HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND. 21 CHAPTER I. OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY OF THE SPANISH INTELLECT FROM THE FIFTH TO Ν IN the preceding volume, I have endeavoured to establish four leading propositions, which, according to my view, are to be deemed the basis of the history of civilization. They are 1st, That the progress of mankind depends on the success with which the laws of phenomena are investigated, and on the extent to which a knowledge of those laws is diffused. 2d, That before such investigation can begin, a spirit of scepticism must arise, which, at first aiding the investigation, is afterwards aided by it. 3d, That the discoveries thus made, increase the influence of intellectual truths, and diminish, relatively, not absolutely, the influence of moral truths; moral truths being more stationary than intellectual truths, and receiving fewer additions. 4th, That the great enemy of this movement, and therefore the great enemy of civilization, is the pro-, tective spirit; by which I mean the notion that society cannot prosper, unless the affairs of life are watched over and protected at nearly every turn by the state and the church; the state teaching men what they are to do, and the church teaching them what they are to believe. Such are the propositions which I hold to be the most essential for a right understanding of history, and which I have defended in the only two ways any proposition can be VOL. II. B defended; namely, inductively and deductively. The inductive defence comprises a collection of historical and scientific facts, which suggest and authorize the conclusions drawn from them; while the deductive defence consists of a verification of those conclusions, by showing how they explain the history of different countries and their various fortunes. To the former, or inductive method of defence, I am at present unable to add any thing new; but the deductive defence I hope to strengthen considerably in this volume, and by its aid confirm not only the four cardinal propositions just stated, but also several minor propositions, which, though strictly speaking flowing from them, will require separate verification. According to the plan already sketched, the remaining part of the Introduction will contain an examination of the history of Spain, of Scotland, of Germany, and of the United States of America, with the object of elucidating principles on which the history of England supplies inadequate information. And as Spain is the country where what I conceive to be the fundamental conditions of national improvement have been most flagrantly violated, so also shall we find that it is the country where the penalty paid for the violation has been most heavy, and where, therefore, it is most instructive to ascertain how the prevalence of certain opinions causes the decay of the people among whom they predominate. We have seen that the old tropical civilizations were accompanied by remarkable features which I have termed Aspects of Nature, and which, by inflaming the imagination, encouraged superstition, and prevented men from daring to analyze such threatening physical phenomena; in other words, prevented the creation of the physical sciences. Now, it is an interesting fact that, in these respects, no European country is so analogous to the tropics as Spain. No other part of Europe is so clearly designated by nature as the seat and refuge of superstition. Recurring to what has been already proved,' it will be zation. In the second chapter of the first volume of Buckle's History of Civili remembered that among the most important physical causes of superstition are famines, epidemics, earthquakes, and that general unhealthiness of climate, which, by shortening the average duration of life, increases the frequency and earnestness with which supernatural aid is invoked. These peculiarities, taken together, are more prominent in Spain than any where else in Europe; it will therefore be useful to give such a summary of them as will exhibit the mischievous effects they have produced in shaping the national character. If we except the northern extremity of Spain, we may say that the two principal characteristics of the climate are heat and dryness, both of which are favoured by the extreme difficulty which nature has interposed in regard to irrigation. For, the rivers which intersect the land, run mostly in beds too deep to be made available for watering the soil, which consequently is, and always has been, remarkably arid.2 Owing to this, and to the infrequency of rain, there is no European country as richly endowed in other respects, where droughts and therefore famines have been so frequent and