Letters from Spain

“The main advantage, however, which I owed to my new powers, was a speedy emancipation from the Aristotelic school of the Dominicans. I had, sometimes, dipped into the second volume of their Elements of Philosophy, and had found, to my utter dismay, that they denied the existence of a vacuum—one of my then favourite doctrines—and attributed the ascent of liquids by suction, to the horror of nature at being wounded and torn. Now, it so happened that Feyjoo had given me the clearest notions on the theory of the sucking-pump, and the relative gravity of air and water. Nothing, therefore, could equal my contempt of those monks, who still contended for the whole system of sympathies and antipathies. A reprimand from the reverend Professor of Logic, for my utter inattention to his lectures, sprung, at length, the mine which, charged with the first scraps of learning, and brimful of boyish conceit, had long been ready to explode.

“Had the friar remonstrated with me in private, my habitual timidity would have sealed up my lips. But he rated me before the whole class, and my indignation fired up at such an indignity. Rising from my seat with a courage so new to me that it seemed to be inspired, I boldly declared my determination not to burden and pervert my mind with the absurdities that were taught in their schools. Being asked, with a sarcastic smile, which were the doctrines that had thus incurred my disapprobation, I visibly surprised the Professor—no bright genius himself—with the theory of the sucking-pump, and actually nonplus’d him on the mighty question of vacuum. To be thus bearded by a stripling, was more than his professional humility could bear. He bade me thank my family for not being that moment turned out of the lecture-room; assuring me, however, that my father should be acquainted with my impertinence in the course of that day. Yet I must do justice to his good-nature and moderation in checking the students, who wished to serve me, like Sancho, with a blanketing.

“Before the threatened message could reach my father, I had, with great rhetorical skill, engaged maternal pride and fear, in my favour. In what colours the friar may have painted my impudence, I neither learned nor cared: for my mother, whose dislike of the Dominicans, as the enemies of the Jesuits, had been roused by the public reprimand of the Professor, took the whole matter into her hands, and before the end of the week, I heard, with raptures, that my name was to be entered at the University.

“Having thus luckily obtained the object of my wishes, I soon retrieved my character for industry, and received the public thanks of my new Professor. What might have been my progress under a better system than that of a Spanish university, vanity will probably not allow me to judge with fairness. I will, therefore, content myself with laying a sketch of that system before the reader.

“The Spanish universities had continued in a state worthy of the thirteenth century till the year 1770, when the Marquis of Roda, a favourite minister of Charles III., gave them an amended plan of studies, which though far below the level of knowledge over the rest of Europe, seems at least to recognise the progress of the human mind since the revival of letters. The present plan forbids the study of the Aristotelic philosophy, and attempts the introduction of the inductive system of Bacon; but is shamefully deficient, in the department of literature. Three years successive attendance in the schools of logic, natural philosophy, and metaphysics, is the only requisite for a master’s degree; and, though the examinations are both long and severe, few of the Spanish universities have yet altered the old statute which obliges the candidates to draw their Theses from Aristotle’s logic and physics, and to deliver a long discourse upon one chapter of each; thus leaving their daily lectures perfectly at variance with the final examinations. Besides these preparatory schools, every university has three or four professors of divinity, as many of civil and canon law, and seldom less of medicine. The students are not required to live in colleges. There are, however, establishments of this kind for undergraduates; but being, for the most part, intended for a limited number of poor boys, they make no part of the Academic system. Yet some of these colleges have, by a strange combination of circumstances, risen to such a height of splendour and influence, that I must digress into a short sketch of their history.

“The original division of Spanish colleges into minor and major, arose from the branches of learning for which they were intended. Grammar and rhetoric alone were taught in the first; divinity, law, and medicine, in the last. Most of the Colegios Mayores were, by papal bulls and royal decrees, erected into universities, where, besides the fellows, students might repair daily to hear the public lectures, and finally take their degrees. Thus the university of this town (Seville) was, till lately, attached to this college, the rector or head of which elected annually by the fellows, was, by virtue of his office, rector of the university. This, and the great colleges of Castille, enjoying similar privileges, but far exceeding ours in wealth and influence, formed the literary aristocracy of Spain. Though the statutes gave no exclusion to plebeians, the circumstances required in the candidates for fellowships, together with the esprit de corps which actuated the electors, confined such places to the noblesse. Anxious to increase their influence, none of the six great colleges of Spain could ever be induced to elect any one who was not connected with some of the best families. This, however, was but a prudential step, to avoid the public disgrace to which the pruebas, or interrogatories relative to blood, might otherwise expose the candidates. One of the fellows was, and is still at Seville, according to the statutes, to repair to the birth-place of the parents of the elected member, as well as to those of his two grandfathers and grandmothers—except when any of them is a foreigner, a circumstance which prevents the journey, though not the inquiry—in order to examine upon oath, from fifteen to thirty witnesses at each place. These, either from their own knowledge, or the current report of the town, must swear that the ancestor in question never was a menial servant, a shopkeeper or petty tradesman; a mechanic; had neither himself, nor any of his relations, been punished by the Inquisition, nor was descended from Jews, Moors, Africans, Indians, or Guanchos, i. e. the aborigines of the Canary Islands. It is evident that none but the hereditary gentry could expose themselves to this ordeal: and as the pride of the reporter, together with the character of his college, were highly interested in the purity of blood of every member, no room was left for the evasions commonly resorted to for the admission of knights in the military orders.

