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pose. In criticising Buckle, I am there-action, but in their products. We have fore indirectly criticising the utilitarianism more knowledge than of old; and it is which he represented; and certainly I am equally true that we have a new set of not prompted by any prejudice against habits. We have acquired the knowledge the doctrine. Buckle, like his teachers, that the world goes round the sun; and seems to me to give a very partial and we have acquired the sentiments which one-sided view of the truth; but it re- make certain modes of conduct disgusting quires rather modification than direct to us though approved by the savage, or contradiction. even by our grandfathers. The emoAnd, in the first place, we may grant tional modification is transmitted quite that for such periods as Buckle con- as readily as the intellectual inheritance. sidered, the innate faculties are not sen- Once more, then, we come to the same sibly changed. Man is as great a fool as root of error. Given identical units, how th ever. At any rate, we may grant, what can aggregates differ? Buckle could see is quite sufficient for Buckle's immediate that knowledge could be accumulated, purpose, that progress often occurs with- for it can be handed from one individual out a corresponding change in the indi- to another. But he was comparatively vidual organism. The argument, again, blind to the possibility of transmitting that the "intellectual principle "must habits, for the main organ by which they be the cause of the change, because it are transmitted is the social factor. He is the only variable element, may state says very truly, though not very relea very general fact. An increase in vantly, that men are not much altered th knowledge is the most conspicuous factor by the preaching of moralists and theolo in rapid social changes; and so far we gians. But they are most profoundly must seek for the condition of progress modified by being born into a vast and in the conditions of extended knowledge. complex organization, and thus undergoBut it does not follow that knowledge ing from their earliest days an elaborate has, so to speak, an innate or inherent system of drill, and imbibing, unconsciouspower of extending. On the contrary, ly, not only knowledge but innumerable Buckle's whole book is intended to show modes of feeling. The power of accumuwhy it frequently becomes stationary. lating first impressions, in which man Obviously, then, and for the very reason which he assigns, the difference must be explained by some independent causes. Now there can be no a priori reason for not including amongst those causes the moral condition of a society. A society, for example, in which passions are less violent may be more favorable to the growth of philosophy. If so, the morality of a race may be an essential condition of progress, though not an ultimate condition; and this doctrine is as "palatable" as any that the moralist could desire. Buckle argues, in fact, that because a tree varies only in size, the soil remaining constant, we must explain its growth by the "vegetative principle," and exclude all reference to soil. Indeed, as we look closer, we see that even Buckle admits to give any tolerable account of progress; that morality varies. The innate faculties remain, let us say, the same. Both the intellectual and the emotional nature are constants. But "moral truths," that is, the ordinary code-kill not, lie not, and so forth - remains unaltered. So, to take the true analogy, do the ordinary logical rules. Logic has not developed since the days of Aristotle more than morality, if, indeed, it has developed equally. The change is neither in the faculties nor in their first principles of

differs most conspicuously from the lower
animals, is not confined to the intellectual
nature. To solve the difficult problem of
progress, we must take into account all
those enormously complex processes of
action and reaction in which every part of
human nature and of the social structure
requires consideration. Knowledge, for
example, may be stationary, and yet ac-
cumulation of wealth
may determine
social changes which will again react
upon the intellectual state. Conflicts be-
tween races and classes may give predom-
inance to certain types of character, and
so bring about an indefinite series of
further changes. All that series of oper-
ations which corresponds to the struggle
for existence would have to be classified

and we should then, doubtless, see that even the intellectual improvement is itself the resultant, as much as the cause, of the intimate actions and reactions of individ ual and social organisms. At any rate, the increase of knowledge, which alone Buckle could take into account, offers a palpably inadequate explanation of these many-sided complex intimate processes.

