When the Western Empire collapsed under the impact of the barbarians and from its own internal corrosion, the people of Western Europe were playing without being aware of it a game of “whoever loses wins.” Roman theocracy developed out of the ruins of the Empire, inheriting its ambition and its universality, and gradually undertook through the sole means of the faith the reconquest of the world. Its pioneers penetrated even further than the eagles of Rome had ventured. Christ's labarum flew triumphant over lands from which Rome in its time had been unmercifully driven. While the victorious church broadened the limits of the antique world, everywhere under its domination the lay, local and national forces organized and consolidated their power, taking full advantage of the Pauline and Augustinian doctrine favoring the separation of church and state. After several centuries of painful anarchy the characteristic profile of the West emerged: two symmetrically organized powers, the spiritual power of the church, universal in ambition or vocation, and the lay, local or national power. A society unique in the annals of history was born from the balance of these two powers, a society that succeeded where much richer and more civilized societies had failed miserably, notably in preparing the way for the advent of industrial society, master of science, nature and technique.