Letters from Spain. White Joseph Blanco
the spring showers upon a thirsty soil. A man’s opinion of the first work he read when a boy, cannot safely be trusted; but, to judge from the avidity with which at the age of fifteen I devoured fourteen volumes on miscellaneous subjects, and the surprising impulse they gave to my yet unfolded faculties, Feyjoo must be a writer who deserves more notice than he has ever obtained from his countrymen. If I can trust my recollection, he had deeply imbibed the spirit of Lord Bacon’s works, together with his utter contempt of the absurd philosophy which has been universally taught in Spain, till the last third of the eighteenth century. From Bayle, Feyjoo had learned caution in weighing historical evidence, and an habitual suspicion of the numberless opinions which, in countries unpurified by the wholesome gales of free contending thought, are allowed to range unmolested, for ages, with the same claim to the rights of prescription as frogs and insects have to their stagnant pools. In a pleasing and popular style, Feyjoo acquainted his countrymen with whatever discoveries in experimental philosophy had been made by Boyle at that time. He declared open war against quackery of all kinds. Miracles and visions which had not received the sanction of the Church of Rome did not escape the scrutinizing eye of the bold Benedictine. Such, in fact, was the alarm produced by his works on the all-believing race for whom he wrote, that nothing but the patronage of Ferdinand VI. prevented his being silenced with the ultima ratio of Spanish divines—the Inquisition.
“Had the power of Aladdin’s lamp placed me within the richest subterraneous palace described in the Arabian Nights, it could not have produced the raptures I experienced from the intellectual treasure of which I now imagined myself the master. Physical strength developes itself so gradually, that few, I am inclined to think, derive pleasure from a sudden start of bodily vigour. But my mind, like a young bird in the nest, had lived unconscious of its wings, till this unexpected leader had, by his boldness, allured it into flight. From a state of mere animal life, I found myself at once possessed of the faculty of thinking; and I can scarcely conceive, that the soul, emerging after death into a higher rank of existence, shall feel and try its new powers with a keener delight. My knowledge, it is true, was confined to a few physical and historical facts; but I had, all at once, learned to reason, to argue, to doubt. To the surprise and alarm of my good relatives, I had been changed within a few weeks, into a sceptic who, without questioning religious subjects, would not allow any one of their settled notions to pass for its current value. My mother, with her usual penetration, perceived the new tendency of my mind, and thanked Heaven, in my presence, that Spain was my native country; ‘else,’ she said, ‘he would soon quit the pale of the church.’
“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,