Note 162 — Chapter XXXI · THE REGARD FOR TRUTH AND GOOD FAITH (concluded)

Chapelain, De la lecture des vieux romans, p. 20. As late as the middle of the seventeenth century a powerful party was rising in England who said that all learning was unfavourable to religion, and that it was sufficient for everyone to be acquainted with his mother-tongue alone (Twells, Life of Pocock, p. 176). The Duke de Saint Simon, who in 1721 and 1722 was the French ambassador in Madrid, states (Mémoires, xxxv. 209) that in Spain science was a crime, and ignorance and stupidity the chief virtues.