PROTESTANTISM
AND
CATHOLICITY
COMPARED IN THEIR
EFFECTS ON THE CIVILIZATION OF EUROPE.
WRITTEN IN SPANISH
BY THE REV. J. BALMES.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.
Second Edition.
BALTIMORE:
PUBLISHED BY JOHN MURPHY & CO.
No. 178 MARKET STREET.
PITTSBURG: GEORGE QUIGLEY.
Sold by Booksellers generally.
1851.
Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred and fifty,
by John Murphy & Co., in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Maryland.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
Among the many and important evils which have been the necessaryresult of the profound revolutions of modern times, there appears a goodextremely valuable to science, and which will probably have a beneficialinfluence on the human race,—I mean the love of studies having fortheir object man and society. The shocks have been so rude, that theearth has, as it were, opened under our feet; and the human mind,which, full of pride and haughtiness, but lately advanced on a triumphalcar amid acclamations and cries of victory, has been alarmed andstopped in its career. Absorbed by an important thought, overcome bya profound reflection, it has asked itself, "What am I? whence do Icome? what is my destination?" Religious questions have regainedtheir high importance; and when they might have been supposed tohave been scattered by the breath of indifference, or almost annihilatedby the astonishing development of material interests, by the progress ofthe natural and exact sciences, by the continually increasing ardour ofpolitical debates,—we have seen that, so far from having been stifled bythe immense weight which seemed to have overwhelmed them, they havereappeared on a sudden in all their magnitude, in their gigantic form,predominant over society, and reaching from the heavens to the abyss.
This disposition of men's minds naturally drew their attention to thereligious revolution of the sixteenth century; it was natural that theyshould ask what this revolution had done to promote the interests of humanity.Unhappily, great mistakes have been made in this inquiry.Either because they have looked at the facts through the distorted mediumof sectarian prejudice, or because they have only considered themsuperficially, men have arrived at the conclusion, that the reformersof the sixteenth century conferred a signal benefit on the nations ofEurope, by contributing to the development of science, of the arts, ofhuman liberty, and of every thing which is comprised in the wordcivilization.
What do history and philosophy say on this subject? How has man,either individually or collectively, considered in a religious, social, political,or literary point of view, been benefited by the reform of the sixteenthcentury? Did Europe, under the exclusive influence of Catholicity,pursue a prosperous career? Did Catholicity impose a single fetter[Pg 4]on the movements of civilization? This is the examination which Ipropo