261
Ibid., p. 1167 (Chap. 4).
262
Ibid., p. 1169 (Chap. 5).
263
Ibid., p. 1277 (Chap. 48).
264
Ibid., p. 1163 (Chap. 2), p. 1200 (Chap. 17) and p. 1217 (Chap. 24).
265
See J. Blanquat, «Le naturalisme espagnol en 1882: El amigo Manso de Galdós», in Bul. Hispanique, LXI his, 1962, 318. There is also the unpublished thesis of Mary De B. MacDonald «The Influence of E. Zola in the Novels of B. Pérez Galdós, 1881-1885», 1959.
Perhaps we should fix our attention momentarily on the Diablo cojuelo device with which Galdós opens and closes his novel. Let us not forget that Galdós identified naturalism with the picaresque (See note 61) and has several reminiscences of picaresque novels in his works of the naturalistic period. We should also note that the Diablo cojuelo became a commonplace device to introduce studies of social customs, especially in France during the romantic period. «The Crippled Devil, as observer and satirist of manners... came to be a sort of enseigne for the early nineteenth-century sketch of manners...» E. B. Place in Hispania 19 (1936), 239-40. Margarita Ucelay da Cal, Los españoles pintados por sí mismos, pp. 85-95, points out the intimate connection between el Diablo cojuelo and costumbrismo.
In view of these considerations I find it hard to believe that Manso should be regarded as an «autonomous character» like those of Pirandello or Unamuno (Niebla) as suggested by C. Clavería in Atlante, I (1953), 136; Robert Kirsner in Cuadernos de Literatura, Madrid, 1950, p. 189; and by R. Gullón in Ínsula, 14 (March 15, 1959), No. 148, 1-2. These three critics have taken the Diablo cojuelo device as the basis of their contention that Manso has an independent existence, free from the control of the author.
266
El amigo Manso, p. 1257 (Chap. 39).
Galdós could have read Hegel's Logic which he (Galdós) mentions as having been recently translated in an article in the Ilustración de Madrid, May 15, 1872 (reprinted by Shoemaker in Crónica de la quincena, p. 131). Here Hegel talks about the opposition between what is and what ought to be, and says that the ancients felt that «because such a thing is, it is, and as it is, so ought it to be» (translation by William Wallace, p. 269). These words rephrase the most quoted of all Hegel's sayings «The true ideal is not what ought to be real, but what is real... For only the real is rational.» (History of Philosophy, Transl. by E. S. Haldane and F. H. Simson, II, 95).
Now the year after Galdós praised the translation of Hegel's Logic, he has Inés say «Mira: a mí me han dicho... no, nadie me ha dicho, pero lo sé... que en el mundo, al fin y al cabo, pasa siempre lo que debe pasar» (La corte de Carlos IV, Chap. 3). She repeats the same thought later in the same novel (Chap. 11) and again in Napoleón en Chamartín (Chap. 28).
In Fortunata y Jacinta Maxi says «Todo lo que debe pasar, pasa, y todo lo que debe ser, es» (Parte II, Chap. 4, sect. 8) and in the same work the author says «Como lo que debe suceder sucede... lo que tenía que llegar, por la sucesión infalible de las necesidades humanas, llegó.» (Parte III, Chap. 4, sect. 3).
While it is tempting to see a specific influence of Hegel in this idea which had obviously made a great impression on Galdós, we must not overlook the fact that the same idea had been expressed as early as Democritus and Marcus Aurelius. Dickens, in the Tale of Two Cities (Book I, Chap. 2; a work I believe Galdós had read) says «Altogether, the Old Bailey, at that date, was a choice illustration of the precept that 'whatever is is right' H. Heine, whose De I'Allemagne was in Galdós' library, quotes Hegel's aphorism.
Although it is impossible for me to say exactly where Galdós got this idea, I wish to show that it is in complete harmony with Krausismo, the philosophy which was widely accepted in Spain during the years of Galdós' apprenticeship. The «laws of nature», about which Galdós has concerned himself so frequently in El amigo Manso, are not, according to the Krausista doctrine, the properties of the real things which follow these laws, but rather they have their origin in the Absolute, that is, God. For example, Nicolás Salmerón (Bosquejo de las leyes de la historia, in Revista Europea, V [1875], 321) says «Gravísimo y lamentable error es, por tanto, pensar que basta para la Ciencia de la Historia el conocimiento empírico de los hechos». The facts and the laws derived from them do not suffice: «[...] levantados el espíritu individual y la conciencia de la Humanidad a la fuente misma de donde toda realidad y toda vida emanan, deben hallar en ella las leyes biológicas, absolutas, universales y necesarias, bajo las cuales determina libremente el hombre los hechos, creencias, costumbres e instituciones que han de dar por resultado, mediante la cooperación divina, la mejor y más libre y bella obra que en la limitación humana quepa...»
In the long run, as Manso says «la razón [triunfa] sobre el mal y la ignorancia. Al fin, lo que debe ser es».
267
R. Krisner, op. cit., points out that Galdós' humor in El amigo Manso marks a new attitude toward Spain. Instead of the criticism of Doña Perfecta we now have an acceptance of the real Spain.
268
W. T. Pattison, B. Pérez Galdós and the Creative Process, pp. 46-47, 115-116; see also F. de P. Canalejas in Revista Europea, V (1875), 361: «Recordemos que entre los discípulos del ilustre D. Julián Sanz del Río se han declarado tendencias diversas y encontradas. No hay ya escuela. Van unos a un theísmo racional y cristiano, propenden otros a un positivismo comedido y circunspecto; retroceden algunos, aguijoneados por la duda, a la Crítica de la razón pura de Kant...»
269
The Revista Europea has articles by or on Spencer in 1874, 1875 and 1877 (I have not been able to examine this magazine after this date); the Revista Contemporánea has a total of seven articles or reviews of books by Spencer, of which the first was printed in 1876 and five of which appeared between the years 1878 and 1890.
270
Eduardo Sanz y Escartín, «Movimiento filosófico en España», in Revista de España LXXXIII (1881) 394.