serious.3 At the same time the vicissitudes of climate, particularly in the central parts, make Spain habitually unhealthy; and this general tendency being strengthened in the middle ages by the constant occurrence of famine, caused the ravages of "The low state of agriculture in Spain may be ascribed partly to physical and partly to moral causes. At the head of the former must be placed the heat of the climate and the aridity of the soil. Most part of the rivers with which the country is intersected run in deep beds, and are but little available, except in a few favoured localities, for purposes of irrigation." M'Culloch's Geographical and Statistical Dictionary, London, 1849, vol. ii. p. 708. See also Laborde's Spain, London, 1809, vol. iv. p. 284, vol. v. p. 261. The relative aridity of the different parts is stated in Cook's Spain, London, 1834, vol. ii. pp. 216-219. On these droughts and famines, see Mariana, Historia de España, Madrid, 1794, vol. ii. p. 270, vol. iii. p. 225, vol. iv. p. 32. Conde, Historia de la Dominacion de los Arabes en España, Paris, 1840, pp. 142, 149, 154, 170. Davila, Historia de la Vida de Felipe Tercero, Madrid, 1771, folio, lib. ii. p. 114. Clarke's Letters concerning the Spanish Nation, London, 1763, 4to, p. 282. Udal ap Rhys' Tour through Spain, London, 1760, pp. 292, 293. Spain by an American, London, 1831, vol. ii. p. 282. Hoskins Spain, London, 1851, vol. i. pp. 127, 132, 152. España es castigada frecuentemente con las sequedades y faltas de lluvias." Muriel, Gobierno de Carlos III., Madrid, 1839, p. 193, 66 pestilence to be unusually fatal. When we moreover add that in the Peninsula, including Portugal, earthquakes have been extremely disastrous, and have excited all 5 66 "Añádase a todo esto las repetidas pestes, y mortales epidemias que han afligido á las provincias de España, mayormente á las meridionales que han sido las mas sujetas a estas plagas. De estas se hace mencion en los anales é historias muy freqüentemente ; y en su confirmacion se puede leer el tratado histórico, 6 epidemiológia que sobre ellas ha publicado Don Joachîn de Villalba, donde se verá con dolor y espanto con quanta freqüencia se repetian estos azotes desde mediados del siglo décimoquarto." ... "Dos exemplos bien recientes y dolorosos hemos visto, y conservaremos en la memoria, en los formidables estragos que acaban de padecer gran parte del reyno de Sevilla, Cádiz, y sus contornos, Málaga, Cartagena, y Alicante; sin contar la mortandad con que han afligido á la mayor parte de los pueblos de ámbas Castillas las epidemias de calenturas pútridas en el año pasado de 1805." "Por otra parte la fundacion de tantas capillas y procesiones á San Roque, y á San Sebastian, como abogados contre la peste, que todavía se conservan en la mayor parte de nuestras ciudades de España, son otro testimonio de los grandes y repetidos estragos que habian padecido sus pueblos de este azote. Y el gran número de médicos españoles que publicáron tratados preservativos y curativos de la peste en los reynados de Carlos V., Felipe II., Felipe III., y Felipe IV., confirman mas la verdad de los hechos." Capmany, Questiones Criticas, Madrid, 1807, pp. 51, 52; see also pp. 66, 67; and Janer, Condicion Social de los Moriscos de España, Madrid, 1857, pp. 106, 107; and the notice of Malaga in Bourgoing, Tableau de l'Espagne, Paris, 1808, vol. iii. p. 242. Earthquakes are still often felt at Granada and along the coast of the province of Alicante, where their effects have been very disastrous. Much further in the interior, in the small Sierra del Tremédal, or district of Albarracia, in the province of Terruel, eruptions and shocks have been very frequent since the most remote periods; the black porphyry is there seen traversing the altered strata of the oolitic formation. The old inhabitants of the country speak of sinking of the ground and of the escape of sulphureous gases when they were young; these same phenomena have occurred during four consecutive months of the preceding winter, accompanied by earthquakes, which have caused considerable mischief to the buildings of seven villages situated within a radius of two leagues. They have not, however, been attended with any loss of life, on account of the inhabitants hastening to abandon their dwellings at the first indications of danger." Ezquerra on the Geology of Spain, in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. vi. pp. 412, 413, London, 1850. "The provinces of Malaga, Murcia, and Granada, and, in Portugal, the country round Lisbon, are recorded at several periods to have been devastated by great earthquakes." Lyell's Principles of Geology, London, 1853, p. 358. "Los terremotos son tan sensibles y freqüentes en lo