The effect of the censorship of the press has been variously estimated. The Index was early dubbed sica destricta in omnes scriptores and Sarpi called it "the finest secret ever discovered for applying religion to the purpose of making men idiotic." Milton thundered against the censorship in England as "the greatest discouragement and affront that can be offered to learning and learned men." The evil of the system of Rome was, in his opinion, double, for, as he wrote in his immortal Areopagitica, "The Council of Trent and the Spanish Inquisition engendering together brought forth and perfected those catalogues and expurging indexes that rake through the entrails of many an old good author with a violation worse than any that could be offered to his tomb." When we remember that the greatest works of literature, such as the Divine Comedy, were tampered with, and that, in the Spanish Expurgatorial Index of 1640 the list of passages to be deleted or to be altered in Erasmus's works takes 59 double-columned, closely printed folio pages, we can easily see the point of Milton's indignant protest. But, to his mind, it was still worse to subject a book to the examination of unfit men before it could secure its imprimatur. Not without reason has liberty of the press been made one of the cornerstones of the temple of freedom.
Various writers have labored to demonstrate the blighting effect that the censorship was supposed to have on literature. But it is surprising how few examples they can bring. Lea, who ought to know the Spanish field exhaustively, can only point to a few professors of theology who were persecuted and silenced for expressing unconventional views on biblical criticism. He conjectures that others must have {424} remained mute through fear. But, as the golden age of Spanish literature came after the law made the printing of unlicensed books punishable by death, [Sidenote: 1558] it is hard to see wherein literature can have suffered. The Roman Inquisition did not prevent the appearance of Galileo's work, though it made him recant afterwards. The strict English law that playwrights should not "meddle with matters of divinity or state" made Shakespeare careful not to express his religious and political views, but it is hard to see in what way it hampered his genius.
And yet the influence of the various press laws was incalculably great and was just what it was intended to be. It affected science less than one would think, and literature hardly at all, but it moulded the opinions of the masses like putty in their rulers' hands. That the rank and file of Spaniards and Italians remained Catholic, and the vast majority of Britons Protestant, was due more to the bondage of the press than to any other one cause. Originality was discouraged, the people to some degree unfitted for the free debate that is at the bottom of self-government, the hope of tolerance blighted, and the path opened that led to religious wars.
[1] Matthew xiii, 28-30.
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CHAPTER IX
THE IBERIAN PENINSULA AND THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE
SECTION 1. SPAIN
[Sidenote: Reformation, Renaissance and Exploration]
If, through the prism of history, we analyse the white light of sixteenth-century civilization into its component parts, three colors particularly emerge: the azure "light of the Gospel" as the Reformers fondly called it in Germany, the golden beam of the Renaissance in Italy, and the blood-red flame of exploration and conquest irradiating the Iberian peninsula. Which of the three contributed most to modern culture it is hard to decide. Each of the movements started separately, gradually spreading until it came into contact, and thus into competition and final blending with the other movements. It was the middle lands, France, England and the Netherlands that, feeling the impulses from all sides, evolved the sanest and strongest synthesis. While Germany almost committed suicide with the sword of the spirit, while Italy sank into a voluptuous torpor of decadent art, while Spain reeled under the load of unearned Western wealth, France, England and Holland, taking a little from each of their neighbors, and not too much from any, became strong, well-balanced, brilliant states. But if eventually Germany, Italy and Spain all suffered from over-specialization, for the moment the stimulus of new ideas and new possibilities gave to each a sort of leadership in its own sphere. While Germany and Italy were busy winning the realms of the spirit and of the mind, Spain very nearly conquered the empire of the land and of the sea.