The founders of the Republic were formed by scholasticism. In the old universities men debated in language bristling with syllogisms. A free philosophic doctrine which accepted all the Catholic verities—immortality, free will, and Providence—and explained them with a fiery eloquence, was the reaction against this school, whose thought was crystallised in variable forms; this philosophy corresponded to the romanticism of the politicians, to their faith in democracy, liberty, and human progress.
In Spanish America French ideas predominated; in Brazil, German thought. Tobias Barreto and Sylvio Romero propagated this culture in the place of a colourless eclecticism; the first was a disciple of the German philosophers, the second popularised Spencer, without neglecting the Germans. In his German studies Barreto adopted the monism of Ludwig Noiré: "The universe is composed of atoms, absolutely equal, which are endowed with two properties: the one, which is internal, is sensation; the other, which is external, is movement." This is the metaphysics of the Brazilian thinker, and such was his influence that, according to a critic, "the theories of Comte and Noiré explain modern intellectual Brazil." Sylvio Romero expounded the evolutionary theories of Spencer, "a philosophic monument even more important than that of Comte"; but in spite of the efforts of this disciple Spencer is not as popular in Brazil as in other American nations.
Barreto, a monist and philosopher, was a disciple of the judicial finalism of Jhering; Sylvio Romano, a disciple of Spencer, expounded and supported the conclusions of the social science of Demolins; in the scientific ardour of these propagandists doctrines were assembled together which had no mutual affinity. In Brazil all exotic philosophies find their readers and commentators, but the confusion caused by incoherent imitations completely lacks the unity of a national tendency. A psychologist of great value, a free follower of Renan, Joachim Nabuco, in a style full of subtlety, writes essays in philosophy and criticism.
A Spanish philosopher, less rigid than the schoolmen and richer in doctrine than the eclectics, Balmes engrossed many minds which were fatigued by sterile eloquence. He founded no school in America, but he is much read by the conservatives. His penetrating analysis, his British realism, and his rationalism, which seeks to harmonise these faculties with his dogmas, attract many who are repelled by a diffuse spirituality.
These various tendencies—English empiricism, French eclecticism, Benthamism—are not very profound intellectual movements. They have replaced the old scholasticism. A political ideology is wanted which shall be adequate to the needs of those who are struggling for power; metaphysical discussions are relegated to oblivion.
JOSE ENRIQUE RODÓ (URUGUAY).
Contemporary critic and essayist.
Positivism was the first philosophy to impress men's intellects; it has created great social movements, such as the Reformation in Mexico and the Republic in Brazil. It became an intellectual dictatorship, a new scholasticism. Free-thinkers believe in Comte and Spencer; in the humanitarian religion of the first and the agnosticism of the second.