Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T17:11:52.177Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Early Positivistic Thought and Ideological Conflict in Chile

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Thomas Bader*
Affiliation:
San Fernando Valley State College, Northridge, California

Extract

Although virtually unstudied, the introduction of the philosophy of positivism into Chile acted as a catalyst upon the development of that country during the decade before the War of the Pacific. Scholars have given appropriate attention to the influence of positivism as it became significant in other Latin American countries during the eighteen-seventies, and Leopold Zea has discussed the importance of that philosophic system in Chile during the years which followed the west coast conflict of 1879-1883. However, despite the ever increasing number of articles and monographs dealing with positivism, the historians of Latin America have ignored the philosophy's growth in the Republic of Chile before the war and the effect of that growth upon the ideologies already extant in the Pacific coast nation.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1970

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See, for example, Costa, Joâo Cruz, A History of Ideas in Brazil (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1964), pp. 82202 Google Scholar; and, Zea, Leopoldo, El Positivismo en México (Mexico, 1943).Google Scholar

2 Zea, Leopoldo, The Latin American Mind (Norman, Oklahoma, 1963), Chapter 2, Part II.Google Scholar In Chapter 2, Part I, Zea discussed the developing philosophic views of José Lastarria as he first contacted Comtean positivism in 1868; Zea, however, did not relate Lastarria's adoption of the philosophy to the historical patters of Chile during those years.

3 For an interesting discussion of the political importance of the Latin American pensador, see Stabb, Martin S., In Quest of Identity (Chapel Hill, 1967), pp. 37.Google Scholar

4 For Comtean positivism see Charlton, D.G., Positivistic Thought in Prance, 1852–1870 (Oxford, 1959).Google Scholar

5 The importance of such scientific work to the positivists is demonstrated throughout the periodical Philosophe Positive edited by Littré, Emile and Wyrouboff, G. (31 vols.; Paris, 1867–1883).Google Scholar

6 David, C.G., A Positivistic Primer (New York, 1871), p. 49.Google Scholar

7 As quoted in Stromberg, Roland N., An Intellectual History of Modern Europe (New York, 1966), p. 266.Google Scholar

8 See Simon, Walter M., “Spencer and Social Organization,” Journal of the History of Ideas (April-June, 1960), pp. 294299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 The “Law of Three Stages” was the belief that society passed through three distinct periods: the theological, the metaphysical and the scientific. The French positivists placed greater emphasis upon this concept than others did.

10 Here see the discussion and analysis in Zea, Latin American Mind, Chapter 2, Part I.

11 Lastarria, José Victorino, La América (Santiago, 1867), p. 93.Google Scholar

12 Lastarria, José Victorino, Recuerdos literarios: Datos para la historia (Santiago, 1885), p. 271.Google Scholar See also Cifuentes, Abdón, Memorias (2 vols.; Santiago, 1936), 1, 209,Google Scholar for supporting evidence that Lastarria knew little, if anything, of Comtean positivism until 1868. Lastarria, however, had been introduced to the patterns of positivism long before that year. Zorobabel Rodríguez, a leading conservative pensador in Chile, described Lastarria as having followed successively utilitarianism, Krausism, and finally positivism, and thus, having accepted first Bentham, then Ahrens, and ultimately, Comte as the prophet of truth. See Rodríguez, Zorobabel, Miscelanea Literaria, Política, Relijiosa (2 vols.; Santiago, 1876), 1, 9.Google Scholar Krausism was the philosophie system developed by Karl Krause (1781–1832), a younger contemporary of Immanuel Kant. In the philosophy the individual came to understand the God-principle through a pantheistic awareness of the world. The philosophy was introduced into Argentina during the middle 1860s; as Lastarria was in Buenos Aires during those years, it seems possible that he learned of the philosophy at that time. For Krausism, see Morillas, Juan López, El Krausismo español (Mexico and Buenos Aires, 1956).Google Scholar

13 The “Generation of Forty-Two” took its name from the establishment of the National University of Chile in that year, and the intellectually catalyzing debate of Andrés Bello and Domingo Sarmiento concerning the purpose and the role of education; see Donoso, Armando, Sarmiento en el destierro (Buenos Aires, 1927).Google Scholar

14 MacKenna, Benjamín Vicuña, Los Girondinos chilenos (Santiago, 1902 Google Scholar [original publication in 1874]), p. 8.

