Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/413

THE INQUISITION. 269 not only excuses, but enjoins the commission of the chapter most revolting crimes, as a sacred duty. The more '- repugnant, indeed, such crimes may be to natural feeling, or public sentiment, the greater their merit, from the sacrifice which the commission of them involves. Many a bloody page of history attests the fact, that fanaticism, armed with power, is the sorest evil which can befall a nation. most recondite affairs of the Inqui- sition ; and, on its suppression at the close of 1808, he devoted sever- al years to a careful investigation of the registers of the tribunals, both of the capital and the pro- vinces, as well as of such other original documents contained with- in their archives, as had not hith- erto been opened to the light of day. In the progress of his work he has anatomized the most odi- ous features of the institution with unspanng severity ; and his reflections are warmed with a generous and enlightened spirit, certainly not to have been expect- ed in an ex-inquisitor. The ar- rangement of his immense mass of materials is indeed somewhat faulty, and the work might be re- cast in a more popular form, es- pecially by means of a copious retrenchment. With all its sub- ordinate defects, however, it is en- titled to the credit of being the most, indeed the only, authentic history of the Modern Inquisition ; exhib- iting its minutest forms of prac- tice, and the insidious policy, by which they were directed, from the origin of the institution down to its temporary abolition. It well deserves to be studied, as the rec- ord of the most humiliating tri- umph, which fanaticism has ever been able to obtain over humaa reason, and that too, during the most civilized periods, and in the most civilized portion of the world. The persecutions, endured by the unfortunate author of the work, prove, that the embers of this fa- naticism may be rekindled too easi- ly, even in the present century.