[20] A mighty lineage of masters who made of the Castilian an immortal language. Among them are the Dominican Luis de Granada; the Franciscans Juan de los Angeles, Diego de Estella, San Pedro de Alcántara; the Carmelites San Juan de la Cruz, Santa Teresa, Jerónimo Gracián, Miguel de la Fuente; the Augustinians Malon de Chaide, Alonzo de Orozco; and the Jesuits Nieremberg (Juan Eusebio) and Alonzo Rodríguez.... At the same time a literary æsthetic was developed (Ausias March, Fernando de Herrera de Sevilla) whose creative liberality rings refreshingly modern, beside the poetics of Boileau. Writes Herrera: “So long as a language lives and is spoken, it cannot be said to have run its course: for its constant tendency is to surpass itself and to leave behind what was formerly esteemed. We must constantly essay new forms....” This was the spirit which made possible El Greco and Góngora and Cervantes. It was one outcome of the monasteries and of the religious universities of the Age of Isabel. It proves how strong, in a way, the Renaissance was in Spain until the reactionary time of Philip II. [21] The Jansenist belief in predestination and the Jesuit doctrine of free will appear to contradict this. The paradox is only of the surface. Acceptance of predestination and of pre-determined grace rests on acceptance of the inviolable autonomy of the individual soul and minimizes all objective--i. e., social--effect on it. The Jesuit free will actually puts the stress on possible change in the individual soul through social forces, thus minimizing the soul’s autonomy. That this interpretation is correct is borne out by the developments of Jesuit practice on the one hand and of French-Calvinist-Protestant cultures on the other. [22] “When we lose our dominions, it will be said: You came here to evangelize and to commit outrage. It will not be said: You came here to mine coal.” Angel Ganivet. [23] It must be added that this realistic art, and this realistic Europe, are doomed today. Cézanne, a disciple of El Greco, marks the turn of the tide, in the domain of painting. [24] I hope it will be clear that in these parallels I am suggesting not identity but analogy. Elements of the Renaissance and of the modern world definitely distinguish these Spaniards from the true medievals. The beauty and the irony of the Spanish scene lies precisely in this.