But the most effective factor in determining the character of colonial society was the spiritual inheritance from Spain. In government it was the spirit of autocracy, producing a political administration in no respect controlled by the popular will, an administration imposed by the king advised by the Council of the Indies. In matters of religion the spirit of the Spanish church passed to the colonies, and carried over to them the ecclesiastical traditions of the mother country, with no break, like that which appeared between the Puritans and the dominant Church of England. This was important for the aesthetic life of the colonies, for the artistic notions and sentiments entertained by the Church as a social body were transferred to Spanish America, and manifested their creative force in developing a somewhat original church architecture, and in elaborating the courts and interiors of secular buildings. The aesthetic sense displayed in the Spanish colonies stands in interesting contrast with the Puritanic barrenness of the British colonies in artistic matters. The Spanish colonies, moreover, contained more abundant survivals of mediæval ideas and traditions, and the lines of connexion with the European past tended to maintain the colonies for many decades in a state of social stagnation. This inheritance of conservatism helped to keep alive, in at least some part of the population, the sentiment of human dignity as a force counteracting the vulgarizing and brutalizing influences that attended life on the frontier of civilization. In this attitude the persons asserting their superiority were convinced of the value of their ideas and experience, and were moved to convey to posterity their opinions and a knowledge of the organization and growth of the colonial communities in which their lives were passed. [Sidenote: Circumstances favouring literary production]