Chapter III
the Evolution of Philosophy
Bello—Hostos—The influence of England—Positivism—The influence of Spencer and Fouillée—The sociologists.
The democracies of America have not created new systems of philosophy; they have rather contributed, with Emerson and William James in the United States, to propound the old problems in a new light. Politics and history have been the occupation of intelligent men. To pure speculation they have preferred the patient study of the past, and the impassioned analysis of the conflicts of the day.
Yet they adopted European theories from the earliest years of the Republic: those of the French ideologists, Cabanis and Laromiguière were the predominant influences in some schools, while the influence of England extended from Central America to Chili. With that influence went a moderate utilitarianism, a bold analysis of the doctrines of political and economic liberty. England contributed to the liberty of America in Montevideo as in Colombia; with the English gold which the revolutionaries received the English philosophic radicalism entered the country. Jurists and politicians profited by its lessons, and certain of the thinkers of America freed themselves from the shackles of the peripatetic school under the influence of the Scottish philosophers. Thus Ventura Martin and José-Joaquin de Mora in Chili and Alcorta in the Argentine. With Andrès Bello, poet and legislator, philosopher and philologist, these doctrines acquired a great importance. His Philosophy of the Understanding was inspired by Reid and Hamilton. In England he had known James Mill, and some of his ideas upon the inductive method and causality recall the doctrines of John Stuart Mill, the son of James. Bello was especially noted for the vigour of his logic and his analysis of the phenomena of consciousness, his penetrating psychology, and his positivism, which caused him to disdain anything in the nature of metaphysics. His conservative spirit accepted the Catholic dogmas, while his critical faculty was checked by them; what his implacable analysis destroyed his religious temperament reconstructed. He believed in perception, liberty, and the reality of the external world, and in a first cause; he transformed grammar by his psychological analysis, and by his positivism civil law and the law of nations. His excessive critical faculty sometimes ran to super-fine abstraction, to an intellectual algebra. Bello passed from ideology to positivism, from Destutt de Tracy to Stuart; Mill, by way of the Scottish philosophers. His admirable grammatical and juridical efforts may be attributed to his mastery of English analysis and realism.
After Bello, the most remarkable of South American philosophers was Eugenio de Hostos, who was born in 1839. He did not merely expound European ideas; he had his own system, which he developed in a series of remarkable works; he was a moralist rather than a metaphysician, and whether in San Domingo or Lima or Santiago he never ceased his endeavours to reform education and the law. Problems, social and moral, gave him no rest; he sought to found a new morality and sociology.
Hostos might be called an optimistic rationalist. He believed in an ideal world. Science, according to him, is an efficacious agent of virtue. He thought it possible to discipline the will by teaching what is true. Good is not a metaphysical entity nor duty an imperative; the two together constitute a "natural order." A profound harmony exists between man and the world he lives in, and the moral law is merely the revelation in the consciousness of the geometry of things. For Hostos the world was just, logical, and full of reason; an internal law, lex insita, was manifested in the sidereal harmonies as in virtuous actions.
The moral ideal is therefore merely the adaptation of conduct to the inevitable and harmonious relations of things. Does not this optimism recall the morality of Spencer, the rigorous ethics of Spinoza, and the thought of Cournot, that "the philosophical basis of morality is the idea of conformity to the universal order"?
The founders of the Republic were formed by scholasticism. In the old universities men debated in language bristling with syllogisms. A free philosophic doctrine which accepted all the Catholic verities—immortality, free will, and Providence—and explained them with a fiery eloquence, was the reaction against this school, whose thought was crystallised in variable forms; this philosophy corresponded to the romanticism of the politicians, to their faith in democracy, liberty, and human progress.
In Spanish America French ideas predominated; in Brazil, German thought. Tobias Barreto and Sylvio Romero propagated this culture in the place of a colourless eclecticism; the first was a disciple of the German philosophers, the second popularised Spencer, without neglecting the Germans. In his German studies Barreto adopted the monism of Ludwig Noiré: "The universe is composed of atoms, absolutely equal, which are endowed with two properties: the one, which is internal, is sensation; the other, which is external, is movement." This is the metaphysics of the Brazilian thinker, and such was his influence that, according to a critic, "the theories of Comte and Noiré explain modern intellectual Brazil." Sylvio Romero expounded the evolutionary theories of Spencer, "a philosophic monument even more important than that of Comte"; but in spite of the efforts of this disciple Spencer is not as popular in Brazil as in other American nations.
Barreto, a monist and philosopher, was a disciple of the judicial finalism of Jhering; Sylvio Romano, a disciple of Spencer, expounded and supported the conclusions of the social science of Demolins; in the scientific ardour of these propagandists doctrines were assembled together which had no mutual affinity. In Brazil all exotic philosophies find their readers and commentators, but the confusion caused by incoherent imitations completely lacks the unity of a national tendency. A psychologist of great value, a free follower of Renan, Joachim Nabuco, in a style full of subtlety, writes essays in philosophy and criticism.
