Art. 7.-THE PROMISE OF LATIN AMERICA.

1. The South American Series. Edited by Martin Hume. London: Fisher Unwin. Chile, by G. F. Scott Elliott, 1907. Peru, by C. R. Enock, 1908. Mexico, by C. R. Enock, 1909. Argentina, by W. A. Hirst, 1910.

2. A History of South America. By C. E. Akers. London: Murray, 1904.

3. Through Five Republics. By P. F. Martin. London: Heinemann, 1905.

4. Mexico of the Twentieth Century. By P. F. Martin. Two vols. London: Arnold, 1907.

5. The Republic of Colombia. London: Stanford, 1906.

By F. Loraine Petre.

6. Argentina, Past and Present. By W. H. Koebel. New and enlarged edition. London : Kegan Paul, 1910. 7. The Rise and Progress of the South American Republics. By G. R. Crichfield. Two vols. London: Unwin, 1909. 8. The Great States of South America. By Domville Fife. London: Unwin, 1910.

And other works.

THE large number of works published during the past five or six years upon the republics of Latin America furnishes a conclusive proof of the interest felt in the subject of which they treat. The list given above is representative of those that have recently appeared, but is far from exhaustive. There are several reasons for such a display of interest at the present time. In the first place the great advance in prosperity of the four leading Latin American States, Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Brazil, and the proof that has been afforded of the latent resources and bright prospects of these countries under stable government, has attracted universal attention to them as fields for investment, trade and settlement. In the second place, there is at the present time no portion of the earth's surface less known than large areas of the vast and imperfectly explored interior of the South American continent, and none with more remarkable and grandiose physical features. The giant Cordilleras of the Andes, running without a break parallel to the Pacific coast for 3500 miles and at no great distance from it, teem with mineral wealth and form the watershed of

Pascal had become a changed man in response to a sudden supernatural experience, as by a vision of fire, on lines which, a century afterwards, staid ecclesiastics denounced as enthusiasm and Methodism. His 'Thoughts' are an apology for this ecstatic way of finding salvation; they yield us the Puritan philosophy, disengaged from Calvin's terms, and set out in a language not technical but intensely human. It is their very simplicity which has made his reasonings difficult to follow on the part of learned Christians and men of the world. For he takes no account of learning, while he supposes in the disciple he would win a religious instinct which the worldling, as such, cannot comprehend. It is true that he begins by clearing the ground, or by a destructive criticism of the apologetics in fashion. And he borrows his weapons, ready made, from Montaigne, whose extreme repugnance to the Gospel was cloaked under an affectation of respect, and who severed it from reason that he might allow it to perish on the rocks of fanaticism. Pascal went along with him one mile, but turned off at the second. In plain words, the sceptic and the Puritan both agree that human nature, left to itself, has neither knowledge nor love of divine things. But whereas the sceptic rests in this as his final conclusion, to the Puritan it is a mere preliminary; he is not dismayed when told that the natural man is blind and deaf, nay, dead to religion. He never dreamt it was otherwise. Accordingly, Pascal makes a clean sweep of rational theology, and with it of the apologetics taught in the schools. Nor does he spare Descartes. All must go, the argument from design, the geometrical method, the appeal to unbiassed reason. His apology is not a chapter in abstract or impersonal science; it is a call to everlasting life.

To establish religion in its own power, on an experience and principles peculiar to itself, was, he would contend, the only means of setting it free from dogmatists who ground it into notions, and of protecting it against sceptics by telling them frankly that, except through a miraculous change, they never could know it. In so doing, Pascal gave up the pretension of treating Christianity as something universal, as a matter of cool evidence and unprejudiced reflection. It was meant for the elect, not for all mankind. Natural religion did not

exist; and its arguments, for instance in Raymond de Sébonde, were not real proofs but meditations of a soul converted by grace which saw all things in God. From this coign of vantage, using our modern idiom, it would be true to maintain that an agnostic is nearer the Gospel than a rationalist. Like Jansen, this prophetic seer beheld the eighteenth century coming on with its Deism, its exaltation of man's original qualities, and its rosetinted prospects of the future. By anticipation he was refuting Voltaire, Rousseau, and Paley. To the age of reason he opposed the age of faith. He could therefore depict humanity in the darkest colours of Lucretius and show forth nature as its cruel stepmother.

