The Sun.
London, England, 1865-01-07 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOITRNALS.

TlMM—There are two kinds of lessons wide]
may be learnt by experience ; the one is most com
monly expressed by the proverb that experience
makes fools wise. But experience has also another
teaching. It has its evil as well as its good side ;
it tends not only to eradicate errors, but in some
cases to confirm and make theminveterate ; in other
words, it acts not only on the understanding but on
the feelings, and while it is generally supposed to
enlighten the former it not unfrequently warps and
distorts the latter. The cause for which a man has
suffered becomes sacred in his eyes, and the feelings
which those sufferings have called forth are apt to
become more violent and more intense just in pro-
portion as they ought to die away and subside. No
better illustration of this latter or perverted kind of
experience can be found than the one furnished by
the history of Spain. The character of no nation
has been so entirely made up from the events of its
most striking and interesting history. Almost every
peculiarity which distinguishes the modern Spaniard
from the rest of his brethren of the European
family may be accounted for from some leading fea-
ture in the history of his country, It was the fate
of Spain to be conquered by the Moors, and to ex-
pel them from its territories after an obstinate
struggle of 800 years, during which the mutual ani-
mosity of Moor and Christian, the fanatical devo-
tion to its own faith, and the equally fanatical
hatred of the rival creed, was carried to the very
extremity of fervour and passion. The Moors were
expelled, but the fiery passions which they had
raised survived their expulsion, and, after having
during several centuries lighted up the flames of the
Inquisition, still make themselves manifest in an
intolerance to all other creeds, which unhappily dis-
tinguishes Spain from all other European nations,
and a hatred of strangers which is equally contrary
to the spirit of the time and to the dictates of that
religion to which Spain professes such entire devotion.
The sagacity which induced Ferdinand and Isabella
alone among European Sovereigns to promote the
enterprise of Columbus placed at their feet the bound-
less riches and docile populations of a new world,
and made her the undisputed mistress of those vast
stores of gold and silver which until the end of
the last century were regarded as alone con-
stituting the wealth of States or of individuals.
From this unhappy facility of importing wealth, for
which she gave no return in the products of her own
labour, we may trace the decay of the country, the
scantiness of its population, and its obstinate adhe-
rence to a singularly perverse system of political
economy. Spain acquired, together with the.com-
mand of gold 'and silver, a number of colonies in
the New World, the possession of which served to
satisfy in some degree that.desire of universal domi-
nation which had been created in the days of her

sudden and groundless prosperity. These colonies
successively threw off the yoke of the mother coun-
try, and we have no doubt that by.so doing they
relieved the overburdened exchequer and scanty po-
pulation of Spain from a pressure to which they were
wholly unequal, and thus took the first step towards
her recovery from the state of weakness into which
she had undoubtedly fallen. At any rate,'during the
last 10 years Spain, enjoying comparative quiet at
home and being relieved from the burden of an em-
pire the profit of which was by no means commensu-
rate with its extent, has increased greatly both in
population and wealth, and gave fair promise, had