In 1797, Tavira, then Bishop of Osma and subsequently of Salamanca, assumed that the crime of solicitation had greatly increased and was increasing, which he attributed partly to the influence of Illuminism and Molinism, but still more to its cognizance having been taken from the bishops and the requirement by the Inquisition of two denunciations before prosecution.[303] That the latter provision conferred practical immunity on many culprits is self-evident, but this was probably less effective than would have been the habitual indifference and leniency of the spiritual courts, their dread of scandal and the inevitable disgrace which deterred women from appearing in their public proceedings. There is practically no reason for supposing that the crime was either more or less prevalent, at the close of the eighteenth century, than it had been ever since, in the thirteenth, auricular confession was made obligatory, or than it has been since the nineteenth century opened. The strain of the confessional is too great for average human nature, and the most that the Church can do, in its most recent regulations, is to keep these lapses of the flesh from the knowledge of the faithful.[304] CHAPTER VII. PROPOSITIONS. [Sidenote: _DELATION HABITUAL_] Although the Spanish Inquisition was founded for the suppression of crypto-Judaism, it promptly vindicated its jurisdiction over all aberrations from the faith. There were, at the time, no other formal heresies in Spain, but the people at large were not universally versed in all the niceties of theology, and the supineness of the spiritual courts permitted a licence of speech in which the trained theologian could discern potentialities of error. All this the Inquisition undertook to correct and ultimately, under the general denomination of "Propositions," there developed an extensive field of action, which towards the end became the principal function of the institution. Reckless or thoughtless expressions, uttered in anger or in jest, or through ignorance or carelessness, gave to pious zeal or to malice the opportunity of secret denunciation, which in time impressed upon every Spaniard the necessity of caution, and left its mark upon the national character. As we have seen, the closest family ties did not release from the obligation of accusation, and every individual lived in an atmosphere of suspicion, surrounded by possible spies of his own household.[305] Men of the highest standing for learning or piety, moreover, were exposed to the torture of prolonged prosecution and possible ruin, for words spoken or written to which an heretical intent could be ascribed, in relation to the obscurest points of theology, and thus the development of the Spanish intellect was arrested at the time when it promised to become dominant in Europe. From every point of view, therefore, the miscellaneous offences, grouped under the general term of Propositions, was by no means the least noteworthy subject of