In this process we observe one, who by intellect was distinctly Greek, eliminating from religion all but the Hebrew elements to which it is indebted for its quality of revelation-the quality which distinguishes it from systems that are the offspring of man's own thought. When Pascal said, 'The heart has its reasons which reason does not understand,' he was echoing the language of the Old Testament; but he was also laying claim to a deeper logic than is taught in books. That other, larger apprehension, personal, though often repeated, was not mere feeling nor an 'idol of the cave.' For it took hold of experience; it was equal to the greatness and littleness of man; it brought joy out of sorrow and truth out of scepticism. Ideas were not its term, but real and eternal objects of which ideas could but faintly trace the outlines. In and through the mystery of Jesus' it solved all other mysteries, and the voice of religion thus made certain proclaimed the harmony of the world.

It would be tempting now to follow the fortunes of this Hebrew apologetic, opposed alike to speculation and unbelief, along its remarkable course. We should trace it in the ruin of natural theology which Kant undertook by his Critique of Pure Reason,' and in the appeal to experience of life and the moral law which governs his constructive efforts, though he sinks down to an almost impersonal idea of duty without God. We should see

Pascal beginning the journey towards agnosticism which has brought later French generations to the threshold of Auguste Comte, who finds the only oracle of truth in the Church of Humanity, discarding the supernatural because

the most magnificent river-systems in the world, navigable for tens of thousands of miles, and giving access even for large vessels to the far interior. The potentialities of this land of rich alluvial plains, of virgin tropical forests, of vast pastoral uplands, of almost fabulous abundance of the precious metals, invest it still with much of the fascination and romance of the unknown.

In the third place, the progress that is being made with the construction of the Panama Canal renders it practically certain that within a couple of decades the opening to commerce of that inter-oceanic waterway will revolutionise the conditions of trade and intercourse between the eastern and western States of the American continent; and, what is perhaps even more important, the distance of the ports on the Pacific coast from Liverpool and Hamburg will be shortened by many thousands of miles. The effect of such a change will be in any case enormous, and is a subject which should be studied in anticipation, in all its bearings, by every trading community. Lastly, the celebration of the centenary of Argentine independence, on May 25, 1910, followed, as it will be, in rapid succession by similar celebrations in the other Spanish-American republics, marks out the present time as one eminently suited for a serious review of the condition of these republics as they are to-day, in the light of their past experiences, with the aim of forming some reasonable estimate of their future prospects. In South America itself it is to be feared there will be little in the keeping of these centenaries suggestive of that subdued and chastened spirit which would be most in harmony with the retrospect they invite.

No impartial person who has studied, however cursorily, the history of the Spanish-American peoples during the century that has elapsed since they first rose in revolt against the mother-country, can fail to feel profound disappointment at the almost tragic misuse that has been made of splendid opportunities. Independence was everywhere followed by intestine convulsions and sanguinary strife. One set of military dictators after the other obtained possession of power by force of arms, and not infrequently used the power thus gained to further their own selfish interests to the injury of the State. Such was-with the partial exception of

Chile-universally the condition of things throughout Spanish America until, with the final advent to power of President Porfirio Diaz in 1884, Mexico began to set an example of steady and stable progress, which has been followed with happy results in Argentina and Chile, and has exercised a wholesome influence in Peru. In these three republics the period of violence and unrest has, it is to be hoped, definitely passed away. Wiser counsels and a saner spirit prevail, and are bringing an increased prosperity that is of good augury for the future. The other Spanish republics are unfortunately in various degrees still a field for the struggle of rival factions, or rather of small groups of politicians wrestling for the spoils of power. Uruguay, Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador, in the order named, are making a real advance; and, if only the dread of revolutions, with their attendant lowering of credit and destruction of property, could be finally abolished, this would remove, at the same time, what is at present the greatest obstacle to the full development of their resources. In the States which half encircle the Caribbean Sea, there are, as their recent history clearly testifies, no signs of improvement.

There could scarcely be a greater contrast than that which exists between the history of the United States of America in the century which followed its declaration of independence and the history of the republics of South America during a similar period. It is necessary, however, to point out that this contrast is due not only to the marked difference between the racial characteristics of English and Spanish colonists, but to other causes, and especially to this. The free population of the revolted English colonies was practically homogeneous; the free population of the Spanish colonies consisted of a mixture of races differing widely from one another— a population which was not a hundred years ago and is not to-day fused into a national type. The peoples of the South American republics are still peoples in the making. Meanwhile it is scarcely surprising that they should exhibit that instability of temperament which experience has shown to be generally the accompaniment of mixture of blood.

This vital distinction must not be ignored; and it has its origin far back in the fundamental differences of type