It may, indeed, be fully agreed that an increase of knowledge is at any given moment the most effective agent; and

Buckle's one-sidedness is not without its | slaughter; what wonder that they have use in calling attention to the vast impor- cut more throats? Ultimately, no doubt, tance of intellectual activity and the dan- the effect may be the reverse, but that ger of arresting its activity. His book is depends upon the development of mutual valuable, like Mill's "Liberty," not by confidence, implying, amongst other any means as an exhaustive statement of things, a distinct moral change, and not the case, but as an effective stimulant. an intellectual recognition that cutting The impossibility of carrying out his own throats does mischief. The process, in principles is sufficiently shown by his ap- other words, must be considered as a plications. Let us take, for example, his whole, and we must blunder if we isolate treatment of war -the "second greatest one feature and call it the sole "cause." evil" known to mankind, persecution be- So, again, the former moralists and theoing the first. I will not insist upon the logians did not stop war. To make the absurdity of isolating a particular incident argument hold water we must suppose of progress and calling it an evil simplici- these persons to have been powers from ter, without even attempting to show how without impinging upon society, not its progress in any kind of social organiza-product-angels from heaven, for examtion would have been possible without it. ple, come down to preach. The fruitlessJust now, for reasons which would have ness of their appeals would then have amazed Buckle, it is far more important to shown human insensibility. As it is, the insist upon the importance of eliminating argument only shows that a given social war than upon the folly of talking as state does not at once make a different though it were an accidental and avoida- state necessary, or that a man cannot lift ble evil in all social stages. Let us glance himself off the ground by his own waistat his reasoning. "Moralists and theo- band. But in any case, the argument logians," he says, never pointed out an evil tells as much against the intellectual as in war which was unknown to their prede- against the moral principle. Preachers cessors. Therefore war has not been in all ages have argued as well as desuppressed by morality. The true cause nounced and shown the mischief as well of its decline has been the growth of in- as the immorality of war, if, indeed (which telligent and pacific classes, and specifi- Buckle should have denied), there was cally the invention of steam, gunpowder, any difference. The evils of war were and political economy. The argument up- doubtless as palpable to St. Bernard as to sets his theory. For, taking his facts for Adam Smith; and Smith's demolition of granted, it is plain that wars have been that poor "mercantile theory," which diminished, not by the direct perception scarcely ever had an independent existof the mischief caused, but by the indirect ence, was not required to prove the disadtendency of intellectual improvement in vantage to men in general of knocking modifying society. Steam and gunpow- each other's heads off. The true stateder have operated by confining war to a ment is that that theory, like many others, professional class and by bringing men went to pieces when social intercourse into closer communication. The intellec- had so far developed as to make men feel tual advance is on this hypothesis the as well as admit the advantages of mutual primary cause, but the proximate cause is co-operation. The legitimate inference the social change; and it is clear, again, from Buckle's statement is that (as he that such social changes may develop himself argues in the case of a religion) themselves without intellectual progress, the true intellectual recognition of a truth and so far be the primary cause of other only becomes effective when social deintellectual changes. The intellectual velopment, including the moral sentiment change will operate differently according of mutual confidence, has provided a soil to the social medium in which it takes in which it may flourish. In tracing back place. It may even produce an increase the entangled ideas of cause and effect, of the tendencies to which it is ultimately we may stop anywhere we please so long opposed. The process has been illus- as we bear in mind that we are only using trated on a vast scale since Buckle's day. a convenient logical artifice. But, in fact, He thought that discoveries in practical all the conditions are inextricably related; science must diminish war. In fact the intellectual activity implies certain mental immediate result has been a vast develop- conditions; they, again, imply a certain ment of militarism. We have brought degree of intellectual development; and men into close contact before they were both are essentially dependent upon varicivilized enough to trust each other, and ous material conditions. We may accept given them improved weapons for mutual the statement that a society in which

knowledge becomes stationary is incapa- | the political die? Buckle was fully aware of ble of permanent progress; but it does of the importance of distinguishing in not follow that a growth of knowledge is some way the different orders of social a sufficient because it is a necessary con- processes. He insists frequently and dition, or that, in mathematical language, forcibly upon "great general causes," and th it is the sole "independent variable." the relative insignificance of individuals. He shows the inadequacy of the old conception of history which frequently in- d verted the true order and made the base be dependent upon the superstructure; and sometimes he applies his views with great vigor, as in the chapter which describes the rapid social and political progress of England in that Restoration period when Bu the ordinary historian sees nothing but Charles II. and his profligate courtiers. But a more elaborate application is made di in the second volume, which must have o disappointed

*

help feeling that more philosophy is held in solution in a few pages of "Old Mortality" or "The Heart of Midlothian than in a hundred such volumes as Buckle's.

