When we look at this picture, drawn by hope and fancy, and then turn to the reality,--when we see Mexico as she is, the blankest failure of the century,--when we run over her forty years of anarchy, with its four constitutions and twenty-seven plans of government, with its bewildering array of presidents and dictators that come and go until the eye is wearied and the memory fails to preserve even their names,--when we behold her the helpless victim of any power that chooses to assail her,--when, in short, we compare the Mexico that is with the Mexico that was to be,--we ask ourselves, What are the causes which have made so many advantages worse than futile?--what fate has ordained that so much sacrifice and so much blood should be lavished, and in vain? That is the very question we seek to answer. * * * * * We begin with what is the true foundation of all national fortunes, the character and social relations of the people. It is the profound remark of a profound man, that "you can create no national spirit where no nation is." That is at the root of Mexico's troubles. She is not in any proper sense a nation. All her sufferings have not as yet moulded her diverse elements into any real and efficient unity. Modern Mexico, dating from the Conquest, was founded, not upon social unity, but upon the widest social divergence. At one end of the scale, high up in luxury and pride, was the Spanish Conqueror and oppressor. At the other, deep down as degradation could go, the crushed and cowering descendant of the native races. Between them the half-bloods, with the vices of both and the virtues of neither. The Spaniard did all that he could to dig deep and broad this gulf of separation between the classes, and to make it perpetual. As if to stamp inequality in biting phrase upon men's speech, he called the whites people with reason, the Indians people without reason.