ART. VII. - History of Civilization in England. By HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE. Vol. I. London: 1857.

MR. R. BUCKLE'S Introduction to the History of Civilization in England' is nearly the first attempt which has been made in this country to treat of History as a Science. The phrase is so smooth, that it may be used without a due appreciation of its full meaning, though that meaning is at once very definite and very important.

We may be said to understand a subject scientifically, when we can make such general statements about it as will enable us, by the ordinary processes of logic, to solve any of the particular questions presented by its details, by showing how its different members are related to each other, and to the rest of the subject. The opposite of science is empiricism, which consists in an acquaintance with a number of isolated facts, unsupported by any knowledge of the relations between them. We all know empirically that the days are long in summer and short in winter, but those only can be said to understand this fact scientifically, who can show the place which it occupies in the general relations of the solar system. A scientific view of history, therefore, would be one which would show how and why all human affairs have happened as they did and not otherwise; and inasmuch as every department of human action, thought, and feeling, stands in some kind of relation to every other, the Science of History would only be complete when all human thoughts and actions had their proper places assigned to them, and when their relations to all the rest are clearly marked out. The method of arriving at this result must be to deduce, from the observation of a sufficient number of details, certain abstract formulas, which, when applied to particular cases, would enable the historical observer to predict events as the astronomical observer predicts eclipses. Whenever all the necessary formulas have been ascertained and arranged in a systematic form, exhibiting their connexion with each other, that system will form the Science of History, and the test of its accuracy will be the power of those who are skilled in it to trace out beforehand, upon proper data, the march of human affairs. It is universally admitted that the construction of this science, whether it be possible or not, is indefinitely remote. Mr. Buckle's object in dealing with it is twofold. He wishes, in the first place, to record and to justify his faith in its principles and prospects; and, in the second, to contribute (for no single man

can hope to do more) to its construction by eliciting from the history of England some of its leading principles, and by exemplifying their operation in the various events, intellectual, social, political and physical, which have occurred in this country since it first came into existence. This scheme, if it stood alone, would appear to most men too vast to be executed by any single mind, but when it is viewed in relation to Mr. Buckle's notions of completeness, its magnitude becomes bewildering and overpowering.

This General Introduction' consists of the announcement and illustration of the principles of the science ultimately to be applied to that enormous mass of matter which collectively constitutes what Mr. Buckle understands by English history. It will fill several volumes. The one just published contains 854 closely-printed 8vo. pages. Its materials have been collected from 496 different books, and yet it only constitutes about a third of the vestibule of the building which Mr. Buckle ultimately hopes to raise. The last 600 pages sketch, with extraordinary fulness and compression, some of the leading features of English and French civilisation; when at least two more volumes have performed the same office for Spain, Scotland, Germany, and America, the world will be in a position to enter upon the history of English civilisation itself. Unhappily, the construction of so gigantic a plan shows a misconception of the capacity of the human intellect and the length of human life. A very simple rule of three sum might convince Mr. Buckle (if he were open to conviction) that the chance that his work will be a mere Cyclopean ruin is incalculably great. Parr or Jenkins might possibly have achieved it by a lifetime's devotion; but we greatly fear that Mr. Buckle's epitaph will be 'magnis excidit ausis.'

Mr. Buckle begins by discussing the question whether a science of history is possible; and he says that the opinion that it is, is opposed by a common notion that in the affairs of men there is something mysterious and providential which makes them impervious to our investigations, and which will always hide from us their future course.' This doctrine,' he says, 'is gratuitous' and 'incapable of proof;' and he also contends that it can be shown, by positive evidence, that human actions are governed by fixed laws.' This positive evidence is derived from statistics, and Mr. Buckle refers to several facts established by that means in illustration of its character. The first fact is, that murder is committed with as much regularity, and bears as uniform a relation to certain known circumstances, as do the movements of the tides, and the relations of the seasons.' And

the others establish similar conclusions with respect to accusa tions of crime, to the number of suicides, of marriages, and even of misdirected letters in the Post Office. In order to complete the refutation of the view opposed to his own, Mr. Buckle attempts to account for the origin of the doctrines of Free Will on the one hand, and Predestination on the other, each of which he considers inconsistent with his own system. He looks upon both as theological. The earliest doctrine upon the nature of events is the doctrine of Chance; and this he supposes prevailed originally amongst nomad tribes of hunters and fishermen. Gradually agriculture taught men to see various uniformities in nature, whence they rose by degrees to the conception of the necessary connexion of events, and these two theories suggested to the earliest theologians the doctrine of Free Will on the one side, and that of Predestination on the other. Predestination he considers to be at best a barren hypothesis,' as it lies beyond the province of our knowledge. He also objects that its advocates impute injustice to God. Free Will, on the other hand, rests, as he informs us, 'on the metaphysical dogma of the supremacy of 'the human consciousness; but consciousness, he inclines to think, is only a state of mind, and not a faculty, and, whatever it is, is indisputably fallible. The theological views of the question are therefore alike untenable, and Mr. Buckle's conclusion is, that when we perform an action, we perform it in consequence of some motive or motives; that these ' motives are the results of some antecedents; and that, therefore, if we were acquainted with the whole of the antecedents, ' and with all the laws of their movements, we could, with un'erring certainty, predict the whole of their immediate results.' There are two classes of antecedents,- those which are in, and those which are out of the mind; and if we could find out how each class acted on the other, we should understand all the vicissitudes of the human race. The great external agents are climate, food, soil, and the general aspect of nature; and under certain circumstances the action of these may be so powerful as to conquer and enslave the mind. Under other circumstances they may be conquered by it; and thus we have two types of civilisation which may be roughly described as the Asiatic and the European; in the first of which, nature is more important than man, whilst in the second, man is more important than

nature.

