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PAPERS OF MIRABEAU BuoNAPARTE LAMAR
dependence. The reaction begins and can be fruitful, most noble and grand.- Face to face with countries a hundred times more advanced, it is not now practicable to remain like outlaws from the universal movement. The geographic position of Central-America puts it today in continual touch with all other peoples, and especially with the most active, enterprising and daring which the centuries have known. Costa- rica is between two Oceans, between two Isthmuses, the most important for the commerce of the globe, with a soil extensive and fertile,- can it, or should it live isolated from that impetuous current which amal- gamates, transforms and carries everything al9ng ?- The powerful and youthful civilization of North America, assimilative, absorbent, expansive, and impetuous, clashed already tumultuously with the old colonial civilization in which still lie in lethargy the greater number of our impoverished and abandoned districts. H the spirit of enter- prise in some, that of annexation in others, and that of rapine in many can involve an imminent danger for us, who can deny that the gravest and most terrible danger consists in disunion, in poverty, in the very focus of the most abundant natural riches, in the lack of communications, of settlements and in the lack of the political and social advancement of our precarious nationalities?- People who do not progress, succumb. Humanity marches individually to death, but soars united to liberty, harmony, universal civilization.- The nations which remain unmovable, will perish. Let those who desire to live and to be, go forward with faith, perseverance and intelligence.- If they stagnate in abjectness and in sterility, they will be worthy of their fate, however bitter it may be. · Let us not be afraid of the truth, let us recognize it, confess it, and break with all the vanities and prejudices of the past. What of it? When the great and cultured nations, which yesterday were fighting as implacable enemies, give each other the kiss of peace and reconciliation, when they confederate and fraternize in order to maintain their powerful sovereignty and change the general face of the people, shall not we, unseen atoms, in the political sphere of nations, imitate their example, and [shall we l play false by giving the scan- dalous example of living separated when a single danger threatens us and the same cause calls us to union? · What of it? When the spirit of the century expresses the peaceful fusion of all society; when the frontiers, formerly so close, fall vir- tually under the battering-ram of civilization ;-as time passes and dis- tances disappear before the rapid rotation of steam ;-when human thought, not satisfied with crossing the air as the ray of light, crosses the depths of the sea with wings of fire; when languages, customs, laws, arts, sciences and products of all peoples are exchanged and scat- tered without ceasing through all the known environments which exist, or are massed in a single temple as a center of light and universal con- cord, will it be consistent for countries to exist deprivid of all this knowledge, of all this goocl, of all these prodigies, remaining exiled any longer from that immense aggregate of greatness, of happiness and confraternitv? No.- No let us not flatter ourselves. Let us deny our sterile pecu- liarities and abdicate our ephemeral titles and pomps. Let us iden- tify ourselves as far as the disposition of our people permits. Let us
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