Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
The activities of the Liberal Union group in the election year of 1892, along with the subsequent appointment that next year of José Ives Limantour as Secretary of Treasury, marked the beginning of the rise of an influential clique of technocrats within the bureaucracy of Don Porfirio Díaz. In addition to Limantour, this group included, among others, Francisco Buhes, Justo Sierra, Rosendo Pineda, Pablo Macedo, and Miguel Macedo. The name the critics used to describe this clique was that of the “scientists” or the Científicos. This name was selected, among other reasons, to express the belief of the opposition that the members of the Científico group were imbued with the scientific and positivistic doctrines of the French philosopher and architect of positivism, Auguste Comte. With the coming of the Científicos to power the course of antipositivism was redirected, given an additional emphasis, and expanded to meet the needs of liberal and clerical critics of the regime.