Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/407

263 THE INQUISITION. 263 It is remarkable, that a scheme so monstrous as chapter that of the Inquisition, presenting the most effect- _ ual barrier, probably, that was ever opposed to the progress of knowledge, should have been revived at the close of the fifteenth century, when the light of civilization was rapidly advancing over every part of Europe. It is more remarkable, that it should have occurred in Spain, at this time under a government, which had displayed great religious independence on more than one occasion, and which had paid uniform regard to the rights of its subjects, and pursued a generous policy in reference to their intellectual culture. Where, we are tempted to ask, when we behold the perse- cution of an innocent, industrious people for the crime of adhesion to the faith of their ancestors, where was the charity, which led the old Castilian to reverence valor and virtue in an infidel, though an enemy ? Where the chivalrous self-devotion, which led an Aragonese monarch, three centuries before, to give away his life, in defence of the persecuted sectaries of Provence ? Where the in- dependent spirit, which prompted the Castilian nobles, during the very last reign, to reject with, scorn the purposed interference of the pope him- office in the privy council, courts find a precedent in a law of Sylla, of justice, or in the municipalities, excludino- the children of the pro- or any other place of trust or honor, scribed Romans from political hon- They were also excluded from the ors ; thus indignantly noticed by vocations of notaries, surgeons, and Sallust. " Quin solus omnium, apothecaries. (Pragmaticas del post memoriamhominum, supplicia Rej'no, fol. 5, 6.) This was visit- in post futures composuit ; quis ing the sins of the fathers, to an prius injuria quhm vita certaessct.^' extent unparalleled in modern le- Hist. Fragmenta, lib. I. gislation. The sovereigns might