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Causes of the Decay of Spain.

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towns, abundant manufactures, and skilful artisans. They have cultivated the fine arts with eminent success; they speak a beautiful and flexible language, and their literature is not unworthy of their language. Their soil yields treasures of every kind. It overflows with wine and oil, produces the choicest fruits in almost tropical exuberance, and contains the most valuable minerals.......Nor have the people who possess these gifts ever been deficient in natural endowments. They have had their full share of great statesmen, great kings, great magistrates, and great legislators: and their history is ennobled by the frequent appearance of courageous and disinterested patriots.. The bravery of the people has never been disputed;...... honour

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Of the of a Spanish gentleman has passed into a bye-word.

Of the nation generally, the best observers pronounce them to be high-minded, generous, truthful, full of integrity, warm and zealous friends, affectionate in all the private relations of life, frank, charitable, and humane they are, moreover, eminently temperate and frugal. Yet all these great qualities have availed them nothing, and will avail them nothing, so long as they remain ignorant.'-Pp. 142-146.

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Let us look a little closer at this theory of Spanish grandeur and decay. We are referred to the course of events, as if nothing could have helped that happening which did happen. Without her three able rulers Spain must needs have risen, though not so quickly. Without their three imbecile successors she must needs have fallen, though not so soon. It was the action of general causes which forced her to rise and fall. But if this be so, why do not nations rise and fall again and again? There is a peculiarity in human affairs which marks the difference between social and physical laws. If we press down one steel spring by a stronger, it will rise immediately when the pressure is removed; and, if we do it repeatedly, we shall have the same result. So, too, if a rising nation is pressed down by invasion or oppression, we shall see it rise again up to a certain point of prosperity: but if after reaching that point it is pressed down, it seems to lose that elastic power of rising which belonged to it in an earlier stage. It cannot be said that in the eighth century the Spaniards were less ignorant and superstitious than they were in the eighteenth. They had many weak rulers, lawless nobles, and a powerful Church; yet out of that earlier darkness they emerged, and grew into a great people, despite their excessive loyalty and superstition. How was it that the malign influences which insured the fall, did not prevent the rise? would suggest that there must have been some element in the Spaniard's character or circumstances which for a time did keep, and which might always have kept, his evil genius in check; but this suggestion touches the key-note of the whole

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difference between us and Mr. Buckle. It is in the fact of opposing qualities and opposing circumstances that we see room for the exercise of choice in individuals and nations. Not one, but many a motive sways us; not one, but many a circumstance surrounds us; and in the balance of these, nay, in our power to obey the weaker and resist the stronger, consists the highest birthright of man, Times are given to us all, when, by turning this way or that at our pleasure, we can govern future consequences, which in their turn will govern us, especially the time of youth is given, which, by its use or abuse, so much overrules the destiny of the man. This is also true of nations, though not equally true; for a nation is more bound and less free than the individual man. There is scarcely any depth from which a man may not rise:-the drunkard, the gambler, even the liar have been reformed; but if a nation become vicious and truthless, how irremediable is its fall! A nation's destiny is regulated by the influence of both material and spiritual laws. Inasmuch as it belongs to this world, and has its rewards and punishments here, it is subject to the laws of cause and effect: and inasmuch as it is composed of individuals whose spirits are free to do good or evil, and whose ultimate tribunal is not here, it is subject to moral and retributive laws. But just so far as men individually use their freedom aright, just so far will they collectively escape from the yoke of antecedent circumstances We are not speaking of civil, but of human freedom, the power to choose between truth and error, knowledge and ignorance, right and wrong; and we contend that it is the aggregate of individual unfaithfulness to this Divine privilege which constitutes a people's doom. Every nation's fall is a repetition of the tragedy in Paradise. Nations, like their great forefather, are given a period of probation; rich gifts are put into their hand and a high career is set before them. If they choose right, well; but if not, the Divine power of choice is forfeited; they are thrust from the high elevation of free spiritual beings, become miserable victims of surrounding circumstance, and sink helplessly beneath the sway of vice and ignorance, which they had once power to resist, but from which they have apparently no power to escape, Let us apply this interpretation to the history of Spain. Was there ever a nation so richly endowed? Did any other people so rapidly rise, so rapidly fall Surely there is an à priori probability that the Spaniards came into the full play of their national energies at a critical time, and were not true to the crisis. For eight centuries they were struggling up; but in one century they were flung headlong down, like Satan out of heaven, This is not like the slow

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Not fixed Laws, but Retribution.

