and the Inquisition, even under Charles III, had been substantially
unimpaired, and rested on a broad foundation of popular fanaticism and
ignorance. The Inquisition attacked not merely freethought but heresy
of every kind, persecuting Jansenists and Molinists as of old it had
persecuted Lutherans, only with less power of murder. That much the
Bourbon kings and their ministers could accomplish, but no more. The
trouble was that the enlightened administration of Charles III in
Spain did not build up a valid popular education, the sole security
for durable rationalism. Its school policy, though not without zeal,
was undemocratic, and so left the priests in control of the mind of
the multitude; and throughout the reign the ecclesiastical revenues
had been allowed to increase greatly from private sources. [1621]
Like Leopold of Tuscany, he was in advance of his people, and imposed
his reforms from above. When, accordingly, the weak and pious Charles
IV succeeded in 1788, three of the anti-clerical Ministers of his
predecessor, including Aranda, were put under arrest, [1622] and
clericalism resumed full sway, to the extent even of vetoing the
study of moral philosophy in the universities. [1623] Mentally and
materially alike, Spain relapsed to her former state of indigence;
and the struggle for national existence against Napoleon helped rather
traditionalist sentiment than the spirit of innovation.