Whence came the Scotch peasantry typified by Davie Deans or Dandie Dinmont and known to us all through the lyrics of Burns? And what has become of the great general causes and the profound intellectual laws (the moral certainly have disappeared completely enough!) in this petifogging theory of a nation's life?

for the old hierarchy. The preachers, | the nobles for purely selfish purposes enraged at the desire of the nobility to succeeded in stamping their creed upon appropriate an excessive share of the the very heart and conscience of the booty, held that a measure unfavorable Scotch people, and gaining an ascendency to their own interests must be unfavora- which has never (as he thinks) been weakble to the interests of religion, and ened. To account for so strange a phehence threw themselves upon the people, nomenon, if actual, would certainly reand became democratic without ceasing quire a profound study of the whole social to be superstitious. To this play of the structure, such as Buckle never even meanest and most hypocritical motives dreamed of undertaking. It is no wonthe Scotch owe at once their progressive der if the Scotch religion, the religion of spirit and their failure to emerge from one of the sturdiest, shrewdest, and most superstition. progressive of all races, represents itself Buckle's hatred of Calvinism sprang to him as entirely summed up in a superfrom a generous sentiment; and we feel stitious regard for the Sabbath, slavish the miserable travesty of a great moral regard for priests, and hatred of knowland intellectual movement to be unwor- edge. I am no unqualified lover of the thy of the real man. But it is even more Sabbath; but I do not like to see an antiunworthy of the philosopher. The ex- sabbatarian pamphlet passing itself off planation is of that kind which was pop- for a philosophy of history, and I cannot ular before the very conception of historical philosophy had fairly emerged. Men who could see in religion nothing but the superstition, and in political history nothing but a diplomatic trickery, might indulge in such theories. "Henry VIII.," says Bolingbroke, whilst enforcing like Buckle the importance of tracing the remoter causes of effects, "divided with the secular clergy and his people the spoil of the pope and his satellites the monks; Francis I. divided with the pope the spoil of his clergy, regular and secular, and of his people." That explains the Reformation to an eighteenth-century Another remarkable phenomenon now politician, and it is precisely in Buckle's presents itself. In the eighteenth cenvein, though it does not make such high tury Scotch thinkers produced a literature pretensions. Similar explanations can of which Buckle certainly does not unalways be had in abundance from whips derestimate the importance, and indeed of parliamentary parties and red-tape diplomatists. They have their value; but when they profess to be the philosophy of history, the obvious remark is that they are no explanation at all. Why was the effect of this wretched bit of thimble-rigging permanent? Why did the "preachers" suddenly obtain so tremendous a grasp upon the nation? Why did the Church suddenly lose its whole power, and why did not the preachers when they quarrelled with these tremendous nobles resume their alliance with the king? The whole story, true or false, gives us at the outside the mere superficial play of parties and remains on the surface, whilst it says nothing of the deeper forces which ultimately determined the character of the movement. The extraordinary fact asserted by Buckle is that a set of greedy puppets set up by

• Vol. ii., p. 236.

for a time English philosophy may be said to have retired altogether into this priestridden country. Buckle is less occupied with this curious problem though he makes some obvious remarks about the effects of the Union and so forth-than with one which springs out of it. How, he asks, did superstition survive so forcible a reaction? And here we suddenly get back to what may fairly be called an intellectual law. The Scotch intellect, he says, was specially deductive, as the English was inductive. It was deductive, again, because theology is naturally deductive, and Scotland had been thoroughly theological. Thus the method of theology survived even when the spirit had evaporated, and the deductive method neutralized the effect of the critical spirit. The intellect worked in the old fetters and could never break them. This is clearly one of Buckle's pet theories; it is already expounded in

the first volume, and he announces it writings nothing is left but the history, hi with the complacency natural to a phil- and Buckle (without apparently meaning e osopher who has really got hold of some- to be ironical) calmly declares the "Histhing like a great intellectual law. It tory' to be deductive. A philosopher leads, however, to some strange para- who based all general truths upon assodoxes. ciation, and deduced particular truths by a priori methods, would hardly have gained Hume's reputation.