15 Lastarria, José Victorino, “Discurso de 1842” quoted in Zea, , Latin American Mind, p. 125.Google Scholar See also Lastarria, , Recuerdos, p. 98.Google Scholar

16 See, for example, Lastarria, , Recuerdos, p. 243.Google Scholar

17 MacKenna, Vicuña, Girondinos, pp. 911.Google Scholar

18 Lastarria, , Recuerdos, pp. 7374.Google Scholar

19 José Lastarria to Miguel Luis Amunátegui, June 3, 1865; in Solar, Domingo Amunátegui (ed.), Archivo epistolar de don Miguel Luis Amunátegui (2 vols.; Santiago, 1942), 1, 163.Google Scholar

20 Lastarria, , Recuerdos, p. 272.Google Scholar

21 Montt, Miguel Cruchaga, Tratado elemental de economía política (Madrid, 1928 [first published in Santiago, 1867]), p. 68.Google Scholar

22 Lastarria, , Recuerdos, p. 245.Google Scholar

23 Ibid., pp. 434–450.

24 See Lastarria’s address of April 26, 1873, to the Academia, Ibid., p. 492. Members of the Academy included Lastarria, Diego Barros Arana, Miguel Luis Amunátegui, Benjamín Vicuña MacKenna, Valentín Letelier, and Juan Enrique Lagarrigue. Another such club was the Society of Enlightenment which, after 1874, became one of the centers for the orthodox positiviste; see Zea, , Latin American Mind, pp. 148149.Google Scholar

25 Hernández, Leortardo Fuentealba, Courcelle-Seneuil en Chile (Santiago, 1945), p. 10.Google Scholar

26 For Lastarria, see his Lecciones de Política Positiva (Santiago, 1874), p. 36; for Rodríguez, see Hernández, Fuentealba, Courcelle-Seneuil, p. 35 Google Scholar; for Cruchaga Montt, see the Prologue to the 1928 edition of his Tratado, p. viii.

27 For the quotation see Hernández, Fuentealba, Courcelle-Seneuil, p. 19 Google Scholar; for a provocative general discussion see Rodríguez, , Miscelanea, 1, 32, 33.Google Scholar The early trade policies of the republic are considered in Will, Robert M., “The Introduction of Classical Economics into Chile,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 44 (1964), 121 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and, Kinsbruner, Jay, “A Comment on the Exclusiveness of Protection in Chilean Economics at Mid-Nineteenth Century,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 45 (1965), 591594.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28 Lastarria, , Lecciones, pp. 36, 38, 42.Google Scholar

29 Ibid., p. 114.

30 See Zea, Latin American Mind, Chapter 2, passim.

31 Lastarria, , Lecciones, p. 40.Google Scholar

32 Among many would be the following: Amunátegui, Miguel Luis, La Crónica de 1810 (3 vols.; Santiago, 1876–1879)Google Scholar; de la Barra, Eduardo, Francisco Bilbao ante la sacristía (Santiago, 1872)Google Scholar; Arana, Diego Barros, Historia Jeneral de Chile (16 vols.; Santiago, 1884)Google Scholar; and, Benjamín Vicuña MacKenna, Los Girondinos.

33 Lastarria, , La América, pp. 50, 223.Google Scholar See also Zea, , Latin American Mind, pp. 140144,Google Scholar and Lastarria, , Recuerdos, p. 358.Google Scholar

34 Such a focus of Latin American positivists certainly is not unique to Chile. See, for examples, the following: Miller, Hubert J.Positivism and Educational Reforms in Guatemala,” Journal of Church and State, 7, No. 2 (Spring, 1966), 251263 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Karl M. Schmitt, “The Mexican Positivists and the Church-State Question,” ibid., 200–213. Miller notes on page 255 that the newspaper El Guatemalteco (Guatemala City), February 12, 1874, argued that Guatemala should pattern a revised educational program upon the ideas advanced by José Victorino Lastarria.