alto de las montañas, como en lo llano, pues Sevilla está sujeta a ellos hallándose situada sobre una llanura tan igual y baxa como Holanda." Bowles, Introduccion á la Historia Natural de España, Madrid, 1789, 4to, pp. 90, 91. "The littoral plains, especially about Cartagena and Alicante, are much subject to earthquakes." Ford's Spain, 1847, p. 168. "This corner of Spain is the chief volcanic district of the Peninsula, which stretches from Cabo de Gata to near Cartagena; the earthquakes are very frequent." Ford, p. 174. "Spain, including Portugal, in its external configuration, with its vast tableland of the two Castiles, rising nearly 2000 feet above the sea, is perhaps the most interesting portion of Europe, not only in this respect, but as a region of earthquake disturbance, where the energy those superstitious feelings which they naturally provoke, we may form some idea of the insecurity of life, and of and destroying power of this agency have been more than once displayed upon the most tremendous scale." Mallet's Earthquake Catalogue of the British Association, Report for 1858, p. 9, London, 1858. I quote these passages at length, partly on account of their interest as physical truths, and partly because the facts stated in them are essential for a right understanding of the history of Spain. Their influence on the Spanish character was pointed out, for I believe the first time, in my History of Civilization, vol. i. pp. 112, 113. On that occasion, I adduced no evidence to prove the frequency of earthquakes in the Peninsula, because I supposed that all persons moderately acquainted with the physical history of the earth were aware of the circumstance. But, in April 1858, a criticism of my book appeared in the Edinburgh Review, in which the serious blunders which I am said to have committed are unsparingly exposed. In p. 468 of that Review, the critic, after warning his readers against my "inaccuracies," observes, "But Mr. Buckle goes on to state that earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are more frequent and more destructive in Italy, and in the Spanish and Portuguese peninsula, than in any other of the great countries.' Whence he infers, by a singular process of reasoning, that superstition is more rife, and the clergy more powerful; but that the fine arts flourish, poetry is cultivated, and the sciences neglected. Every link in this chain is more or less faulty. There is no volcano in the Spanish peninsula, and the only earthquake known to have occurred there was that of Lisbon." Now, I have certainly no right to expect that a reviewer, composing a popular article for an immediate purpose, and knowing that when his article is read, it will be thrown aside and forgotten, should, under such unfavourable circumstances, be at the pains of mastering all the details of his subject. To look for this, would be the height of injustice. He has no interest in being accurate; his name being concealed, his reputation, if he have any, is not at stake; and the errors into which he falls, ought to be regarded with leniency, inasmuch as their vehicle being an ephemeral publication, they are not likely to be remembered, and they are therefore not likely to work much mischief. These considerations have always prevented me from offering any reply to anonymous criticisms. But the passage in the Edinburgh Review, to which I have called attention, displays such marvellous ignorance, that I wish to rescue it from oblivion, and to put it on record as a literary curiosity. The other charges brought against me could, I need hardly say, be refuted with equal ease. Indeed, no reasonable person can possibly suppose that, after years of arduous and uninterrupted study, I should have committed those childish blunders with which my opponents unscrupulously taunt me. Once for all, I may say that I have made no assertion for the truth of which I do not possess ample and irrefragable evidence. But it is impossible for me to arrange and adduce all the proofs at the same time; and, in so vast an enterprise, I must in some degree rely, not on the generosity of the reader, but on his candour. I do not think that I am asking too much in requesting him, if on any future occasion his judgment should be in suspense between me and my critics, to give me the benefit of the doubt, and to bear in mind that statements embodied in a deliberate and slowly concocted work, authenticated by the author's name, are, as a mere matter of antecedent probability, more likely to be accurate than statements made ir reviews and newspapers, which, besides being written hastily, and often at very short notice, are unsigned, and by which, consequently, their promulgators evade all responsi |