7 MARCH 1874, Page 16

BOOKS.

HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE.*

IT is difficult to see what good purpose the editor of these "posthumous works" thought would be served by publishing them as they stand. Of the three large volumes, containing upwards of 2,000 pages, two are wholly occupied with Mr. Buckle's Common-Place Books. We are told that he worked at these for several hours every day, and there is in them a vast amount of miscellaneous information on an infinite variety of topics. The editor, however, has exhibited more loyalty than judgment in giving everything as it stood, blunders included. In these days of much writing, it is hard to keep abreast of the works of even valued and important authors, as they issue in swift succession from the press. If we are to be introduced to the author's study, and asked to learn the processes as well as the results of his labours, life will be too short for half its duties. There is much curious information in these volumes. But there is much also that is trivial, and if the printing of Mr. Buckle's notes was deemed an act of loyalty to his memory', a fourth part of what is here given might have sufficed. Hero-worship is carried to an irrational extreme when the erroneous statements of an author in his daily jottings are retained, on the plea that though they may appear to be mistakes, they might possibly have proved to be deliberate opinions of the author, which he could perhaps have substantiated.

This reverence for the letter is carried so far, that the references in the index to the Common-Place Books, prepared by Mr. Buckle, to articles that have been omitted, "on account of the subjects of which they treated," are retained, that so the index might be given verbatim. The first and smallest volume of the three is of a less unsatisfactory character than the other two. In it we • Miscellaneous and Posthumous lrorks of Henry Thomas Buckle. Edited, with a Biographical Notice, by Helen Taylor. 3 vole. London: Longmane, Green, and Co. 1872.

have, following the brief biographical notice, a number of " Frag ments" of Mr. Buckle's composition, with about a hundred pages of more complete essays and articles. These " Fragments " illus- trate the author's views, though it is doubtful if they will be read consecutively by any who are not in close sympathy with Mr. Buckle. The biographical notice is meagre and scanty. The slight observations of the editor are eked out by the undiscriminating eulogy of an admirer. For anything like a comprehensive estimate of the man and his work, we must look elsewhere than to these ponderous tomes. Since Mr. Buckle believed, as we are told, that he had attained "some valuable principles," some "glimpses of truth not hitherto recognised," and the possession of these was to him "the call to an apostleship in as true and earnest a sense as ever was realised by missionary or philanthropist," we wish the editor and her correspondents had expended some of their super- fluous enthusiasm in revealing the grounds and nature of both the "apostleship" and the new "truth."

Mr. Buckle's " apostleship " remains unacknowledged. No doubt his History of Civilisation produced an extraordinary impression when it appeared. The reception of the work exceeded the most sanguine anticipations of his friends. "He sprang at once into celebrity, and singularly enough, considering the nature of the book, he attained not merely to literary fame, but to fashionable notoriety. To his own great amusement, he became the lion of the season ; his society was courted, his library besieged with visitors, and invita- tions poured in upon him, even from houses where philosophical speculation had surely never been a passport before." This is far from proving the presence of a writer capable of revealing " valu- able principles" and opening up "glimpses of truth not hitherto. recognised."

The world found in the book theories which may be said to have been at that time "in the air." Alt% Buckle did not reveal new principles, but he put in distinct and attractive form views pre- viously announced, and which had occurred to many minds. No. doubt the boldness and scope of his great design attracted atten- tion and excited curiosity. The idea of including the history of civilisation under laws, of tracing in the seemingly orderless move- ments of men and nations a connection of cause and effect similar to the order observable in the relations of mechanical forces,. responded to an intellectual craving of the hour. Here, it was fancied, was a man able to lay all branches and departments of human knowledge under contribution. In the busy nineteenth century, with its great subdivision of labour, here was a writer who had seemingly gone near to master the omne scibile in all branches of inquiry. The dogmatic assurance with which. his conclusions were set forth contributed at first to the reputation of the book. There was no painful balancing of elaborate argu- ments, but the bold sweep as of a master's hand reaching startling results, that were given forth without faltering or hesitation. Mr. Buckle was an omnivorous reader, and his life had been that of a recluse. Unused to the ways of the world and unaccustomed to opposition—for in his library, like the preacher in his pulpit, he had everything his own way—he declared the results of his investigations with uncompromising self-assurance. Of Mr. Buckle, more than most literary students, it may be said his life was in his library. Its character grew out of the complexity and variety of his reading. He was a product, rather than a producer; for the intellectual thread by which he strung together his obser- vations of men and things was not more original than the mate- rials with which he worked. These were supplied to him at second- hand, for in no branch of knowledge did he go to-the fountain- head and learn through experience. His life was wholly in and with his books, and his sole ambition was to be able some time to. show "something in return" for the tear and wear of his brain iu his study.

