ACOSTA, JOSE DE (1539?-160o), Spanish author, was horn at Medina del Campo about the year 1539. He joined the Jesuits in 1551, and in 1571 was sent as a missionary to Peru; he acted as provincial of his Order from 1576 to 1581, was appointed theological adviser to the Council of Lima in 1582, and in 1583 published a catechism in Quichua and Aymara—the first book printed in Peru. In 1598 he became rector of the Jesuit college at Salamanca, where he died on Feb. 15, 1600. His treatise, De natura novi orbis libri duo (Salamanca, 1588-89), may be regarded as the preliminary draft of his celebrated Historia natural y moral de las Indias (Seville, 1590), which was speedily translated' into Italian (1596), French (1597), Dutch (1598), German (I6oi), Latin (1602), and English (1604). The Historia is in three sections: books I. and II. deal with generalities; books III. and IV. with the physical geography and natural history of Mexico and Peru; books V., VI., and VII., with the religious and political institutions of the aborigines. Apart from his sophistical defence of Spanish colonial policy, de Acosta deserves high praise as an acute and diligent observer. Among his other publications is De procuranda salute Indorum libri sex (Salamanca, 1588).