Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/165

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AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF MEXICO.
153

idea of the emotional sacrifices which the philosopher makes in order to preserve his intellectual integrity, and to keep inviolate for others truths which he believes they will one day, to their great advantage, recognize. Were he alone concerned, he might—in most cases probably would—yield to the force of surrounding opinion and social practice; but a secret instinct tells him that he is the conservator of that which he has no right to sacrifice, or even to compromise, in the interest of his personal convenience or comfort. Such a man may, as I conceive, worship the Unknown God with as true a devotion as has ever been shown at the shrine of any of the named divinities of the human race. He may lack a liturgy and articles of belief; but he does not mourn the absence of these, finding his mind all the freer to turn its gaze ever to the pole-star of truth, and his heart the more open to every good impulse and to all the best teachings of the great world-drama that enacts itself before his eyes. Such a man can afford to be misunderstood, not so much because of his confident appeal to the future, as because of the present sustaining power of a loyal submission to the truth. When theologians, even such amiable ones as Dr. Lyman Abbott, undertake to tell him what he must incorporate into his system of thought, or what venerable doctrines he must bow to in passing, he says to himself, in the language of Socrates, "Whither the sea-breeze of reason carries us, thither must our course be bent." And so, in spite of all pulpit denunciation, and in spite of all the pleading, special and general, of those who would keep humanity fettered to the doctrines of the past, modern thought keeps on its way, seeing, believing, harmonizing, hoping, and looking to be justified some day of its children.

AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF MEXICO.

By Hon. DAVID A. WELLS.

III.

Occupations of the People of Mexico. Agriculture.—Although the main business of the country is agriculture, this branch of industry is carried on under exceptionally disadvantageous circumstances. One of its greatest drawbacks is, that the whole country is divided up into immense haciendas, or landed estates; small farms being rarely known; and out of a population of ten million or more, the title to the soil is said to vest in not more than six thousand persons. Some of these estates comprise square leagues instead of square acres in extent, and are said to have irrigating ditches from forty to fifty miles in length. Most of the land of such estates is uncultivated, and the water is wasted upon the remainder in the most reckless manner. The titles by which such properties are held are exceedingly varied,