Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/56



stand matters in Mexico in 1808. The times are out of joint. Tradition is failing. Old maxims no longer hold good. The minds of men are dimmed by the dust arising from the clash and clatter of events. Born in ignorance; cradled amidst the occult forces of nature; looking along the centuries for that power and protection from the creature found only in the creator — it has taken all these thousands of years for man to find out his mistake, to find out that all men come into the world on terms of equality, that no man or class of men are born almighty, either by virtue of blood, inheritance, occupation, or wealth, and that all have equal rights.

At length the time has come. All the world is astir, and Mexico must be moving. Three centuries back there had been a grand awakening, one of those spasms of progress in which intellect is wont to disinthrall itself; now there is at hand another. Half the