It was unquestionably the case that the censorship had a very material influence in discouraging the production of literature, an influence that might be classed as an indirect damage to the intellectual development of the community. While the fact of such interference in a country like Spain in which the provisions of the censorship were, under the Inquisition, enforced with strictness and often with severity, is fully established, there can of course be no data for ascertaining the extent of the loss. It is easy to understand that if an instructor in one of the Spanish universities got into trouble with the Inquisition in bringing into print a series of lectures, he would, in the majority of cases, have kept his later studies or conclusions in the safer form of manuscript. It is probable also that his associates on the faculty, or the students who had followed his work, would in great part be deterred from pressing their studies to a logical conclusion. Not only would the books not be printed or even completed, but the lectures themselves, on subjects that had once been stamped by the Church as pernicious, would be stopped. The Inquisition was in a position to put an end to any courses of study or lines of investigation that it found reason to disapprove, and the record shows that it did not neglect the exercise of its authority to such end. In like manner, if the business of a printer-publisher had been broken up or seriously hampered through penalties imposed for the crime of circulating literature found deserving of condemnation, it is very certain that such dealer, if continuing in business at all, would have reason to avoid taking in the future any such undesirable risks, and his competitors in the book-trade would wish to be equally conservative in the selection or acceptance of books for their own presses.