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, {277} 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.