The Difference That Made Spain, the Difference That Spain Made

Eighteenth-century Enlightenment critics of Spain almost always made pointed reference to Iberia’s “difference,” its “otherness” with respect to the rest of Europe, ¹ beginning with the French philosophe Montesquieu, who asserted in 1741 that the grip of the Inquisition rendered Spain “incapable of any degree of light or instruction” (II: 56). Montesquieu’s statement would prove to be only a contemptuous prelude to the question the famous French polymath Nicolas Masson de Morvillers polemically asked in 1792: “What do we owe Spain?” European intellectuals rebuked Spain as a backward nation and its people as ignorant, superstitious, and alien to all that modernity stood for. Particularly with regard to science, Masson asserted, Spain had become “the most ignorant nation in Europe.” After all, he asked dismissively: “What can we expect of a country that needs to ask priests for permission to read and think?” In the eyes of many educated Europeans, Spain was different.