The persistent opposition experienced by rationalist reformers of the Siglo de las Luces (Century of Enlightenment) is most easily, and all too readily, judged by posterity to be a result merely of blind ignorance and prejudice. Had this been true, the reformers’ task would have been much easier than it was. Irrational ignorance and prejudice certainly were factors with whichilustristas,andilustrados— that is, modern rationalists in mere spirit or in practical fact — together with enlightened thinkers of any other century, had to reckon. In 1751, the medical scientist José Ortega, who had been asked to nominate the most...

The early decades of Spain’s eighteenth century were fallow years of mental re-adjustment involving, severally or together, curiosity, distrust, confusion, passive and active assimilation, enterprise, hesitation and unease. Typical of the well informed thinkers of the period was the man who neither wholly committed himself to ideals of free scientific inquiry, nor closed his mind entirely to the importance of scientific discovery. Therefore, to understand the manner of his preparations for the age of rationalism, one must understand the reasons for his inner reservation and the nature of his contribution to the prevailing atmosphere of tension and cross-purpose. Especially is...

Ironies of terminological misunderstanding in the fallow mind of the century were not confined to definitions of the word ‘sceptic’. Fallowness, by its very state of multiple receptivity, is open to a confusion of ideas. Certain other terms which became liable to misinterpretation in current usage and which soured debate were, for instance, ones referring to the nature of scientific evidence. Among notably misleading adjectives paraded with theatrical confidence by the folk-scientist Torres Villarroel and his peers were ‘demonstrable’, ‘practical’ and ‘experimental’.¹ They were words used to indicate conclusively physical proof as obtained through normal operations of human senses which...

Related only incidentally to major surveys of the new meaning of reason in Philosophy and Science, but of prime emotional concern to thevulgo,was an intellectual re-appraisal of the quality and manner of religious preaching. Ridiculous as Baroque whimsy in matter, and theatricality in mannerism, might begin to seem to a rationalistic intelligentsia, it had expressed a state of mind as justifiable in its historical context as was that of plain-speaking representatives of Enlightenment. The exteriorization of a complexity of mental bewilderment raised by the Renaissance question ‘What is reality?’ took various outer forms. One was a display of...

The fact that the average preacher, popular orator, or popular scribbler, during at least the first half of the eighteenth century, sought to inflame the interest of a cross-classvulgoby relying oncorral-(courtyard theatre-) affectations of speech and tone, gives psychological significance to the type of drama being produced at that period. Specifically, it calls attention to mental and emotional assumptions in his public which the popular dramatist could take for granted, and to which successful actors related their vocal effects. Popular public speakers in any period have tended to mimic the techniques of popular entertainers, and ultimately, therefore,...

For at least the first two decades of the eighteenth century the Spanish Periodical Press did not act as a direct disturber of established ideas, and, in the next decade, the clandestineEl Duende de Madrid (The Madrid Elf),dealing with political matters, circulated too privately to be more than privately influential.¹ Branches of free-range journalism directed to the general public had not yet taken organized form. The conception of the Periodical Press was that of state-controlled, reporting newspapers, or, for instance, of astrological almanacs, also regarded by the general reader as unquestionable reports of fact. So far public journalism...