A Spanish philosopher, less rigid than the schoolmen and richer in doctrine than the eclectics, Balmes engrossed many minds which were fatigued by sterile eloquence. He founded no school in America, but he is much read by the conservatives. His penetrating analysis, his British realism, and his rationalism, which seeks to harmonise these faculties with his dogmas, attract many who are repelled by a diffuse spirituality.
These various tendencies—English empiricism, French eclecticism, Benthamism—are not very profound intellectual movements. They have replaced the old scholasticism. A political ideology is wanted which shall be adequate to the needs of those who are struggling for power; metaphysical discussions are relegated to oblivion.
JOSE ENRIQUE RODÓ (URUGUAY).
Contemporary critic and essayist.
Positivism was the first philosophy to impress men's intellects; it has created great social movements, such as the Reformation in Mexico and the Republic in Brazil. It became an intellectual dictatorship, a new scholasticism. Free-thinkers believe in Comte and Spencer; in the humanitarian religion of the first and the agnosticism of the second.
Comte, to quote Mill, founded a complete system of spiritual despotism. It upholds order and authority as against the abuses of individualism, "the energetic preponderance of the central power"; it condemns "anarchy, and destructive liberalism"; it exalts "the eminently social genius of Catholicism." In nations annihilated by revolution and a romantic freedom these theories are liable to justify dictatorship, as they did in Brazil. There the Comtian phrase "order and progress" has become the national watchword.
Other causes explain the supremacy of positivism; a reaction against theology in the name of science, and against a vague and official philosophy. Minds formed by Catholicism, even if they have lost their faith, demand secular dogmas, and verities organised in a facile system: in short, a new faith, and the Positivist philosophy satisfies this craving. At the same time material progress, based upon scientific development, and the utilitarianism which exaggerates the importance of wealth, find in positivism, which disdains futile ideologies, a system adequate to industrial life.
In Mexico, Brazil, and Chili positivism in its integrity is predominant: the philosophic method and the religion of humanity. In Brazil the positivist school, with Constant, d'Araujo, Bastos, and their disciples, preserves the calendar, the secular saints, and the rites of the founder. It produces teachers and creates political constitutions like that of Rio Grande do Sul, and ardently propagates the doctrines of Comte. In Chili, Juan Enrique Lagarigue preached a generous idealism, and the oblivion of patriotic hatreds; but the democracy did not give ear to this ingenuous apostle. In Mexico Barreda, founder of the Preparatory College, and the leader of intellectual life, was a disciple of Comte in Paris from the year 1867. He revolutionised Mexican education in a positivist direction, but did not accept the religious aspect of the new philosophy. There is still in Mexico a Positivist Review, which has a certain small influence.
Comtism influenced thinkers as a method, as a reaction against theology and metaphysics, and as a goal of pedagogy. But the philosophy of Spencer is that which has sent its roots deepest into the life of the Latin republics; progress, the cardinal idea of the romantics, is succeeded by evolution, a doctrine more agreeable to the positivist intelligence. Since 1880 the theories of Spencer have made converts of two generations; in some universities they constitute an official system. No application has been made of his psychology nor his biology, but his social and moral teaching has been followed with servility. Politicians and journalists employ Spencerian formulæ: the social organism, the instability of the homogeneous, differentiation, the relativity of consciousness. In 1883 a Colombian politician, Rafael Nuñez, President of his country, expounded the philosophy of Spencer to his fellow-citizens as a remedy for the political dogmatism of his predecessors. American statesmen might readily have asked the philosopher of evolution for scientific suggestions, as did the Japanese.
Under the influence of the English thinker the scientific period was ushered in. The study of social science is beginning; men profess a materialism or a positivism hostile to the older ontological ideas; they believe in science even more than in the sciences, in the rational explanation of all mysteries, in the supremacy of mathematics and physics. Various influences are at work, and the confused result thereof favours the triumph of positivism. The political and social theories of Dr. Gustave Le Bon, the impetuous writings of Max Nordau, the criminology of Lombroso and Ferri, the formulæ of Taine, the biology and sociology of Letourneau, are studied and commented upon in the universities, the parliaments, and the schools of South America. Eloquence is repudiated as contrary to scientific precision, and romantic faith is disdained by the positivist. A party which has ruled over the evolution of Mexico for the last thirty years has named itself the "Scientific Party."
