To the all powerful and all controlling influence of the Church is to be ascribed the universal paralysis of the mind during the very same period, when art and science and independent research flourished in Southern Spain under Moorish and Jewish influence. Whomsoever we approach, be they dignitaries of the Church or Church menials, distinguished luminaries or obscure parish priests, a conversation with them soon proves to us the sad truth, that their stock of knowledge exhausts itself with an enumeration of some monstrous legends or with the practice and teaching of some degrading and repulsive superstitions. Secular knowledge is spurned. Physical science is held in avowed contempt and persecuted upon the ground of its inconsistency with revealed truth. Philosophical research is prohibited, under the severest punishment, as pernicious to piety. Upon inquiry as to the cause of this persecution of learning on the part of the church, which, as we modestly dare to suggest, has nothing to lose, but everything to gain from rational research and diligent pursuit of knowledge, a bishop emphatically informs us that they did this with the sanction and authority of the fourth council of Carthage, which had prohibited the reading of secular books by bishops, and with the authority of Jerome who had condemned the study of secular subjects, except for pious ends, and as there was no lack of piety (so they artlessly thought) they saw little use in preserving the learning and literature of the accursed Jews and heathens, and fearing lest they fall into the hands of others, not so pious as they, and not so protected against their pernicious influence by the knowledge of legends, or by the skillful use of magic spells, or exorcising charms, as they were. Or perhaps secretly fearing, lest an intimate knowledge of the learning of the ancients might open the eyes of the people to the ignorance and extortions and crimes and corruptions of the Church, they condemn that whole literature to the flames. Hundreds and thousands of valuable manuscripts are thus pitilessly destroyed. We fain would stay their cruel hand, but we fear for our lives. We see them erase the writing from hundreds and thousands of parchment copies of ancient priceless lore, and substitute in its stead legends of saints, and ecclesiastical rubbish, occasioning thus the loss of many an ancient author that is now so painfully missed. We turn away from this revolting stupidity, but nowhere a pleasing sign to allay our anguish, or appease our grief-stricken heart. "Oh, thou monstrous ignorance, how deformed dost thou look."