But as we cannot rightly censure the statesmen of 1820 for not insisting on emancipation, for which public opinion was not yet prepared, so it would be unhistorical and unreasonable to blame the Diet of Augsburg for not granting the complete toleration which we now see was bound to come and was ideally the right thing.

Mankind is educated slowly and by many hard experiences.

Europe had lain so long under the domination of an authoritative ecclesiastical civilization that the possibility of complete toleration hardly occurred to any but a few eccentrics.

And we must not minimize what the Peace of Augsburg actually accomplished.
It is true that choice of religion was legally limited to two alternatives, but this was more than had been allowed before.
[Sidenote: Actual results] It is true that freedom of even this choice was complete only for the rulers of the territories or Free Cities; private citizens might exercise the same choice only on leaving their homes.

The hardship of this was somewhat lessened by the consideration that in any case the nonconformist would not have to go far before finding a German community holding the Catholic or Lutheran opinions he preferred.