“Thus, in the course of years, the six great colleges14 could command the influence of the first Spanish families all over the kingdom. It was, besides, a point of honour among such as had obtained a fellowship, never to desert the interest of their college: and, as every cathedral in Spain has three canonries, which must be obtained by a literary competition, of which the canons themselves are the judges, wherever a Colegial Mayor had obtained a stall, he was able to secure a strong party to any one of his college who should offer himself as a champion at those literary jousts. The chapters, on the other hand, were generally inclined to strengthen their own importance by the accession of people of rank, leaving poor and unknown scholars to grovel in their native obscurity. No place of honour in the church and law was left unoccupied by the collegians: and even the distribution which those powerful bodies made of their members—as if not only all the best offices and situations, but even a choice of them, were in their hands—was no secret to the country at large. Fellows in orders, who possessed abilities, were kept in reserve for the literary competitions. Such as could not appear to advantage at those public trials were, by means of court favour, provided for with stalls in the wealthiest cathedrals. The absolutely dull and ignorant were made inquisitors, who, passing judgment in their secret halls, could not disgrace the college by their blunders. Medicine not being in honour, there were no fellows of that profession. The lay members of the major colleges belonged exclusively to the law, but they would never quit their fellowships except for a place among the judges. Even in the present low ebb of collegiate influence, the College of Seville would disown any of the fellows who should act as a mere advocate.

“While the colleges were still at the height of their power, a young lawyer offered himself for one of the fellowships at Salamanca, and was disdainfully rejected for want of sufficient proofs of noblesse. By an extraordinary combination of circumstances, the offended candidate rose to be prime minister of state, under Charles III., with the title of Marquis of Roda. The extraordinary success he had met with in public life, could not, however, heal the wound his pride had received in his youth. But, besides the inducement of his private feelings, he seems to have been an enemy to all influence which was not exerted by the king and his ministers. Two powerful bodies, the Jesuits and the colleges, engrossed so forcibly, and, I may say, painfully, his attention, that it was wittily observed, ‘that the spectacles he wore had painted glasses, one representing a Jesuit, the other a collegian’—and thus allowed him to see nothing else. The destruction to which he had doomed them was, at length, accomplished by his means. His main triumph was, indeed, over the Jesuits: yet his success against the colleges, though certainly less splendid, was the more gratifying to his personal feelings. The method he employed in the downfall of the last is not unworthy of notice, both for its perfect simplicity, and the light it throws upon the state and character of the country. Having the whole patronage of the Crown in his hands, he placed, within a short time, all the existing members of the Salamanca colleges, in the most desirable situations both of the church and law, filling their vacancies with young men of no family. Thus the bond of collegiate influence was suddenly snapped asunder: the old members disowned their successors; and such as a few days before looked upon a fellowship as an object of ambition, would have felt mortified at the sight of a relative wearing the gown of a reformed college. The Colegio Mayor of Seville was attacked by other means. Without enforcing the admission of the unprivileged classes, the minister, by an arbitrary order, deprived it of its right to confer degrees. The convocation of doctors and masters was empowered to elect their own rector, and name professors for the schools, which were subsequently opened to the public in one of the deserted houses that had belonged to the Jesuits. Such is the origin of the university where I received my education.