35 Domingo Santa María to José V. Lastarria, July 30, 1865, in Revista Chilena, Nos. 1–5 (1917), 93. For the general background of the question, see Schofield, Julian E., The Religious Issue in Chilean Politics, 1860–1925 (Unpublished M. A. Thesis, University of California at Berkeley, June, 1951), pp. 2630.Google Scholar

36 Domingo, and Alemparte, Justo Arteaga, Los Constituyentes de 1870 (Santiago, 1910 [originally published in 1870]), p. 119.Google Scholar

37 For an analysis of the strengths of the Catholic party see Edwards, Alberto, “Un capítulo de historia de Chile,” Revista Chilena de Historia y Geografia, Nos. 117–124 (1930), 200257.Google Scholar

38 Alemparte, Arteaga, Constituyentes, p. 134.Google Scholar

39 Cifuentes, , Memorias, 2, 139.Google Scholar

40 Manuel José Irarrázaval was so wealthy that, in 1864, he offered to buy several ships to strengthen the national fleet; see ibid., I, 137.

41 Ibid., I, 102, 406.

42 Cifuentes, Abdón, Colección de discursos (3 vols.; Santiago, 1916), 3, 220.Google Scholar

43 Letter of the Rev. Kenelm Vaughan to the South Pacific Times, 1872, quoted in “Quien Sabe” (pseudonym for Hillman, Charles F.) “Old Timers,” British and American in Chile (Santiago, 1900), p. 384.Google Scholar See the Valparaiso and West Coast Mail, February 8, 1873 for a discussion of Rev. Vaughan’s anti-positivism “crusade.”

44 Barros, Carlos Orrego Diego Barros Arana (Santiago, 1952), p. 114.Google Scholar Orrego Barros described Barros Arana as an admirer of Comte, but a follower of the heterodox Littré. The biographer does not suggest when Barros Arana turned specifically to positivism.

45 Galdames, Luis, Valentín Letelier y su Obra: 1852–1919 (Santiago, 1937), p. 31, note (f).Google Scholar Among the other early positivists Galdames included Ricardo Passi, Gabriel González, Abilio Arancibia and Marcos Machuca; ibid., p. 60. Passi, Ricardo, in his “El Positivismo,” Revista Chilena, 14 (1879), 539,Google Scholar also included Guillermo Matta, Guillermo Puelma and José R. Martínez among the early followers of the Comtean philosophy.

46 Galdames, pp. 33–36. Lagarrigue, Jorge, Trozos del diario íntimo (Santiago, 1944), as cited in Zea, Latin American Mind, p. 161.Google Scholar

47 Lagarrigue, Trozos, as cited in Zea, , Latin American Mind, p. 148.Google Scholar

48 De la Barra, , Bilbao, pp. 278279.Google Scholar

49 Cifuentes, , Memorias, 1, 102.Google Scholar

50 Alberto Blest Gana to MacKenna, Benjamín Vicuña, May 8, 1865, in “Cartas de don Alberto Blest Gana a B. Vicuña MacKenna, Aníbal Pinto y J. La Torre,” Revista Chilena de Historia y Geografia, 75 (1934), 54.Google Scholar

51 Lastarria, , Lecciones, p. 141.Google Scholar

52 Ibid., p. 143.

53 Alemparte, Justo Arteaga, “Diogenes” y Otros Escritos (Santiago, 1956),Google Scholar editorial of the journal “Diogenes,” November 17, 1871, p. 340.

