To this system correspond the political groups without programmes; men do not struggle for the triumph of ideas, but for that of certain individuals. The consecrated terms lose their traditional meaning. There are civilists who uphold militarism; liberals who strive to increase the presidential authority; nationalists who favour cosmopolitanism; constitutionalists who violate the political charter. The personal system groups conservatives and liberals together. Even in Chili, where the activity of the parties has been unusually continuous, the older parties have split up into shapeless factions. The President establishes his despotic authority over the {369} confusion of these rival groups; he tries to dissolve the small factions, to divide them, in order to rule them. Without ideals or unity of action the parties are transformed into greedy cliques, which are distinguished by the colour of their favours. As in Byzantium, so in Venezuela, the Blues struggle against the Yellows, while in Uruguay the Whites oppose the Reds, red being the distinctive colour of the Argentine federalists. An aggressive intolerance divides these groups; they gather round their _gonfaloniere_ and their party symbol in irreducible factions. No common interest can reconcile them, not even that of their native country. Each party supports a leader, an interest, a dogma; on the one side a man beholds his own party, the missionaries of truth and culture; the other are his enemies, mercenary and corrupt. Each group believes that it seeks to retain the supremacy in the name of disinterested virtue and patriotism. Rosas used to call his opponents "infamous savages." For the gang in possession of power, the revolutionaries are malefactors; for the latter the ruling party are merely a government of thieves and tyrants. There are gods of good and evil, as in the Oriental theogonies. Educated in the Roman Church, Americans bring into politics the absolutism of religious dogmas; they have no conception of toleration. The dominant party prefers to annihilate its adversaries, to realise the complete unanimity of the nation; the hatred of one's opponents is the first duty of the prominent politician. The opposition can hardly pretend to fill a place of influence in the assemblies, or slowly to acquire power. It is only by violence that the parties can emerge from the condition of ostracism in which they are held by the faction in power, and it is by violence that they return to that condition. Apart from the rule of the _caudillos_ the political lie is {370} triumphant; the freedom of the suffrage is only a platonic promise inscribed in the Constitution; the elections are the work of the Government; there is no public opinion. Journalism, almost always opportunist, merely reflects the indecision of the parties. Political statutes and social conditions contradict each other; the former proclaim equality, and there are many races; there is