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history. If we look at the history of the world as a whole,' he writes, 'the tendency has been, in Europe, to subordinate nature to man; out of Europe, to subordinate man to nature' (138). In Europe, accordingly, the study of man, that is, the study of the laws of mind, is the great prerequisite to the successful study of history. But the laws of mind in the individual and in the race being essentially the same, the student of mental science has been wont to suppose that his work should commence at home, and that he should look through the laws of his own mind to mind in general. "There cannot be a greater mistake,' says Mr. Buckle. Such a mode of investigation has never led to a vestige of discovery in anything. In opposition to this conception, he writes :

'Everything we at present know, has been ascertained by studying phenomena, from which all casual disturbances having been removed, the law remains as a conspicuous residue. And this can only be done by observations so numerous as to eliminate the disturbances, or else by experiments so delicate as to isolate the phenomena. One of these conditions is essential to all inductive science; but neither of them does the metaphysician obey. To isolate the phenomena is for him an impossibility; since no man, into whatever state of reverie he may be thrown, can entirely cut himself off from the influence of external events, which must produce an effect on his mind, even when he is unconscious of their presence. As to the other condition, it is by the metaphysician set at open defiance; for his whole system is based upon the supposition that, by studying a single mind, he can get the laws of all minds; so that while he on the one hand is unable to isolate his observations from disturbances, he, on the other hand, refuses to adopt the only remaining precaution-he refuses so to enlarge his survey as to eliminate the disturbances by which his observations are troubled.'-144.

The meaning of Mr. Buckle, if we separate it from the philosophical and obscure language in which it is clothed, would seem to be that the philosopher who reasons thus from his own mind to all mind, does not sufficiently remember what is peculiar to his own mind from temperament and circumstances, and what is more or less peculiar to all minds from endless differences of that nature. He does not go the way to distinguish between the laws of mind which do not change, and the differences in mind, and in the circumstances which affect mind, and which are always changing. Now there is some ground for exception of this nature to the speculations of such lofty a priori philosophers as Fichte and Vico, who take upon them to predict what the course of civilization must be from what they find the laws of their own mind to be. But to apply such a representation to psychologists

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in general, is not to describe their speculations, but to caricature them. Dugald Stewart and John Locke, cited as examples of men dealing with the laws of mind after this manner, never so dealt with them. They both knew, indeed, that it is only through a knowledge of our own mind that our knowledge of mind at all becomes possible. But such men have always known that in the condition and adjustment of faculties in each mind, and in the experiences affecting it, there must be peculiarity, and that these endless peculiarities have to be remembered in all reasoning concerning the action of mind in its aggregates. In fact, the sole difference between Mr. Buckle and his predecessors on this point is, that he has received some light from statistics which they did not possess a light, we may add, which has sometimes led him astray. Mr. Hume was both a metaphysician and a historian. In common with John Locke and Dugald Stewart, he supposed that, by studying a single mind,' something might be learnt concerning the laws of all minds; but will it be pretended that he did not endeavour to distinguish between the settled 'phenomena' of mind and its casual disturbances?' In fact, this frequent assumption of an all but unprecedented sagacity in discussing such topics, where little of anything of the sort has any existence, is one of the most unpleasant features of this book. We suppose that Mr. Hume knew how to detect the differences of characters, both in individuals and classes, quite as well as Mr. Buckle; and what was that but to work in the vein of distinguishing between the laws of mind, and what Mr. Buckle describes as the 'casual disturbances' of those laws?

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But Mr. Buckle has not yet done with the metaphysicians. They have, he states, two methods of inquiry, the transcendental and the sensational. Separately, neither of these can lead to any valuable result; and there is no mediating between them. The alleged origin of our idea of space is given as an illustration of the irreconcilable variance between these two schools. But this supposed variance is greatly exaggerated. The idea of illimitable space, says the transcendentalist, is a necessary idea of the human mind. Be it so, says the sensationalist; but the human mind, as we know it, comes into possession of its first idea of space through experience. Here is the real sum of the difference between these disputants. It is no difference about capacity at all, nor about necessity at all, it is purely a difference as to how this necessary action of capacity comes into play. Here, assuredly, there is room for a mediating judgment, for there is nothing necessarily at variance between the two lines of thought. Kant may affirm, never so emphatically, that our idea of space is a necessary idea; but he affirms also, that our knowledge in

this respect, and in all respects, 'begins in sensation.' What is true as to the idea of space, is true as to our ideas of cause, duration, and personal identity. All these ideas may have been made necessary by the original constitution of the mind; but the mind, as we know it, is lodged in a body, and as a matter of history it is awakened to its first ideas, in regard to those objects, by the senses, though the knowledge which thus begins in 'sensation' is taken up to be further developed by 'reflection.' In short, this attempt to put the students of mental science wholly aside by putting them at loggerheads, is a convenient bit of artifice. Neither of the two schools is fairly represented; and for anything Mr. Buckle has written, their labours may be far from useless. Each of these schools is in some respects a complement to the other, and the most we can say of Mr. Buckle's statistics is, that they may be something of a complement to both. Our evidence concerning the laws of mind must come from different sources. It is a mistake to suppose that one source can supply all we want.