Mr. Buckle's warmest admirers must admit that his name is not the tower of strength it was a few years ago. In saying that, we de. not refer to the fact that he has been proved guilty of blunders,. or that his theories regarding the character of and parts played by individual nations have been found misleading. We speak of the outcome of his contributions to a theory of history and civilisation. It was as the author of a new philosophy of history that he startled the world. As Bacon had put men on the right track in the observation of nature, and Adam Smith had done the same in regard to man's relations to nature, Mr. Buckle fancied he could complete their work by leading the way to a scientific estimate of human nature,—that is, of the mind of man as acting on and acted upon by what was external to him.. We are able (he said) to deal only with phenomena. These have been mapped out and their laws, or order and correla- tions, determined in the external world. In that province

we have advanced to the high, if not ultimate generalisa- tion of gravitation. Why may not the same thing be done for human nature, by observing and classifying the phenomena which it presents—which are the outcome and index Of what it is—in history ? Shall we not best read the laws of mind in the results it has achieved,—that is to say, in the history of man as he moves in society and fashions himself in communities and nations ? We shall find the laws that have determined the course of civilisation or human development by observing these facts as they lie before us in universal history. The history of every country has its own specialities, which it must be possible to generalise. But the history of every single country connects itself with and can only be understood after previous inquiry into his- tory generally. If by observing history in this twofold aspect we can find the laws that have fulfilled themselves in course of time in the movements of men and nations, we shall have then

won the materials for a still wider generalisation. Why should it not be possible to ascend to a primal and universal law, which will include the whole varied history of the human race as the ultimate law of human phenomena ? Mr. Buckle hoped he might be able "to accomplish for the history of man something equivalent, or at all events analogous, to what has been effected by other inquirers for the different branches of natural science," and so to bridge over "that wide and dreary chasm which, to the hindrance of our knowledge, separates sub- jects that are intimately related, and should never be disunited." This chasm is the gulf between the moral and the material worlds. To this work was he called, and for this he was, in the phraseology of his admirer, an "apostle." In the doing of it Mr. Buckle laid stress on his method. Through induction of the facts of history he would attain generalisations. Having won his principles, he would by deduction apply them. "By a general survey of modern universal history" he would attain " uni- formities of succession or of co-existence," which would be of in- creasing value as the surface increased from whence they were drawn. These laws might then be employed deductively, and applied to particular periods of history verified by a special investi- gation. For he held that history could only be satisfactorily treated by applying to its special periods those general principles which have been derived from a comprehensive survey of it as a whole.

The scheme rests on the idea that history is a succession of necessary events. Given the sum of motives and the conditions in which they apply, we should be able to predict the future. Like the phenomena of nature, the phenomena of human life are con- nected in an order of mechanical succession. Consequently, Mr. Buckle is consistent in dispensing with theology and metaphysics. He identifies the worlds of free-will and physical necessity, and eliminates both God's will and man's will. But there is nothing in Buckle that is new in design or conception. All this about phenomena as our only sphere of inquiry, the elimination of theology and metaphysics, the use of induction and deduction successively and together, and the doctrine of the necessary course of things in history, is in Comte, to whom Buckle only sparingly acknowledged obligation. But Buckle was faithless to his own principles in eliminating metaphysics, for example. He thereby shut out from view a whole world—surely not the least important —of phenomena. He identified metaphysic with psychology, and argued that it was impossible, because it is impossible to conceive the mind as both observer and observed, as both knower and known. In answer to this, it has been truly said, first, that metaphysic and psychology are not the same. The one is a great deal wider than the other, for it includes the ultimate principles of all things. Though first in historical order, metaphysic can only be completed when all the sciences are perfected. With the develop- ment and advance of science, metaphysic also is bound to make progress, for thereby it obtains fresh data, new material. With reference to the difficulty of knowing what is both observer and observed in one, it is no greater in mind than in matter. Every act of knowledge involves this twofold relation, since the external is only known through the agency of the mind which presents it. Mr. Buckle too often perplexed himself with figments of his own fancy, which he took to be the doctrines of metaphysicians. This was notably the case in his treatment of Kant.

Instead of first attacking the champions of Free-will, without overcoming whom he could take no step forward, he has scarcely faced the problem. He never seriously grappled with the doctrine as it has been presented in Kant and developed by later thinkers. All Mr. Buckle did was to apply to some branches of history the method and principles of Comte. Though professing to give the world a philosophy of history, he ignored the work done by others greater than himself in the same field. In a few years it will probably be difficult to say what he accomplished by his History of Civilisation.