Two events drove Europeans to a completely new way of thinking. The first was the Thirty Years’ War. This savage conflict dragged on for thirty years, during which time much of central Europe was devastated by a plague of armies wandering across the terrain, looting, burning, and killing everywhere they went. Perhaps 30% of the population died, and much of the infrastructure — barns, houses, bridges, mills, and so forth — was wiped out. It took more than fifty years for central Europe to recover from the devastation. All Europe was horrified by the unprecedented scale of destruction. This impressed upon Europeans a deep disgust for war and a lingering suspicion that religious fervor was dangerous. Tolerance and irenicism became the order of the day.
This negative lesson was augmented by the positive lesson Newton provided: that human rationalism could conquer nature. Thus was launched the Enlightenment, a cultural movement that led to the triumph of Western civilization. Its consequences include the rise of modern science, the Industrial Revolution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the United States.