“Slight, however, are the advantages which a young mind can derive from academical studies in Spain. To expect a rational system of education where the Inquisition is constantly on the watch to keep the human mind within the boundaries which the Church of Rome, with her host of divines, has set to its progress; would shew a perfect ignorance of the character of our religion. Thanks to the league between our church and state, the Catholic divines have nearly succeeded in keeping down knowledge to their own level. Even such branches of science as seem least connected with religion, cannot escape the theological rod; and the spirit which made Galileo recant upon his knees his discoveries in astronomy, still compels our professors to teach the Copernican system as an hypothesis. The truth is that, with Catholic divines, no one pursuit of the human mind is independent of religion. Since the first appearance of Christianity, its doctrines have ever been blended with the philosophical views of their teachers. The scriptures themselves, invaluable as they are in forming the moral character, frequently touch, by incident, upon subjects unconnected with their main object, and treat of nature and civil society according to the notions of a rude people in a very primitive period. Hence the encroachments of divines upon every branch of human knowledge, which are still supported by the hand of power in a great part of Europe, but in none so outrageously as in Spain. Astronomy must ask the inquisitors’ leave to see with her own eyes. Geography was long compelled to shrink before them. Divines were made the judges of Columbus’s plans of discovery, as well as to allot a species to the Americans. A spectre monk haunts the Geologist in the lowest cavities of the earth; and one of flesh and blood watches the steps of the philosopher on its surface. Anatomy is suspected, and watched closely, whenever she takes up the scalpel; and Medicine had many a pang to endure while endeavouring to expunge the use of bark and inoculation from the catalogue of mortal sins. You must not only believe what the Inquisition believes, but yield implicit faith to the theories and explanations of her divines. To acknowlege on the authority of Revelation, that mankind will rise from their graves, is not sufficient to protect the unfortunate Metaphysician, who should deny that man is a compound of two substances, one of which is naturally immortal. It was long a great obstacle to the rejection of the Aristotelic philosophy, that the substantial forms of the schools were found an exceedingly convenient veil for the invisible work of transubstantiation; for our good divines shrewdly suspected, that if colour, taste, smell, and all the other properties of bodies were allowed to be mere accidents—the bare impressions on our sense of one variously modified substance—it might be plausibly urged that, in the consecrated Host, the body of Christ had been converted into bread, not the bread into that body. But it would be endless and tedious to trace all the links, of which the Inquisition has formed the chain that binds and weighs down the human mind among us. Acquiescence in the voluminous and multifarious creed of the Roman church is by no means sufficient for safety. A man who closes his work with the O. S. C. S. R. E. (Omnia sub correctione Sanctæ Romanæ Ecclesiæ) may yet rue the moment when he took pen in hand. Heterodoxy may be easily avoided in writing; but who can be sure that none of his periods smacks of heresy (sapiens hæresim)—none of his sentences are of that uncouth species which is apt to grate pious ears (piarum aurium offensivas)? Who then will venture upon the path of knowledge, where it leads straight to the Inquisition?15

“Yet such is the energy of the human mind, when once acquainted with its own powers, that the best organized system of intellectual tyranny, though so far successful as to prevent Spanish talent from bringing any fruit to maturity, fails most completely of checking its activity. Could I but accurately draw the picture of an ingenuous young mind struggling with the obstacles which Spanish education opposes to improvement—the alarm at the springing suspicions of being purposely betrayed into error—the superstitious fears that check its first longings after liberty—the honest and ingenious casuistry by which it encourages itself to leave the prescribed path—the maiden joy and fear of the first transgression—the rapidly-growing love of newly discovered truth, and consequent hatred of its tyrants—the final despair and wild phrenzy that possess it on finding its doom inevitable, on seeing with an appalling evidence, that its best exertions are lost, that ignorance, bigotry, and superstition claim and can enforce its homage—no plot of romance would be read with more interest by such as are not indifferent to the noblest concerns of mankind. As I cannot, however, present an animated picture, I shall proceed with a statement of facts.

“An imperfect knowledge of logic and natural philosophy was all I acquired at the university before I began the study of divinity; and like most of my countrymen, I should have completed my studies without so much as suspecting the existence of elegant literature, had it not been for my acquaintance with an excellent young man, much my senior at the university, who, by his own unassisted industry, had made some progress in the study and imitation of the classics.16 To him I owed my first acquaintance with Spanish poetry, and my earliest attempts at composition in my own language. My good fortune led me, but a short time after, to a member of the Colegio Mayor of this town—another self-improved man, whose extraordinary talents having enabled him, at the age of nineteen, to cast a gleam of good taste over the system of his own university of Osuna, made him subsequently, at Seville, the centre of a small club of students.17 Through the influence of his genius, and the gratuitous assistance he gave them in their studies, some of his private pupils rose so far above the mass of their academical fellows, as to shew by the fair, though scanty, produce of their minds, the rich promise which the state of their country yearly blasts.

