The examples of San Domingo and the Sandwich Islands are conclusive. But I cannot leave this part of my subject without touching on a similar instance, of a peculiar character, which strongly supports my view. I cited first a State where the institutions, imposed by Protestant preachers, are a mere childish copy of the British system. I then spoke of a government, materially free, but spiritually bound by European theories; which it tries to carry out, with fatal consequences for the unhappy population. I will now bring forward an instance of quite a different kind; I mean the attempt of the Jesuits to civilize the natives of Paraguay.[[21]]

These missionaries have been universally praised for their fine courage and lofty intelligence. The bitterest enemies of the Order have not been able to withhold a warm tribute of admiration for them. If any institutions imposed on a nation from without ever had a chance of success, it was certainly those of the Jesuits, based as they were on a powerful religious sentiment, and supported by all the links of association that could be devised by an exact and subtle knowledge of human nature. The Fathers were persuaded, as so many others have been, that barbarism occupies the same place in the life of peoples as infancy does in the life of a man; and that the more rudeness and savagery a nation shows, the younger it really is.

In order, then, to bring their neophytes to the adult stage, they treated them like children, and gave them a despotic government, which was as unyielding in its real aims, as it was mild and gracious in its outward appearance. The savage tribes of America have, as a rule, democratic tendencies; monarchy and aristocracy are rarely seen among them, and then only in a very limited form. The natural character of the Guaranis, among whom the Jesuits came, did not differ in this respect from that of the other tribes. Happily, however, their intelligence was relatively higher, and their ferocity perhaps a little less, than was the case with most of their neighbours; they had, too, in some degree, the power of conceiving new needs. About a hundred and twenty thousand souls were collected together in the mission villages, under the control of the Fathers. All that experience, unremitting study, and the living spirit of charity had taught the Jesuits, was now drawn upon; they made untiring efforts to secure a quick, though lasting, success. In spite of all their care, they found that their absolute power was not sufficient to keep their scholars on the right road, and they had frequent proofs of the want of solidity in the whole structure.

The proof was complete, when in an evil hour the edict of the Count of Aranda ended the reign of piety and intelligence in Paraguay. The Guaranis, deprived of their spiritual guides, refused to trust the laymen set over them by the Crown of Spain. They showed no attachment to their new institutions. They felt once more the call of the savage life, and to-day, with the exception of thirty-seven straggling little villages on the banks of the Parana, the Paraguay, and the Uruguay—villages in which the population is, no doubt, partly hybrid—the rest of the tribes have returned to the woods, and live there in just as wild a state as the western tribes of the same stock, Guaranis and Cirionos. I do not say that they keep all the old customs in their original form, but at any rate their present ones show an attempt to revive the ancient practices, and are directly descended from them; for no human race can be unfaithful to its instincts, and leave the path that has been marked out for it by God. We may believe that if the Jesuits had continued to direct their missions in Paraguay, their efforts would, in the course of time, have had better results. I admit it; but, in accordance with our universal law, this could only have happened on one condition—that a series of European settlements should have been gradually made in the country under the protection of the Jesuits. These settlers would have mingled with the natives, have first modified and then completely changed their blood. A State would have arisen, bearing perhaps a native name and boasting that it had sprung from the soil; but it would actually have been as European as its own institutions.

This is the end of my argument as to the relation between institutions and races.

CHAPTER VI
NATIONS, WHETHER PROGRESSING OR STAGNATING, ARE INDEPENDENT OF THE REGIONS IN WHICH THEY LIVE

I must now consider whether the development of peoples is affected (as many writers have asserted) by climate, soil, or geographical situation. And although I have briefly touched on this point in speaking of environment,[[22]] I should be leaving a real gap in my theory if I did not discuss it more thoroughly.

Suppose that a nation lives in a temperate climate, which is not hot enough to sap its energies, or cold enough to make the soil unproductive; that its territory contains large rivers, wide roads suitable for traffic, plains and valleys capable of varied cultivation, and mountains filled with rich veins of ore—we are usually led to believe that a nation so favoured by nature will be quick to leave the stage of barbarism, and will pass, with no difficulty, to that of civilization.[[23]] We are just as ready to admit, as a corollary, that the tribes which are burnt by the sun or numbed by the eternal ice will be much more liable to remain in a savage state, living as they do on nothing but barren rocks. It goes without saying, that on this hypothesis, mankind is capable of perfection only by the help of material nature, and that its value and greatness exist potentially outside itself. This view may seem attractive at first sight, but it has no support whatever from the facts of observation.

Nowhere is the soil more fertile, the climate milder, than in certain parts of America. There is an abundance of great rivers. The gulfs, the bays, the harbours, are large, deep, magnificent, and innumerable. Precious metals can be dug out almost at the surface of the ground. The vegetable world yields in abundance, and almost of its own accord, the necessaries of life in the most varied forms; while the animals, most of which are good for food, are a still more valuable source of wealth. And yet the greater part of this happy land has been occupied, for centuries, by peoples who have not succeeded, to the slightest extent, in exploiting their treasures.

Some have started on the road to improvement. In more than one place we come upon an attenuated kind of culture, a rudimentary attempt to extract the minerals. The traveller may still, to his surprise, find a few useful arts being practised with a certain ingenuity. But all these efforts are very humble and uncoordinated; they are certainly not the beginnings of any definite civilization. In the vast territory between Lake Erie and the Gulf of Mexico, the River Missouri and the Rocky Mountains,[[24]] there certainly existed, in remote ages, a nation which has left remarkable traces of its presence. The remains of buildings, the inscriptions engraved on rocks, the tumuli,[[25]] the mummies, show that it had reached an advanced state of mental culture. But there is nothing to prove a very close kinship between this mysterious people and the tribes that now wander over its tombs. Suppose, if you will, that there was some relation between them, whether by way of blood or of slavery, and that thus the natives of to-day did learn from the ancient lords of the country, the first rudiments of the arts they practise so imperfectly; this only makes us wonder the more that they should have found it impossible to carry any further what they had been taught. In fact, this would supply one more reason for my belief that not every people would be capable of civilization, even if it chose the most favoured spot on earth as its settlement.