The Shaken Earth

Almost exactly two hundred years ago the Lisbon earthquake occurred – a calamity which affected the people of that age as much as the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima has affected us in this century. The earthquake lasted about ten minutes. It shook the whole south-west corner of Portugal.

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Between ten thousand and fifteen thousand people lost their lives in Lisbon alone, from the effect of fire, falling buildings, and the overflowing of the River Tagus.

Sir Thomas Kendrick, Director of the British Museum, has traced in this book the effect of the calamity on popular thinking. Throughout Europe men’s minds were shaken; the sense, easily held in times of prosperity, of a beneficent natural and supernatural order gave place to spiritual insecurity and fear of God’s wrath. The priests of Portugal blamed the sins of the Portuguese; the Jansenists groaned that Lisbon was the cradle of the Jesuits; Voltaire proved that philosophical optimism was meaningless in the face of human tragedy. It is a fascinating story, and the author presents it with balance and understanding. But one remembers most the acts of courage and charity – the injured priest ministering to the survivors; the doctors and Government officials bringing order out of chaos and calming an hysterical population. Here perhaps is the deeper meaning of the catastrophe, not Divine retribution nor an occasion for scientific rationality, but a courageous human response to the suffering of others.

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