system of which the impost is the smallest evil. They
smite the tax-gatherer, but fall prostrate at the feet of the
contemptible prince for whom the tax-gatherer plies his craft; they
will even revile the troublesome and importunate monk, or sometimes
they will scoff at the sleek and arrogant priest, while such is their
infatuation that they would risk their lives in defense of that cruel
Church which has inflicted on them hideous calamities, but to which
they still cling, as it it were the dearest object of their
affections.

[Footnote 55: It is here to be borne in mind that Buckle wrote long
before the revolutionary successes achieved by Castelar, Prim and
Serrano, and the overthrow and exile of Queen Isabella in 1868.]

Connected with these habits of mind, and in sooth forming part of
them, we find a reverence for antiquity, and an inordinate tenacity of
old opinion, old beliefs, and old habits, which remind us of those
tropical civilizations which formerly flourished. Such prejudices were
once universal, even in Europe; but they began to die out in the
sixteenth century, and are now, comparatively speaking, extinct,
except in Spain, where they have always been welcomed. In that
country, they retain their original force, and produce their natural
results. By encouraging the notion that all the truths most important
to know are already known, they repress those aspirations, and dull
that generous confidence in the future, without which nothing really
great can be achieved. A people who regard the past with too wistful
an eye will never bestir themselves to help the onward progress. They
will hardly believe that progress is possible. To them antiquity is
synonymous with wisdom, and every improvement is a dangerous
innovation.

In this state Europe lingered for many centuries; in this state Spain
still lingers. Hence the Spaniards are remarkable for an inertness, a
want of buoyancy, and an absence of hope, which, in our busy and
enterprising age, isolate them from the rest of the civilized world.
Believing that little can be done, they are in no hurry to do it.
Believing that the knowledge they have inherited is far greater than
any they can obtain, they wish to preserve their intellectual
possessions whole and unimpaired; inasmuch as the least alteration in
them might lessen their value. Content with what has been already
bequeathed, they are excluded from that great European movement,
which, first clearly percept