d by the executions of the Holy (?)
office, it will be proved beyond a doubt that had it not been for this
tribunal, and the influence of its maxims, Spain would possess 12,000,000
souls above her present population, supposed to amount to 11,000,000."
[Liorente, vol. 4, p. 242.]

"The Inquisition ruined and branded with infamy more than 340,000 persons,
whose disgrace was reflected on their families, and who bequeathed only
opprobrium and misery to their children. Add to these more than 100,000
families who emigrated in order to escape from the blood-thirsty tribunal,
and it will be seen that the Inquisition has been the most active
instrument of the ruin of Spain. But the most disastrous of all the acts
which it occasioned was the expulsion of the Moors. If we add to those who
were banished from Spain the countless numbers who perished in the
insurrection of the sixteenth century, and the 800,000 Jews who left the
kingdom, it will be seen that the country lost in the course of a hundred
and twenty years about three millions of its most industrious
inhabitants." [Weiss, vol. 2, pp. 60, 61.]

"The advisors of Phillip III. said to him with affright: The houses are
falling in ruins, and none rebuild them; the inhabitants flee from the
country; villages are abandoned, fields left uncultivated, and churches
deserted. The Cortes in their turn said to him: if the evil is not
remedied, there will soon be no peasants left to till the ground, no
pilots to steer the ships; none will marry. The kingdom can not subsist
another century if a wholesome remedy be not found."

What was the cause of the ignorance so general and so profound in Spain?
The Catholic Inquisition. "The commissaries of the Holy office received
orders to oppose the introduction of books written by the partisans of
modern philosophy, as reprobated by Saint Peter and Saint Paul, and
ordered information to be given against persons known to be attached to
the principles of the insurrection." [Liorente, vol. 4, p. 99.]
"Theological censures attacked even works on politics, and on natural,
civil and international law. The consequence is, that those appointed to
examine publications condemn and proscribe all works necessary for the
diffusion of knowledge among the Spaniards. The books that have been
published on mathematics, astronomy, natural philosophy and several other
branches of science connected with those, are not treated with more
favor." [Liorente, vol. 4, p.