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 {280} 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. [Illustration: ALCIDES ARGUEDAS (BOLIVIA). Novelist and sociologist. To face p. 280.] {282} BOOK VI _THE LATIN SPIRIT AND THE GERMAN, NORTH AMERICAN, AND JAPANESE PERILS_