The significance of these doctrines rapidly acquired an excessive importance; in place of lucid methods and clear ideas we find the teaching of the professors full of the narrowness of dogma. Positivism implants a limited and vulgar rationalism, a new metaphysic which accords an absolute truth to the formulæ of science; which exalts egoism and practical interests, and the frantic pursuit of wealth in daily life. The tendency of the American mind being undue simplification, this philosophy has not been a discipline of knowledge and action, but has limited the effort of man to the conquest of the useful. The positivists organise plutocratic tyrannies in certain American nations.
Without reigning in the schools as Spencer has done, a French philosopher, M. Fouillée, has greatly influenced law, politics, and education. In spite of the reign of positivism his flexible doctrine has attracted many Americans, and his works, such as the Idée du Droit and the Histoire de la Philosophie, are coming into use as text-books in some universities. The theory of unavoidable ideas is well known; and thinkers and philosophers have been inspired by this "philosophy of hope." By its noble idealism, by its admirable wealth, its serene rationalism, and its essentially Latin character, the harmonious system of M. Fouillée has won considerable popularity among the youth of America.
We cannot separate his influence from that of the young poet-philosopher whom a premature death has consecrated: Guyau was the professor of idealism to two generations of America. In Ariel José-Enrique Rodo has enlarged upon his finest metaphors; and a Peruvian thinker, Gonzalez Prada, has popularised the suggestions of this Platonic thinker upon death.
Nietzsche also has disciples and commentators. Translated into Spanish and vulgarised, his doctrines are the Bible of exasperated egoism. Men saw nothing of his stoicism, his worship of heroic life and tragic adventures; "concussionary" ministers and half-breeds aspiring to power believe themselves Nietzschians, because in their immoral advancement they ignore all moral scruples. A generation above good and evil is practising opportunism—what the French call "arrivism"—disorganising philosophy and society, and forgetting the code of human dignity.
Fouillée, Guyau, and Nietzsche have not supplanted the positivist philosophers; the superstition of science and the hatred of metaphysical construction is still prevalent. All the new doctrines are making their way: pragmatism, Bergsonism, the philosophy of Wundt and Croce, the philosophy of contingency: without, however, creating new tendencies. From this variety of imitations perhaps an American system will arise. To-day every intellectual novelty is passionately received and applied; an Argentine judge has even founded some of his judgments upon the teaching of Tarde.
A reaction is setting in against dogmatic positivism; the present is a period of dissolution and criticism. In accepting influences so various—English, German, and French—the old faith in science, in Comte and Spencer, is evaporating. Two young philosophers, Antonio Caso in Mexico and Henriquez Ureña in San Domingo, have contributed to this analysis. Inspired by the ideas of M. Emile Boutroux, they attack the narrow interpretation of scientific laws.
Thus after thirty years of influence, positivism is losing its prestige. It is not being replaced in the schools by any rigid system; but in place of an intolerant dogmatism we have a free examination of which we cannot yet foresee the consequences. Some essays of Enrique Varona, in his writings on morality and philosophy; of Carlos Octavio Bunge, in his Psicologia individual y social; of Vaz-Ferreira, in his critique of the problem of liberty; of Deustua, of Lima, in his essays on morality, reveal the fact that the new school is not lacking in a serious philosophical orientation. But originality, the new doctrine, the Ibero-American school—are these shortly to be realities? So long as these nations are still busy at the task of self-organisation in the midst of anarchical unrest, so long as the cult of wealth prevails above all disinterested efforts, so long we shall assuredly have no other philosophy than an adaptation of foreign systems.
But in the new movements philosophical speculation is losing its old simplicity; the study of psychology is developing, analysis is more profound, the old verbal solutions are rejected, and the study of societies is acquiring an extraordinary importance.
Half a century ago books on political science swarmed. The same pragmatic preoccupation—the adaptation of scientific ideas to the uses of social life—prevails to-day.
Many sociologists are inspired by biology, or psychology, or historical materialism. Cornejo, in Peru, is adopting the psychological theories of Wundt, his analysis of language, myth, and custom. Letelier, in Chili, inclines toward the positivism of Comte; Ramos Mejia, in the Argentine, explains social phenomena in a biological sense. His books, La Locura en la Historia, Las Masas Argentinas, reveal this tendency. Ingegnieros has studied the history of the Argentine in relation to the economic factor. His work, De la Barbarie al Imperalismo, is an essay in Marxist sociology.
To sum up; social science preoccupies our thinkers rather than pure philosophy. Neither the great German idealists nor the critics and thinkers are known in America; neither Hume, nor Kant, nor Hegel, although the Spanish orator Emilio Castelar has propagated a Hegelianism ad usum delphini in the new continent. The pessimism of Schopenhauer does not acclimatise itself in the tropics. Eclecticism, positivism, and spiritualism prevail.
ALCIDES ARGUEDAS (BOLIVIA).
Novelist and sociologist.