These peoples would contribute to the defence of the Latin ideal. But is not this an excessive ambition for nations still semi-barbarous? The old races of the West contemplate their impetuous advance with much the same distrust as that which Rome experienced as she watched the turbulent migrations of Goths and Germans. And even if the Latin race could check its irremediable decadence by the aid of the wealth and youth of these American peoples, would it really be profitable to oppose the triumph of the Anglo-Saxons and the Slavs for the sake of saving a fallen caste? Seventy years ago Tocqueville visited the United States and divined their future greatness. To-day M. Clemenceau, a politician and a great admirer of the North American Republic, praises the Latin vigour, as he sees it in Buenos-Ayres, Uruguay, and Rio de Janeiro. The Yankee republic has realised the prophecies of the former critic, and it would not be strange if the southern democracies of America were to confirm the optimism of the latter. A new energy, undeniable material progress, and a fertile creative faith announce the advent, in the new continent, if not of the Eldorado of which the hungry emigrant dreams, at least of wealthy nations, rich in industry and agriculture; the advent of a world in which the glorious age of the exhausted Latin world may renew itself, as in the classic fountain. When Emerson visited England fifty years ago he declared that the heart of the Britannic race was in the United States, and that {395} the "mother island," exhausted, would some day, like many parents, be satisfied with the vigour which she had bestowed upon her own children.[2] In speaking of Spain and Portugal, might not Argentines, Brazilians, and Chilians employ the same proud language? The decadence of the Latins, which seems obvious to the sociologist, may really be only a long period of abeyance. The adventures in which such an exuberant force of heroism was expended might well result in a reaction, a weariness after creation. At the beginning of the modern period, in the sixteenth century, the English, undisciplined adventurers, were hostile to the regularity and monotony of industrial life; in the nineteenth century they built an empire, organised a powerful industrialism, and became slow and methodical; and in 1894 Dr. Karl Pearson was uneasy as to "the decadence of British energy which is revealed by the adoption of State socialism and by the poverty of mechanical invention."[3] In the future the Latins may regain their old virility. The _ricorsi_ which Vico saw in history cause certain peoples to recover the pre-eminence they have lost, while others, prosperous nations, fall back into decadence; no privilege is eternal, no reaction is irremediable and inevitable. "Multa renascentur quæ jam cecidere, cadentque Quæ nunc sunt in honore...."