CHAPTER 1 - Reason of Unreason in the Spanish Vulgo

Summary

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 which ilustristas, and ilustrados – 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 reputable Botanist for the Real Sitio de San Fernando, warned against national or individual pride and prejudice in making scientific appointments:

… pues unos de nuestros más dañosos defectos es el infatuarnos fácilmente presumiendo que sabemos mucho, y con esta aprensión no queremos obedecer a nadie, ni reconocer por superior a quien imaginamos erradamente que no tiene que ensenarnos.

(… for among our most dangerous defects is that of becoming obsessed with the assumption that we know a great deal, and because of this idea we want to obey nobody, and neither do we want to recognize as superior someone whom we mistakenly imagine as having nothing to teach us.)

But areas in which ilustrismo strove with far greater difficulty were intellectual areas of reasonable distrust – reasonable, that is, for the period and in the national circumstances.