“In all the Spanish universities with which I am acquainted, I have observed a similar struggle between enterprising genius and constituted ignorance. Valencia, Granada, the college of San Fulgencio at Murcia; Salamanca, above all, and Seville, the least among them; have exhibited symptoms of rebellion, arising from the undaunted ardour of some young members, who having opened for themselves a path to knowledge, would, at some time or other, make a desperate effort to allure the rising generation to follow their steps. The boldest champions in this hopeless contest, have generally started among the professors of moral philosophy. Government had confined them to the puny Elements of Jacquier and Heinnecius; but a mind once set on “the proper study of mankind,” must be weak indeed not to extend its views beyond the limits prescribed by the ignorance of a despot or his ministers. With alarm and consternation to the white-tasselled heads,18 and thrilling hopes to their secret enemies, connected series of Theses have of late appeared among us, which, in spite of the studied caution of their language, betrayed both their origin and tendency. Genuine offspring of the French school, the very turn of their phrases gave strong indications of a style formed in defiance of the Holy Inquisition. But these fits of restless impatience have only secured the yoke they were intended to loosen. I have visited Salamanca after the great defeat of the philosophical party, the strongest that ever was formed in Spain. A man of first-rate literary character among us,19 whom merit and court favour had raised to one of the chief seats in the judicature of the country, but whom court caprice had, about this time, sent to rusticate at Salamanca, was doing me the honours of the place, when, approaching the convocation-hall of the university, we perceived the members of the faculty of divinity strolling about, while waiting for a meeting of their body. A runaway slave, still bearing the marks of the lash on his return, could not have shrunk more instinctively at the sight of the planters meeting at the council-room, than my friend did at the view of the cowls, ‘white, black, and grey,’ which partially hid the sleek faces of his offended masters. He had, it is true, been lucky enough to escape the imprisonment and subsequent penance in a monastery which was the sad lot of the chief of his routed party; but he himself was still suspected and watched closely. The rest of his friends, the flower of the university, had been kept for three or four years, in constant fear of their personal liberty, being often called before the secret tribunal to answer the most captious interrogatories about themselves and their acquaintance, but never put in possession of every count of the indictment. After this and a few such examples, we have, at last, perceived the folly of engaging in a desperate game, where no possible combination can, for the present, give the dissenting party a single chance of success.

“French philosophy had not found its way to the university of Seville, at the time when I was studying divinity. Even the knowledge of the French language was a rare acquirement both among the professors and their hearers. I have mentioned, at the beginning of this sketch, that one of the few books which delighted my childhood was a Spanish translation of Telemachus. A fortunate incident had now thrown into my hands the original of my old favourite, and I attempted to understand a few lines by comparing them with the version. My success exceeded my hopes. Without either grammar or dictionary, I could, in a few weeks, read on: guessing a great deal, it is true, but visibly improving my knowledge of the idiom by comparing the force of unknown words in different passages. An odd volume of Racine’s tragedies was my next French book. Imperfectly as I must have understood that tender and elegant poet, his plays gave me so much pleasure, that by repeated readings I found myself able to understand French poetry. It was about this time that I made my invaluable acquaintance at our college. My friend had learned both French and Italian in a similar manner with myself. He was acquainted with one of the judges of our Audiencia, or provincial court of judicature, a man of great literary celebrity,20 who possessed a very good library, from whence I was indulged with French books, as well as Italian; for by a little ingenuity and the analogy of my own language, I had also enabled myself to read the language of Petrarch.

“Hitherto I had never had courage enough to take a forbidden book in my hands. The excommunication impending over me by the words ipso facto, was indeed too terrific an object for my inexperienced mind. Delighted with my newly acquired taste for poetry and eloquence, I had never brooded over any religious doubts—or rather, sincerely adhering to the Roman Catholic law, which makes the examination of such doubts as great a crime as the denial of the article of belief they affect, I had always shrunk with terror from every heterodox suggestion. But my now intimate friend and guide had made canon law his profession. Ecclesiastical history, in which he was deeply versed, had, without weakening his Catholic principles, made him a pupil of that school of canonists who, both in Germany and France, having exposed the forgeries, by means of which papal power had made itself paramount to every human authority, were but too visibly disposed to a separation from Rome. My friend denied the existence of any power in the Church to inflict excommunication, without a declaratory sentence in consequence of the trial of the offender. Upon the strength of this doctrine, he made me read the ‘Discourses on Ecclesiastical History,’ by the Abbé Fleury—a work teeming with invective against monks and friars, doubts on modern miracles, and strictures on the virtues of modern saints. Eve’s heart, I confess, when

——her rash hand in evil hourForth reaching to the fruit, she pluck’d, she ate,

could not have beaten more convulsively than mine, as I opened the forbidden book. Vague fears and doubts haunted my conscience for many days. But my friend, besides being a sound Catholic, was a devout man. He had lately taken priest’s orders, and was now not only my literary but my spiritual director. His abilities and his affection to me had obtained a most perfect command over my mind, and it was not long before I could match him in mental boldness, on points unconnected with articles of faith.

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1

See Espriella’s “Letters from England.”

2

He visited Spain in the years 1786 and 1787.

3

The Spanish words are Ha pasado su Magestad?