In asserting these propositions, Mr. Buckle appears to us to have committed himself to a multitude of hasty generalisations, supported by a still greater multitude of facts, laboriously collected, but not always correctly stated or fairly applied. It

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would be a hopeless task to follow him, within the limits we can devote to this subject, through the vast and varied researches indicated by his catalogue of authorities and his notes; but we feel bound to caution his readers against an implicit confidence in these statements; and we shall at once produce three examples, taken almost at random, of the inaccuracies we have detected.

In speaking of the effect of climate and soil on the habits of a people, Mr. Buckle remarks, that although Spain and Portugal on the one hand, and Sweden and Norway on the other, are countries essentially different in government, laws, religion, and manners, yet that these four countries have one great point in common, namely, that agriculture is interrupted by the heat and dryness of the weather in the former countries, and by the cold and shortness of the days in the latter. The consequence is, ❝ that these four nations, though so different in other respects, are 'all remarkable for a certain instability and feebleness of character, 'presenting a striking contrast to the more regular and settled 'habits which are established in countries where climate subjects 'the working classes to fewer interruptions.' It is hardly necessary to point out to any one at all acquainted with the Peninsula or the north of Europe, that the alleged fact is as unfounded as the inference is absurd.

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Among the causes affecting national character, Mr. Buckle reckons earthquakes, because there is reason to believe that they are always preceded by atmospheric changes which strike immediately at the nervous system, and these have a direct physical tendency to impair the intellectual powers'—and in Peru he mentions, as a highly curious fact, that every succeeding visitation increases the general dismay.' It is impossible that Mr. Buckle should not be aware that in countries subject to earthquakes, the usual apathy of man to every kind of habitual danger soon conquers his alarm; that the Peruvian builds his low dwelling expressly to resist the shock; and that the peasant of Southern Italy suffers no diminution of his intellectual faculties from the stroke which may be impending over him. But Mr. Buckle goes on to state, that 'earthquakes and volcanic erup'tions are more frequent and more destructive in Italy and in the Spanish and Portuguese peninsula than in any other of the great countries.' Whence he infers, by a singular process of reasoning, that superstition is more rife, and the clergy more powerful; but that the fine arts flourish, poetry is cultivated, and the sciences neglected. Every link in this chain is more or less faulty. There is no volcano in the Spanish peninsula, and the only earthquake known to have occurred there was that of Lisbon. Spain has produced no sculptors, and her painters

Italy

are certainly, as a school, inferior to those of Flanders. has never ceased to produce an illustrious band of men of science from Galileo to the present day. In short, the whole superstructure crumbles from the basis.

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Equally absurd is his attempted comparison between India and Greece, as if the condition of human life in the broad plains of Hindostan was oppressed by something great and terrible,' while the seaman or the mountaineer of Greece was encouraged' by the small and feeble' aspect of the country he was born in; and, therefore, became less appalled, less superstitious, and sought to investigate events with a boldness not to be expected in those other countries where the pressure of nature troubled his independence.' It is somewhat remarkable, that while Mr. Buckle adverts to the fabulous extravagance of the Hindoo mythology, and ridicules the distinctions of caste, he passes in silence over the astronomical discoveries of that remarkable people and the subtle provisions of their civil laws.

These examples may suffice to show the reliance which can be placed on Mr. Buckle's perception of truth in the ordinary records of history and geography, and they might be multiplied indefinitely. His learning is great, but his assertions are not indisputable. He dismisses altogether from consideration the facts connected with difference of race; yet, if the science of history is to be founded on the totality of human knowledge, surely no part of this inquiry deserves a more careful investigation.

Let us now revert, however, to the fundamental principles of his work, which it is our main intention to discuss. Mr. Buckle next observes that the measure of civilisation is the triumph of the mind over external agents;' and as in Europe this triumph has been very complete, the most important subject for the student of European history will be the study of the laws of the mental antecedents to which he had before referred. It is usual, he says, to attempt to perform this task by the help of metaphysics; that is to say, by each man's study of the operations of his own mind; but this method he considers to be unfruitful on account of the impossibility of taking a comprehensive view of the whole of the mental phenomena, because, however extensive such a view may be, it must ex'clude the state of the mind by which or in which the view ' itself is taken.' The only possibility of arriving at scientific knowledge upon these subjects lies, he thinks, in studying the 'mental phenomena, not simply as they appear in the mind of 'the individual observer, but as they appear in the actions of 'mankind at large.' As an illustration of the two methods in

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