The deductive method, it may be noted, is held to be favorable to theology, because it starts from universal first princi- The case of Adam Smith is equally ples instead of observation and experience. curious. Buckle holds that "The Wealth It is, however, obvious, nor would Buckle of Nations" is deductive in method. I deny the fact, that a man may reason will not pause to argue that Smith was disdeductively from data obtained from expe- tinguished from his French predecessors rience just as well as from a priori knowl- and his English successors precisely by edge. The mode in which principles are his constant reference to facts, nor dwell applied is one thing; the question as to upon the absurdity of the evasive reply how they are obtained is quite another. that his facts were illustrations rather Mill would admit as freely as any antago- than proofs, or of the statement that his nist the validity of Newton's deductive book would be as valuable if all his facts reasoning, though he held that our knowl- were wrong. It is in any case plain beedge of the laws of motion was obtained yond dispute that the principles from in the first instance from induction. A which he reasoned were derived from neglect of this very palpable fact seems observation and not from any a priori to perplex Buckle's reasoning. knowledge. Buckle seems to think that The two greatest Scotch thinkers of "The Wealth of Nations" is a series of the century were, beyond all doubt, deductions from the assumption of human Hume and Adam Smith. Buckle fully selfishness as the "moral sentiments" agrees that they come first and second, theory is a deduction from the assumpthough (in my opinion very erroneously) tion of human unselfishness. It is enough he prefers Smith to Hume, and, further, to answer that Smith might have reasoned that no third teacher comes anywhere till doomsday without obtaining a single near them. Was their method deductive, economical truth upon these terms, and and, if so, favorable to theology because for the simple reason that absolute selfdeductive? Hume, says Buckle, was a ishness is perfectly compatible with the deductive thinker, "his metaphysical absence of all industrial organization. essays," as he calmly adds, "alone ex- Not a single step can be made in ecocepted." But it is precisely in virtue of nomic theory without assuming the develhis metaphysical essays that Hume is opment of all the machinery implied by entitled to rank as one of the great semi- the division of various industrial classes, nal minds of modern Europe; and, what- the growth of barter, the higgling of the ever their results, they are intended to market, the rise of a currency, and so cut up by the roots the very possibility of forth. If any man could evolve a history a priori speculations. In the next place, of the Amsterdam bank from a priori Hume's remarkable ethicals essays are a principles, he must be even a cleverer systematic and vigorous attempt to base man than Adam Smith. The economist, ethical theory upon induction, and as it is true, considers man to be mainly such profoundly influenced Bentham and selfish, in so far as he assumes that men the whole utilitarian school. Thirdly, generally prefer a shilling to a sixpence. Hume's writings upon theology are the But from the principle of selfishness alone most forcible attack ever made in the he can infer nothing, for complete selfishEnglish language upon the fundamental ness is to be found in the lowest savages, principles of theology. Buckle auda- who can neither count nor exchange ciously calls the "Natural History of products of industry or understand the Religion" deductive, though it obviously division of labor. and avowedly starts from the observed But even if we omit all such considerafact that monotheism is a recent growth, tions, the latter end of Buckle's argument simply because Hume suggests a psycho- is equally remarkable for the forgetfulness logical hypothesis (also based on observa- of his starting-point. He holds "The tion) to account for the fact. Even if Wealth of Nations" to be the most deductive, it shows that deduction may important book ever written, and for the lead directly to the essential principles of precise reason that political economy, positivism. When we have set aside these See Life of Buckle, i. 151.