Mr. Buckle appeals to statistical returns in regard to the comparative number of male and female births in illustration of his views. Physiologists have searched for the physical cause of these differences. But so long as they restricted their inquiries to separate bodies, says Mr. Buckle, just as metaphysicians have restricted their inquiries to separate minds, the former laboured with as little success as the latter. Now, however, the careful register of births has settled the question. We know that, in round numbers, the births are as twenty-one boys to every twenty girls. But Mr. Buckle does not sufficiently remember that the search of the physiologists was for a law, and that these tables give us no law, they simply give us the effects of law. All men knew pretty well before that the comparative births were nearly equal. These tables, accordingly, with their 'round numbers,' have really added very little to our knowledge. Beside which, who does not see that our power to mark processes in these two cases is so widely different that no fair comparison can be made between them? What can be more open to inspection and scrutiny than a man's own mind? Mr. Buckle's statistics, whether of births or crimes, give us certain results, but the laws from which those results come have their seat in the separate persons who are subject to them; and to those separate persons we must go, if we would learn what the law really is, and how to check its tendencies where they are bad, or how to strengthen them where they are good. The whole comes from the parts, and it is only by dealing with the particular that we can hope to affect the aggregate. God forbid that we should be disposed to

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accept these tabular returns on moral subjects as indicating laws which it is impossible to resist. In the volume before us they are viewed too much in that light; but such a feeling is to be expected where the mind is more occupied with vast general laws, real or supposed, than with individual responsibility. It is a tendency of this sort which, in the history of superstition, has made so much of the elemental powers of nature, and so little of man. In such speculations man goes down everywhere beneath the wheels of the resistless machinery which passes over him. Mr. Buckle's speculations have too much of this old oriental cast about them. The transition has been easy from the recognition of his great forces to the worship of them.

Having exposed, as he thinks, the weakness of the course pursued by the psychologists, Mr. Buckle proceeds to show the better pretensions of his own. 'The manner in which, by the application of this method, the laws of mental progress may be most easily discovered,' is the point to be settled. The following passage explains the comparative relation of this method to the two great causes of social progress-viz., intelligence and morality:

'If, in the first place, we ask what this progress is, the answer seems very simple: that it is a twofold progress, moral and intellectual: the first having more immediate relation to our duties, the second to our knowledge. This is a classification which has been frequently laid down, and with which most persons are familiar. And so far as

history is a narrative of results, there can be no doubt that the division is perfectly accurate. There can be no doubt that a people are not really advancing, if, on the one hand, their increasing ability is accompanied by increasing vice, or if, on the other hand, while they are becoming more virtuous, they likewise become more ignorant. This double movement, moral and intellectual, is essential to the very idea of civilization, and includes the entire theory of mental progress. To be willing to perform our duty is the moral part; to know how to perform it is the intellectual part; while the closer these two parts are knit together, the greater the harmony with which they work; and the more accurately the means are adapted to the end, the more completely will the scheme of our life be accomplished, and the more securely shall we lay a foundation for the future advancement of mankind.

'A question now arises of great moment, namely, which of these two parts or elements of mental progress is the most important. For the progress itself being the result of their united action, it becomes necessary to ascertain which of them works more powerfully, in order that we may subordinate the inferior element to the superior one. If the advance of civilization, and the general happiness of mankind, depend more on their moral feelings than on their knowledge, we must of course measure the progress of society by those feelings;

while if, on the other hand, it depends principally on their knowledge, we must take as our standard the amount and success of their intellectual activity. As soon as we learn the relative energy of these two components, we shall treat them according to the usual plan of investigating truth; that is to say, we shall look at the product of their joint action as obeying the laws of the more powerful agent, whose operations are casually disturbed by the inferior laws of the minor agent.'-pp. 158, 159.

The italics in this passage are our own. The first passage so marked seems to promise something better than we find in the conclusion, for in the conclusion, as we have seen, Mr. Buckle not only finds in this comparison that the law of intelligence is 'the more powerful,' but that the effect of the minor law, the law of morality, amounts to nothing better than 'casual disturbance.' In one line morality is admitted as ' essential to the very idea of civilization,' and in another, in the same page, it is known merely as a cause of 'disturbance' to the one law from which all progress must arise. To write thus is not to write very intelligibly. But Mr. Buckle has no suspicion of deficiency in this respect. These conclusions,' he writes, are no doubt very unpalatable, and what 'makes them peculiarly offensive is that it is impossible to refute them, for the deeper we penetrate into this question, the more clearly shall we see the superiority of intellectual acquisitions over moral feeling.' (166.) To feel that certain conclusions are very unpalatable, and that at the same time we cannot refute them, is no doubt very unpleasant. We do not feel, however, for the present, that Mr. Buckle has inflicted any such unpleasantness upon us.

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It is to be remembered that intellect is in itself a purely motiveless power. From its own nature no inducement to action can ever come. Existing alone it never would act. The emotional susceptibilities of spiritual beings, and in the case of men the appetites as well as the emotions, are the sources of all activity. The desires of men are the wings which prompt them to all their movements. It may be true that the beneficial action of our desires supposes the presence of intelligence; but it is no less true that we cannot conceive of the intellect as acting at all apart from the presence of these desires and their antecedent action. To speak of the intellect as the sole cause of human progress while it is certain that it would be no cause at all were it not acted upon by other causes, is to talk not a little paradoxically. Enumerate all the benefits that intelligence may be said. to have conferred, and we have then to mark that no one of these benefits would the intellect have conferred, had it not been stimulated to action by causes anterior to itself, and in a sense

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