more enlightened as its knowledge augments is not denied, though, as a matter of fact, there are exceptions even to this rule. But what we insist on is, that it is at least as clear that the progress of knowledge depends on improved moral feeling, as that improved moral feeling depends on the progress of knowledge. The action here is reciprocal. The progress of society could not come from either separately, it must come from the action of both conjointly. Take Mr. Buckle's own illustration. Bishop Jewel, as a polemic, was, in the ethical sense, far in advance of Cardinal Pole; Hooker was far in advance of Jewel; Chillingworth was far in advance of Hooker; and Owen, Burnet, and Locke, were more advanced still. But it is not possible to conceive of this ethical progress, except as taking with it improved ethical feeling; and to insist that knowledge did more to create that feeling than that feeling did to create knowledge, is to dogmatize; the thing cannot be proved, and if it could, Mr. Buckle would still have to take his astounding leap from the conclusion that knowledge is the most powerful civilizer, to the conclusion that it is therefore the only one!

But if every act of scepticism be an act of the intellect from a moral motive, then inasmuch as all moral motive is imperfect, liable to partake of truth and error, good and evil, so it must be with the tendency to doubt which proceeds from it. The man who doubts must be supposed to do so because he thinks it good -good for truth, good for himself, and for society, that he should so do. But scepticism being once traced in this manner to our moral intelligence and moral feeling, these we know are not infallible; and as it is with these, so it must be with what comes from them. Judging from the tone in which Mr. Buckle expatiates on the benefits which have resulted from scepticism, it might be supposed that the tendency to doubt is ever on virtue's side, while the disposition to exercise faith is always on the side of something very different. But the man who applauds scepticism as a virtue in some cases, is bound to cede that it is a vice in others. He is not to limit his appeal to it where it is a virtue, and to his purpose, as Mr. Buckle does-at least for the most part. Even in its most abstract and scientific exercises, every act of scepticism must be moral or immoral, or a mixture of both. It is a human being who is speculating concerning the distinctions between truth and error; and considerations which affect human sympathies go along with every stage of the process. But most intimately is it thus when the distinctions to be made between true and false are moral and religious distinctions.

It should be remembered, moreover, that scepticism, in itself, gives us no truth. Its function is simply negative-to discredit,

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to destroy. If the inquirer is to go beyond this, and is not only to demolish, but is to do what is essential to all progress-to construct, then faith must come into the place of doubt. It is not in the nature of mere doubt that it should do good of any kind. At best, it can only diminish impediment in the way to good. Scepticism accordingly does no positive work in human civilization. That has to come wholly from other sources-eminently from that moral feeling on which scepticism depends both for its negative and positive value.

Our complaint against Mr. Buckle in this connexion, is not that what he has written is devoid of truth, but that he claims more for his doubters than they are entitled to, and that his rhetoric in their favour is full of one-sidedness and exaggeration. Scepticism is in some instances the condition of mind which he describes, but it is often something more, and something very different. It helps to do also much that is said to be done by it, but it does much beside, and much of a very different complexion.

There is one manifest source of writing of this sort on which it is not pleasant to dwell. It is a very easy thing for a man to take the grand upon himself in relation to the past. Nothing is more easy than to assume that the world which has gone before us has known nothing, settled nothing. Nothing more easy than to account the experience of other days, and largely of our own, as a school to which fools have been sent, and such fools that they have learnt nothing even there. There are many minds among us, young minds, and older ones that get years without getting wisdom, on which an air of this sort makes a great impression. It is so pleasant to feel that one can be so superlative at so little cost. Where contempt of humanity, and personal complacency, take this type, nothing is more natural than that the virtues of scepticism should be rated very highly. The presumption in such a case must be, that there can be scarcely anything in the opinions of the past about which it would not be well to stand in doubt. A world that has been always blundering so egregiously can be entitled to little confidence, should be listened to with great distrust. But while a show is made of how much from the past we have thrown off, and wisely too, it is not always remembered how much we have retained from that past, and that no less wisely. The following are the strong terms in which Mr. Buckle expresses himself on this subject:

"The more we examine this great principle of scepticism, the more distinctly shall we see the immense part it has played in the progress of European civilization. To state in general terms, what in this introduction will be fully proved, it may be said, that to scepticism we

owe that spirit of inquiry which, during the last two centuries, has gradually encroached on every possible subject; has reformed every department of practical and speculative knowledge; has weakened the authority of the privileged classes, and thus placed liberty on a surer foundation; has chastised the despotism of princes; has restrained the arrogance of the nobles; and has even diminished the prejudices of the clergy. In a word, it is this which has remedied the fundamental errors which made the people in politics too confiding, in science too credulous, in religion too intolerant.'—p. 308.

'It is this—this scepticism, says Mr. Buckle, that has done all this. If our preceding observations are just, scepticism has lone no one of these things. It has acted in relation to them, but it has so done under the direction of causes anterior to itself, stronger than itself, and more positive than itself. Physical discovery has in a measure prepared the mind so to act. But physical discovery, again, would never have come into play if other causes-moral causes, had not put the mind on the track of making those discoveries, and on a certain mode of using them when made. This attempt to find out a simple cause to which to attribute the most complex phenomena, is the vice which runs through all Mr. Buckle's speculations. The effect is, that the largest promises of explanation end in confusion worse confounded. Hence it has happened that there is scarcely a page in the latter half of this volume that does not supply facts at variance with its theories.

