtaining in England and France.
