Other causes explain the supremacy of positivism; a reaction against theology in the name of science, and against a vague and official philosophy. Minds formed by Catholicism, even if they have lost their faith, demand secular dogmas, and verities organised in a facile system: in short, a new faith, and the Positivist philosophy satisfies this craving. At the same time material progress, based upon scientific development, and the utilitarianism which exaggerates the importance of wealth, find in positivism, which disdains futile ideologies, a system adequate to industrial life.
In Mexico, Brazil, and Chili positivism in its integrity is predominant: the philosophic method and the religion of humanity. In Brazil the positivist school, with Constant, d'Araujo, Bastos, and their disciples, preserves the calendar, the secular saints, and the rites of the founder. It produces teachers and creates political constitutions like that of Rio Grande do Sul, and ardently propagates the doctrines { 276} of Comte. In Chili, Juan Enrique Lagarigue preached a generous idealism, and the oblivion of patriotic hatreds; but the democracy did not give ear to this ingenuous apostle. In Mexico Barreda, founder of the Preparatory College, and the leader of intellectual life, was a disciple of Comte in Paris from the year 1867. He revolutionised Mexican education in a positivist direction, but did not accept the religious aspect of the new philosophy. There is still in Mexico a _Positivist Review_, which has a certain small influence.
Comtism influenced thinkers as a method, as a reaction against theology and metaphysics, and as a goal of pedagogy. But the philosophy of Spencer is that which has sent its roots deepest into the life of the Latin republics; progress, the cardinal idea of the romantics, is succeeded by evolution, a doctrine more agreeable to the positivist intelligence. Since 1880 the theories of Spencer have made converts of two generations; in some universities they constitute an official system. No application has been made of his psychology nor his biology, but his social and moral teaching has been followed with servility. Politicians and journalists employ Spencerian formulæ: the social organism, the instability of the homogeneous, differentiation, the relativity of consciousness. In 1883 a Colombian politician, Rafael Nuñez, President of his country, expounded the philosophy of Spencer to his fellow-citizens as a remedy for the political dogmatism of his predecessors. American statesmen might readily have asked the philosopher of evolution for scientific suggestions, as did the Japanese.