ancestors, but seemed to have prevented the natural progress which
the land would have made.

In one form or another, this contention was the basis of Rizal's
campaign. By careful search, it is true, isolated instances of
improvement could be found, but the showing at its very best was
so pitifully poor that the system stood discredited. And it was the
system to which Rizal was opposed.

The Spaniards who engaged in public argument with Rizal were
continually discovering, too late to avoid tumbling into them, logical
pitfalls which had been carefully prepared to trap them. Rizal argued
much as he played chess, and was ever ready to sacrifice a pawn to
be enabled to say "check." Many an unwary opponent realized after
he had published what he had considered a clever answer that the
same reasoning which scored a point against Rizal incontrovertibly
established the Kalamban's major premise.

Superficial antagonists, to the detriment of their own reputations,
have made much of what they chose to consider Rizal's historical
errors. But history is not merely chronology, and his representation
of its trend, disregarding details, was a masterly tracing of current
evils to their remote causes. He may have erred in some of his minor
statements; this will happen to anyone who writes much, but attempts to
discredit Rizal on the score of historical inaccuracy really reflect
upon the captious critics, just as a draftsman would expose himself
to ridicule were he to complain of some famous historical painting
that it had not been drawn to exact scale. Rizal's writings were
intended to bring out in relief the evils of the Spanish system of
the government of the Filipino people, just as a map of the world