Supplement to the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica/Acosta (Joseph D’)
ACOSTA, (Joseph d’,) a celebrated Spanish author, was born at Medina del Campo, about the year 1539. In 1571, he went to Peru as a Provincial of the Jesuits, having entered into that society in his fourteenth year. After a residence in America of seventeen years, he returned to his native country, and became in succession visitor for his order of Arragon and Andalusia, superior of Valladolid, and rector of Salamanca; in which city he died in February 1600.
About ten years before his death, he published at Seville, in one volume quarto, his valuable work entitled Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias. The two first books of this history were written during his residence in Peru, and were published separately after his return to Spain, in the Latin language, with this title: De Natura Novi Orbis, libri duo. He afterwards translated them into Spanish, and added to them other five books, the whole composing a connected work, under the first mentioned title. This work, which has been translated into all the principal languages of Europe, is written on a regular and comprehensive plan. The five first books are employed upon the physical geography and natural history of that portion of America which had been conquered or discovered by the Spaniards; the fifth and sixth upon the manners, religion and civil institutions of the inhabitants; and the last, upon the history of the Mexicans, from their origin till the period of their subjugation. Dr Robertson pronounces Acosta, “an accurate and well-informed writer.” Among other things, he treats the subject of climate in a more philosophical manner, than could have been expected in a writer of that age, and of his order. “He was the first philosopher,” says the eminent author just quoted, “who endeavoured to account for the different degrees of heat in the old and new continents, by the agency of the winds which blow in each;”—a theory which was afterwards adopted by Buffon, and supported with his usual powers of copious and eloquent illustration. In the course of these discussions, Acosta frequently comments upon the opinion of Aristotle, and other ancient philosophers, that the middle zone of the earth was so much scorched by the rays of the sun, as to be destitute of moisture and verdure, and totally uninhabitable. This notion seems to have held its ground in the Schools, even after the discovery of South America had disclosed the magnificent scenery and stupendous rivers of the tropical regions. It appears to have been thought a sort of impiety to question a dogma of such ancient date, and sanctioned by the assent of all the school divines. We learn, from a curious passage in Osborne’s Miscellany of Essays, Paradoxes, and Letters, that the exposing of this ancient error in geography, was one of the circumstances which brought upon the famous Sir Walter Ralegh the charge of general scepticism and atheism. Acosta mentions, that, when he went to America, his mind was deeply imbued with frightful notions of this supposed burning zone, and that his surprise was great, when he beheld it so different from what it had been represented in the “ancient and received philosophy.” “What could I do then,” says he, “but laugh at Aristotle’s meteors and his philosophy?”
Having said thus much in regard to one of the most curious and valuable of the earlier accounts of the new world, it may be proper to add, that, in speaking of the conduct of his countrymen, and the propagation of their faith, Acosta is in no respect superior to the other prejudiced and fanatical writers of his country and age. Though he acknowledges that the carcer of Spanish conquest was marked by the most savage cruelty and oppression, he yet represents this people as the chosen instruments of the Deity, for spreading the truths of the gospel among the nations of America. He accordingly recounts a variety of miracles, as a proof of the constant interposition of Heaven, in favour of these merciless and rapacious invaders. It will appear from the following curious passage, that he even makes the great enemy of mankind himself, a co-operator in that scheme of conversion for which he represents the Spaniards to have been predestined. “That” says he, “which is difficult in our law to believe, has been made easy among the Indians; because the Devil had made them comprehend even the self same things, which he had stolen from our evangelical law,—as their manner of confession, their adoration of three in one, and such like; the which, against the will of the enemy, have holpen for the easy receiving of the truth.”
Besides his History, Acosta wrote the following works: 1. De Promulgatione Evangelii apud Barbaros.—2. De Christo Revelato.—3. De Temporibus Novissimis, libros vi.—4. Concionum, tomos iii. All of these works were, in their day, frequently reprinted; but it is only by his history that his name is now known in the literary world. The English translation, from which we have taken the preceding extracts, was published at London, in quarto, in the year 1604, and is now rather a scarce book.