Page:The History of San Martin (1893).djvu/448



only do astronomers record the meeting of two comets at the point of intersection of their eccentric orbits. Almost as rare in the records of mankind is the meeting of two men who have made the history there recorded.

After Washington, San Martin and Bolívar are the only two men of the New World whose names figure in the catalogue of the heroes of humanity at large. They were greater as liberators than as men of thought, but the influence of the deeds accomplished by them yet lives and works in their posterity.

Events are the logical sequence of causes which have preceded them, nevertheless they are moulded by the influence of individuals. If Columbus had never lived, America would at some later date have been discovered by some one else. If Cromwell had never lived the Revolution would have occurred in England all the same, but without him it would not have triumphed. The emancipation of the British colonies of North America must in any case have produced a great Republic, but it was Washington who impressed upon the democracy the seal of his moral greatness. The French Revolution was the natural outcome of what had preceded it, but had it been directed by others than those who did direct it the result