54 Cifuentes, , Memorias, 1, 406.Google Scholar

55 Ibid., II, 22; Encina, Francisco, Historia de Chile: Desde la prehistoria hasta 1891 (20 vols.; Santiago, 1949–1950), 15, 240.Google Scholar

56 Cifuentes, , Memorias, 2, 2324.Google Scholar

57 Barros, Orrego, Barros Arana, p. 156,Google Scholar notes that initially even the radicals Justo Arteaga and Manuel A. Matta supported the decrees of January.

58 E. Altamirano to M. L. Amunátegui, January 19, 1872, in Amunátegui Solar (ed.), Archivo Epistolar, II, 460. El Ferrocarril and La Patria initially supported the decrees and then reversed their position.

59 Barros, Orrego, Barros Arana, pp. 147156.Google Scholar

60 Encina, , Historia, 15, 270278 Google Scholar; Donoso, Ricardo, Barros Arana, educador, historiador y hombre público (Santiago, 1931), pp. 8283.Google Scholar

61 Encina, , Historia, 15, 277278 Google Scholar; Cifuentes, , Memorias, 2, 6570.Google Scholar

62 Cifuentes, , Memorias, 2, 67.Google Scholar

63 October 12, 1873.

64 C. A. Logan to Hamilton Fish, No. 22, October 30, 1873. In United States Government, Department of State Despatches of Ministers of the United States: Chile, 1860–1879 (National Archives, Washington, D.C.). Hereafter cited as Despatches.

65 November 21, 1873. Other than in a few isolated incidences like the above, the terms “clericalism” and “anti-clericalism” are seldom encountered in the arguments of the Conservatives and Liberals. This peculiar fact may be explained by the clear and certain identification of the clericists with the Conservative party encouraged by the refusal of many influential Chilean religious to accept the ultra-montane concepts so influential in other countries during the seventies. Crescente Errázuriz, a half-brother of Federico and a priest, worked with particular effectiveness to keep the clerícalists and the national Conservatives united against the Liberals and the positivists. See Errázuriz, Crescente, Algo de lo que he visto. Memorias (Santiago, 1914), pp. 182, 193–201.Google Scholar The solidarity of the Conservatives did weaken momentarily, however, in mid-1878 when the death of Archbishop Valdivieso opened a dispute as to the right of nomination of the Archbishop’s successor; yet even then the sobriquets “clericalists” or “anticlericalists” were infrequently heard; see ibid., pp. 246, 254, 265–278.

66 Edwards, Agustín, Cuatro Presidentes de Chile (2 vols.; Valparaiso, 1932), 2, 241.Google Scholar

67 Cabero, Alberto, Chile y los Chilenos (Santiago, 1926), p. 225.Google Scholar

68 Horace Rumbold to Earl Granville, Confidential, Santiago, August 25, 1873. In Public Records Office, Foreign Office File, Number 16. On microfilm, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Hereafter cited as PRO-FO-16. Reel 176, Document 83.

69 Horace Rumbold to Earl Derby, Santiago, September 12, 1874, PRO-FO-16, Reel 181, Document 248.

70 For a concise but acute summary of the anti-clerical actions of the later Errázuriz government see Espinosa, Julio Bañados, Balmaceda (2 vols.; Paris, 1884), 1, 33.Google Scholar See also Cabero, . Chile, pp. 225251.Google Scholar

71 Horace Rumbold to Earl Derby, Santiago, October 26, 1874. PRO-FO-16, Reel 181, Document 268.

72 Ibid.

73 C. A. Logan to Hamilton Fish, No. 117. November 2, 1874. In Despatches.

74 Valparaiso and West Coast Mail, July 19, 1873.

75 C. A. Logan to Hamilton Fish, No. 141. April 3, 1875. In Despatches.

76 Ibid.

77 See the address of Isidoro Errázuriz to the Senate, September 2, 1875, in Obras de Isidoro Errázuriz: Discursos parlamentarios (Santiago, 1910); see also Edwards, , Cuatro Presidentes, 2, 365373.Google Scholar

