ABSTRACT
The German conception of the State has the faintest resemblance to the Roman idea, and is far more closely related to the systems of the Asiatic Powers. The complete absorption of the individual by the State is a necessary consequence of the German theories, and this is just what has happened, first in Prussia and then throughout the Empire. German ideas with regard to the absolute power of the State, however, made it impossible for the founders of the Prussian Monarchy to tolerate any form of religious authority which might counterpoise their own. The Catholic Party is naturally not at all popular in Government circles, and indeed a Secretary of State once declared in a parliamentary speech that it was "a purulent abscess in the organism of the Empire". The Protestant Party has small inclination to yield to the Catholics, because it is convinced that Germany owes the greatness to the Protestant spirit, as many historians have taught.