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307 action of general laws; it looks far more like a retributive sentence. Mr. Buckle gives us but one side of the Spaniards' character, their loyal obedience to priests and kings; and he argues that this quality governed their whole career, and bound them to be submissive, credulous, ignorant, and bigoted. Prescott gives a little more light on this subject; for he says that the Castilians were not only loyally religious, but patriotic, and arrogantly independent; and in strict accordance with this view, , we find that up to the end of the fifteenth century Spain had not only a strong body of ecclesiastics, but more powerful nobles, more flourishing cities, and, above all, more free institutions than any other country in Europe, Italy, perhaps, excepted. Mr. Buckle disputes the prevalence of free institutions, and says they were little more than forms of freedom, yielded by weak monarchs, but not engrafted in the spirit of the people. ̈ ̈ But it is not the custom of monarchs to yield popular rights to those who do not prize them, and the fact of their being possessed is in itself a proof that they are prized. Arragon was especially noted for its independent spirit. Prescott tells us that in that kingdom the Church had much less, and the Commons much more, influence than in Castile; and that there was scarcely a sovereign in Europe possessed of such limited authority as the earlier princes of Arragon. And Robertson observes that Ferdinand was less powerful at home than any of his great European contemporaries; for the spirit of liberty was vigorous among the people of Spain, the spirit of independence was high among the nobility. Added to these advantages, a great trust and a great opportunity was given to Spain in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: she was made the mistress of the New World, and was offered the light of the Reformation. Not ten, but a hundred talents were given to Spain. How did she use her splendid gifts? How did she meet the crisis of her probation during the reigns of Ferdinand, Charles V., and Philip II.? She entered it with independent nobles, free cities, a new world at her feet, and dawning light above her passed out of it with the Cortes silenced, the Inquisition established, the colonies fearfully outraged and oppressed, and the light of the Reformation extinguished. Who did all this? Actively, her three able rulers; but passively, every man in Spain who might have said one word or done one deed to prevent it,—— the proud, brave, strong Spaniards, who so grievously failed in this their day of trial.

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We are sometimes able to detect in history the secret springs which have regulated critical movements; and it is curious to see how often they are personal and private, not specially con

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nected with the prevailing prejudices of the age. Individualfreedom steps in to form or re-form the chain of circumstances. A striking instance of this is recorded in Ranke's account of the Council of Trent. We see there that this great instrument of Romish thraldom was not shaped simply by the ignorance and fanaticism of the age; but that pique and malice, and partyfeeling, and base love of money or intrigue, in short, the follies and faults of individual men, were largely mingled in the work. So it has happened in the course of Spanish history: some evil has been strengthened, some resistance weakened, by agents acting under personal motives, unconnected with the tendencies of the age. Take, for instance, that singular case in 1506, when the cities which were represented in the Cortes actually opposed the petition of their sister cities who were struggling for the same privilege, in order to preserve the exclusive honour of their own position;-a bit of municipal pride and jealousy, emanating, perhaps (as municipal acts often do emanate) from a few influential busy-bodies; and yet what mischief was the result!* The banishment of the Jews by Ferdinand is another instance. Buckle gives it as one of many proofs of the irresistible bigotry of the age; but Llorente does not scruple to say it was chiefly due to the fact that the confiscation of their goods poured large supplies into the royal treasury. So, also, he tells us that it was a common opinion in Arragon that the Inquisition could never have held its ground but for the decree which confiscated the property of the suspected; in other words, the nation might have struggled successfully with fanaticism, if it had not been upheld by wealth: in other words, the tendency of the age was borne onwards by the avarice, that is, by the sin, of individuals.

We believe that this rule always holds good, though mortal eyes cannot always detect its operation. We fully believe that human freedom must be accessory in forging chains for the human spirit. Men are free to step down into the slavery of vice and ignorance; yet once under its dominion they are no longer free to rise, but must remain grovelling,-God knows how long, unhappy Spain !-until His mercy arrest the law of cause and effect, and give to the palsied nation power to rise again.

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Mr. Buckle's theory of civilization is a perplexing study. In his sketch of the rise and fall of Spain, he tells us that the progress of nations undeviatingly follows general laws, and that individuals have no power to aid, except by moving with the * Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. i., p. 115.

+ Llorente's History of the Inquisition.

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stream,-no power to hinder, except by damming up the water for a time, and thereby adding force to the subsequent rush of the torrent. But in his history of Scotland he warns rulers to let their people alone, because their endeavours to set things right may only set them wrong, and be extremely hazardous;' while a great nation does undoubtedly possess within itself a capacity of repairing its injuries,' which merely requires time and freedom to bring it into play.' Finally, he shows us that the Scotch nation, with full time and freedom, average knowledge, and more than average power of thought, has not displayed any capacity for repairing one great injury, but is to this day besotted in bigotry and superstition! Here then we find, 1. That general causes marshal a nation onwards to success or ruin, and that individuals cannot materially help or hinder. 2. That rulers may hinder, though it does not appear that they can help, but that a nation left to itself will come right in the end. 3. That nations left to themselves show no sign of yet coming right. This is preplexing. Which and what is Mr. Buckle's theory? Under a system of ordinary creative benevolence we should have supposed it impossible that any nation could be doomed by general causes to ignorance and evil; and that, therefore, both Scotch and Spaniards must be responsible instruments in working out their own destiny: also, that any power which can hinder can undoubtedly help, and that therefore rulers must be responsible instruments in working out their people's destiny. But these inconsistencies are inseparable from Mr. Buckle's position as an historian. A writer who follows one train of thought, or investigates one class of facts, may keep error consistent by keeping it isolated; but it is impossible to invest a broad subject in a narrow theory without exposing the misfit of the theory by a thousand inconsistencies. How can we hope to explain the course of human actions if we ignore half the influences that sway human conduct? That man is governed by general laws, and that he is free to resist those laws, are the two grand correlative principles of history. Mr. Buckle ignores the spontaneity, and then naturally fails in attempting to reconcile half of the principles with the whole of the facts. Too honest to wilfully distort his facts, he unconsciously acts Procrustes to his own theory, stretching it here, lopping it there, and making it confused and contradictory. We do not entirely acquit him of giving wrong impressions of history in support of his own opinions for example, we think, he has given a very erroneous view of the power and freedom of the Spanish people up to the time of Ferdinand V.; but we fully believe he has done it honestly, convinced by his own one-sided theory that their free

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