No thoughtful man will hesitate to acknowledge that there is a wise exercise of distrust concerning things as they are which is necessary as a preliminary to all progress. The difference between him and Mr. Buckle would be in regard to the source of the light which should serve to make that exercise of the mind wise instead of foolish. Here, as in many other instances, our author is right as to his principle, but wrong in the absoluteness with which he states it, and in the inferences which he deduces from it.

Concerning the action of scepticism in regard to moral and religious truth, we must confess that we do not account ourselves competent to unravel all the intricacies, or to solve all the mysteries, involved in that matter. We know some elderly gentlemen, and some gentlemen a long way from being elderly, who seem to understand all about it. We do not. We believe there may be seasons in a man's history in which he will doubt in regard to the most sacred and acknowledged truths, and apparently from no vicious, but rather a virtuous motive. He does not profess faith in this or that religious truth, simply because his mind does not embrace it, and it would in consequence be

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hypocrisy so to do. So his faith in moral principle makes him seem to be faithless in regard to religion. In like manner he cannot admit this or that doctrine as true even to his own mind, inasmuch as it seems to him to be contradictory or immoral, and thus his natural feeling in regard to the consistency of truth, and the basis of right, makes him a sceptic where others are believing. One thing here, however, is certain-no virtuous man would choose to be in any such state of hesitancy with regard to such matters; it must be to him a painful feeling, and it will be for the most part a grave secret for his own bosom, not a frivolous babble for everybody's ear. No wise man will pronounce abruptly on such cases. Such paths of spiritual liferemote, obscure, little trodden, border on the spiritual regions beyond our sphere, and serve to remind us that while there are 'revealed things' which we may understand, there are 'secret things' which do not come within the sphere of our knowledge. Such phases in mental history are not uncommon in the experience of the most devout and simple-minded Christians; no marvel if they are found in persons who have never attained to any real religious faith, and are only struggling in the way towards it.

But while it becomes us to be patient towards scepticism in such forms, and to admit that in physical science, in social life, and even in regard to ethics and theology, a disposition to interrogate received opinions has been favourable to the progress of civilization, our concern with the history of scepticism does not end at this point. It has a dark side which should not be overlooked. What it has done in relation to orthodoxy over a large portion of Protestant Christendom will of course be regarded by Mr. Buckle as a light matter, or it may be as a wholesome affair. But the desertions from the creed of the Reformation in Switzerland, France, Germany, Holland, and England, did not end with the change of one set of theological dogmas for another. Earnestness of character, and living convictions in regard to religion, passed away with the change. Belief in God became faint; belief in his providence all but ceased. Religious persecutions, indeed, diminished, but it was because religious indifference had come into the place of religious trust. The sense of religious responsibility became weak, and the sense of responsibility in every form shared in the deterioration. Men lost the disposition to dare or to endure for God, and therewith they lost the disposition to dare or to endure for man. Passion for the noble and the generous gave place to habits of expediency, which terminated in the low and the selfish. In England, the Restoration brought in a flood of these influences. A sceptical king, aided by a sceptical court

and upper class, sent licentiousness into all the private relations of life, and corruptness into all its public relations. So potent did these virtues of that doubting generation become, that our being saved as a nation was little short of a miracle. We were plundered, enslaved, hunted down, imprisoned, and our flesh cut up on the scaffold, like that of beasts in the shambles. But so low had we sunk, that the great mass of the nation was prepared to bear it all. The small minority that did attempt anything in the way of resistance were nearly all religious, believing men; but they were too weak for their enterprise, and the unbelieving multitude about them-upper class and lower-left them to their fate. No assize' could be 'bloody' enough to rouse the fallen nation to a sense of its degradation. It may be doubted if deliverance would ever have come, had not a foreign hand appeared to work it out for us. And this was the country of Elliot and Hampden, of Vane and Cromwell. Even after

William had done for us what we ought to have done for ourselves, we had not even the decency to be grateful. We made his life miserable; we did our best to perpetuate the corruptions he sought to destroy. So in the end it was left to Providence to put us to shame by sending up from the lowest stratum of society something of that sense of God and duty which we had well-nigh lost. Methodism-even that, was to become our regenerator. The tradesman and the farmer, the artisan and the peasant, became an organized power for God and humanity, and by degrees compelled the practical atheism and the open licentiousness of the times into better ways. Nearly all the dishonour spread over that large portion of our history we owe to the debasing influence of religious scepticism; and to that despised, persecuted, and bleeding remnant of religious men who were still preserved among us, we owe the larger portion of the influences which have brought us into a better condition.

It would be easy to add to this illustration, instances from other countries. If required to say what has served to perpetuate the bondsman condition of the States of Italy, notwithstanding the high intelligence and culture of the people of those States, we should answer-their scepticism. Religious scepticism, as a reaction against religious bigotry, has produced that general feeling of distrust which, as incompatible with confidence and unity, has been fatal to national greatness and freedom. required to say what has made Germany so inert and comparatively powerless in the affairs of Europe, we should answerher scepticism. The professors in the universities of that country, and the crowd of functionaries educated by them, set scarcely any bounds to their scepticism. Such is the spirit of

If