Works Cited, The Spanish Labyrinth

One of the chief distinctions between the social philosophy of the Middle Ages and that of modern times lies in its attitude towards utopias. The mediaeval utopia lay in the past. ‘In the beginning’, said Grotius, ‘all things were common and indivisible: they were the patrimony of everyone.’ The Biblical Eden and the classical Golden Age were merged, and the corruption of human nature made return impossible. The discovery of America did something to shake this view, partly because it opened to the mind such unimagined prospects, but also because it showed a civilized race, the Peruvians, living in a state of communism which seemed to be almost as perfect and as ‘Christian’ as that of the Golden Age. Perhaps indeed these Indians were survivors from that happy period! Certainly the missionaries, charmed by their simplicity and by the readiness with which they imbibed Christian doctrines, did not hide their opinion that they were less ‘corrupted’ than Europeans. Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, which was widely read in Spain, and the new translations of Plato helped to provide the literary and philosophic background by which the State communism of the Incas might be interpreted.

Brenan, Gerald. The Spanish Labyrinth (Canto Classics) (pp. 552-553). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition. 

Works Cited, The Spanish Labyrinth

I would suggest then that the anger of the Spanish Anarchists against the Church is the anger of an intensely religious people who feel they have been deserted and deceived. The priests and the monks left them at a critical moment in their history and went over to the rich. The humane and enlightened principles of the great theologians of the seventeenth century were set on one side. The people then began to suspect (and the new ideas brought in by Liberalism of course assisted them) that all the words of the Church were hypocrisy. When they took up the struggle for the Christian utopia it was therefore against the Church and not with it. Even their violence might be called religious. The Spanish Church, after all, has always been a Militant Church and down to the twentieth century it believed in destroying its enemies. No doubt the Anarchists felt that if only, by using the same methods, they could get rid of all who were not of their way of thinking, they would make a better job than the Church had done of introducing the earthly paradise. In Spain every creed aspires to be totalitarian.

Brenan, Gerald. The Spanish Labyrinth (Canto Classics) (pp. 309-310). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition. 

Works Cited, Tristram Shandy

A negro has a soul? an' please your honour, said the corporal (doubtingly).

I am not much versed, corporal, quoth my uncle Toby, in things of that kind; but I suppose, God would not leave him without one, any more than thee or me— 

—It would be putting one sadly over the head of another, quoth the corporal. 

It would so; said my uncle Toby. Why then, an' please your honour, is a black wench to be used worse than a white one?

I can give no reason, said my uncle Toby— 

—Only, cried the corporal, shaking his head, because she has no one to stand up for her— 

—'Tis that very thing, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby,—which recommends her to protection—and her brethren with her; 'tis the fortune of war which has put the whip into our hands now—where it may be hereafter, heaven knows!—but be it where it will, the brave, Trim! will not use it unkindly. 

—God forbid, said the corporal. 

Amen, responded my uncle Toby, laying his hand upon his heart.

Sterne, Laurence. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (pp. 394-395). Kindle Edition.