Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Most Critical Moment Is That When Nations, After Long
Oppression, Find Themselves Suddenly At Liberty To Promote Their Own
Prosperity.
The Spanish Americans, it is unceasingly repeated, are not
sufficiently advanced in intellectual cultivation to be fitted for
free institutions.
I remember that at a period not very remote, the
same reasoning was applied to other nations who were said to have made
too great an advance in civilization. Experience, no doubt, proves
that nations, like individuals, find that intellect and learning do
not always lead to happiness; but without denying the necessity of a
certain mass of knowledge and popular instruction for the stability of
republics or constitutional monarchies, we believe that stability
depends much less on the degree of intellectual improvement than on
the strength of the national character; on that balance of energy and
tranquillity of ardour and patience which maintains and perpetuates
new institutions; on the local circumstances in which a nation is
placed; and on the political relations of a country with neighbouring
states.
CHAPTER 3.28.
PASSAGE FROM THE COAST OF VENEZUELA TO THE HAVANNAH.
GENERAL VIEW OF THE POPULATION OF THE WEST INDIA ISLANDS, COMPARED
WITH THE POPULATION OF THE NEW CONTINENT, WITH RESPECT TO DIVERSITY OF
RACES, PERSONAL LIBERTY, LANGUAGE, AND WORSHIP.
We sailed from Nueva Barcelona on the 24th of November at nine o'clock
in the evening; and we doubled the small rocky island of Borachita.
The night was marked by coolness which characterizes the nights of the
tropics, and the agreeable effect of which can only be conceived by
comparing the nocturnal temperature, from 23 to 24 degrees centigrade,
with the mean temperature of the day, which in those latitudes is
generally, even on the coast, from 28 to 29 degrees.
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