ABSTRACT
When the obscure system of the German Friedrich Krause was transplanted to Spanish soil, it produced mediocre fruit; its enthusiastic reception there about 1853–1856 was a most unexpected adventure. If Spain's philosophers are silent, or unable to project their voices beyond the frontier, her orators speak. They are copious and magnificently vocal. The most celebrated, Emilio Castelar of Cadiz, was in himself a marvelous epitome and personification of their eloquence. In the fields of political science, sociology, history, research and literary criticism one finds less brilliance but greater solidity, a condition more favorable to enduring work. Joaquin Costa, like the two foregoing, devoted all his thought and ambition to the regeneration of Spain. He did his best to point out remedies for the various ills that plagued the nation. Menendez y Pelayo stood at the head of literary criticism, so the greatest representative of Spanish philology for his time was a Colombian, Rufino Jose Cuervo.