78 Edwards, , Cuatro Presidentes, 2, 365.Google Scholar

79 C. A. Logan to Hamilton Fish, Confidential, No. 181. December 3, 1875. In Despatches.

80 C. A. Logan to Rear Admiral Reed Werden, February 18, 1876, and March 3, 1876 in United States Government, Post Records: Chile, 1874–1879 (National Archives, Washington, D. C). See Admiral Werden’s copies of this correspondence in United States Government, Department of the Navy, Papers of the South Pacific Fleet (National Archives, Washington, D. C). For general information about the rumored civil upheaval, see C. A. Logan to Hamilton Fish, Confidential, No. 196, March 6, 1876. In Despatches; and Edwards, , Cuatro Presidentes, II, 341, 372–383.Google Scholar

81 González, Marcial, “El Trabajador Rural,” Revista Chilena, 6 (1876), 525.Google Scholar Underline is in the original. During the difficult years of the immediate pre-war period, and then during the war itself, heterodox positivism gave way to the more collective authoritarian type. After the war orthodox Comtean positivism spread widely throughout the republic; see Zea, Latin American Mind, Chapter 2, Part II.

82 Lastarria, , Recuerdos, p. 532.Google Scholar See also Lagarrigue, , Trozos, p. 35,Google Scholar as quoted in Zea, , Latin American Mind, p. 150.Google Scholar

83 Lastarria, , Recuerdos, pp. 540541.Google Scholar

84 See Zorobabel Rodríguez’ study of Lastarria’s, Lecciones in Rodríguez, Miscelanea, 1, 186 Google Scholar; as well as Rodríguez’ “Nuestro Sistema Social,” an editorial of El Independiente, January 24, 1875, included ibid., I, 152–153.

85 Galdames, , Letelier, pp. 34, 35, 44.Google Scholar

86 Lagarrigue, Trozos, as cited in Zea, , Latin American Mind, p. 151.Google Scholar Jorge Lagarrigue offers an interesting and lengthy explanation of his conversion in his “Una conversion a la Relijión de la Humanidad,” Revista Chilena, XIV (1879), 228–246.

87 Hernández, Fuentealba, Courcelle-Seneuil, p. 15.Google Scholar Lastarria’s translation is published as “Moral Racional,” Revista Chilena, III (1875), 418–465. The prologue to the translation is a letter from Lastarria to José Francisco Vergara, Santiago, October 14, 1875; in the letter Lastarria notes that he hopes that the translation will serve to “diffuse the scientific knowledge most useful and practical in ordinary life.”

88 Zañartu, Sady, Lastarria, El Hombre Solo (Santiago, 1938), p. 3.Google Scholar This entente was surprising as Lastarria and Pinto long had been personal enemies; see ibid., p. 183, and Encina, , Historia, 16, 20, 36, 44.Google Scholar

89 Lastarria, José Victorino, El primer ministerio de la administración Pinto, 1876 (Santiago, 1908), pp. 1011.Google Scholar

90 Ibid., p. 1. See also page 91, ibid., when the harassed minister complains of “el atraso i falto de disciplina en los círculos liberales,” and page 142, ibid., as he protests that “el Ministro no tenia la culpa de que los liberales no tuvieran nociones exactas de la libertad.”

91 Ibid., p. 20.

92 lbid., pp. 16–17.

93 Grandón, Alejandro Fuenzalida, Lastarria i su tiempo (2 vols.; Santiago, 1911), 2, 111112.Google Scholar Lastarria, , Ministerio, pp. 143144, 551–552.Google Scholar

94 Lastarria, , Ministerio, pp. 146147.Google Scholar

95 Galdames, , Letelier, pp. 5960 Google Scholar; Cifuentes, , Memorias, 2, 95.Google Scholar

94 For a developed discussion of this theme, see the author’s “The Willingness to War: A Portrait of the Republic of Chile during the Years preceding the War of the Pacific” (Un-published doctoral dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles, November, 1967).

97 This argument should not be regarded as fixing the ‘blame’ for the start of the war upon Chile; preliminary research suggests that several other countries of Latin America showed the same predisposition to war when, during the 1860s and 1870s, their dreams and hopes of the future seemed to be frustrated.