Spain and the Scientific Revolution: Historiographical Questions and Conjectures (original) (raw)

2007, Más allá de la Leyenda Negra: España y la Revolución Científica

T N 1792, wRrrrNG nl r¡re Eucycr,opÉorn MÉrnoorqun, the French polymath I Nicolas Masson de Morvilliers posed a question that, for better or for worse, framed the historiography of Spanish science for nearly two centuries. "What do we owe to Spain?" Masson asked in a voice brimming with sarcasm and contempt. "In two centuries, in four, or even in six, what has she done for Europe?"l Ostensibly, Masson's subject was not the history of science but the geography arrd population of Spain, themes that gave his polemic a pronounced racist character. For, according to Masson, the source ofSpain's defrciency was the character of its people, who, in spite of their admirable virtues of patience and resolve, were ignorant,lazy, and superstitious. Moreover, according to Masson, Spain's futile government, bigoted clergy, and tyralnical Inquisition conspired to condemn the country to remain hopelessly backwa¡d. Particularly with regard to science, he concluded, Spain had become "the most ignorant nation in Europe". To Masson, Spain was the country that typifred everything against which the philosophes were struggling.