BOOKS.

WE have taken some pains in analyzing the intellectual affinities of ffir. Buckle's genius, because it is impossible, without keeping con- stantly before us the great hiatus in his mind, to disentangle the strange mixture of truth and falsehood that runs through the history of the Spanish and Scotch intellects, which form the substance of his second volume. 'The strange gap in his historical faculty of which we speak, the blind side, the punctilio &min, .of his intellect, is seen in his inability to recognize any civilizing power in the gathering force of human law, and the gradual diffusion of respect for law,—in the capacity for just government and loyal obedience. Civilization, in Mr. Backle's mind, has no relation whatever to its original meaning—the making men good citizens. It refers only to the diffusion of that knowledge., which is a powerful aid, cer- tainly, to the growth of social life, but which may also be turned into the most powerful instrument of anarchic forces. if, in tacit, this 'has not been so, it is because, side by side with the growth of knowledge, has grown up that respect for just govemment, human and divine—that loyalty and that severeace—which Mr. Buckle, with eccentric sophistry, denounces as the internecine foes of civi- Tandem.

Let us look now at the two instalments of .demonstration of this false and paradoxical theory which the interesting sketches of the Spanish and Scotch intellects in the present volume contain. Mr. Buckle's general assertions are—that civilization depends on the suc- cess with which the laws of phenomena are investigated, and the ex- tent to which a knowledge Of those laws is diffused; that scepticism gives rise to this investigation, and is promoted by it ; that the know- ledge thus attained gives intellectual truth a greater proportionate infineuce than moral truth; that the great obstacle to this movement, and therefore the great enemy of civilization, is the protective spirit, political or ecclesiastical, that is the expansion of any re- ive central strength in either State or Church. These are Mr. uckle's theorems, and Spain is his most triumphant and favourite Illustration of them. She is the "awful warning" whom he pro- duces to convert men from any respect for authority, political or spiritual. He forgives her for her long torpor in consideration of her usefulness to the science of civilization, through the illustration of his theory. After attributing far more than is rational of Spanish superstition to the earthquakes whichare frequent in the Peninsula, Mr. Buckle goes on to sketch with much greater truth the origin of the authority of the Spanish monarchy, and its close alliance with the Church, in the centuries of religious war in which the Spaniards slowly drove the Arab invaders out of Spain. All such internecine struggles tend to increase the central power, whether spiritual or temporal ; and when at last, in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, this result was achieved, and the kingdom was able to develop peace- fully its internal resources, and to commence trade with that splendid colonial empire which the discoveries of Columbus had added to the Spanish monarchy, the royal and ecclesiastical authorities were so deeply rooted in the life of the nation that no abuse of either was likely to be effectually checked except by the other. Under Isabella, indeed, the power of the Spanish Commons had been respected and even cherished ; but Ferdinand, the Emperor Charles V., and Philip IL, did not need this alliance against the aristocracy, and the Commons rwere too weak to assert themselves. Under the three remaining kings of the Austrian dynasty—Philip M, Philip IV., and Charles II.—the power was thrown con yletely into the hands of a Church which was losing ground rapidly in the ether parts of Europe, and therefore the more jealous, the more inquisitorial, the more covetous in its grasp e the one national intellect which it could still profess to rule with absolute sway. Mr. Buckle shows us the results. Even during the bloom of the Spanish monarchy, the greatest intellects of Spain had been in subjection to the Church. He mentions a long list of the most celebrated men of the great era of Spanish literature, among whom Cervantes, De Vega, and Calderon are the most familiar to English readers, who were or became priests or monks. And after the checking hand of the great princes of Spain was withdrawn from the Church, the Inquisition ruled supreme over the intellect even of the thinkers. -The expulsion of the Moriscoes or Moorish Christians—the most skilful and industrious element in the Spanish population, and almost the only part of it which had not learned the chivalric tradition of scorn for manual industrywas the first result ; a result which led to the still more rapid decline of agriculture, art, and commerce. Mr. Buckle indicates some of the more striking fruits of this decline at the end of the sixteenth century, just before the war of the succession broke out. The military art was extinct ; ;Spain had no generals and no engineers of her own ; the navy was no more, the art of building ships almost forgotten; the Spanish pilots incapable of their work ; the maps of Spain were imported from France ; famines were chronic; taxation was a mere violent seizure of the property of the poor and wretched ; and the country not ruled but overrun by a rabble of monks and clergy.

"If this state of things " says Mr. Buckle, " had continued for another generation, the wildest anarchy must have ensued, and the twliole frame of society have broken up." Why Mr. Buckle should object to anarchy, which in his theory would have been the true and natural remedy, we do not see. What prevented it ? Not the "in-

History of Ciouisation in England. ay Henry Thomas Buckle. Volume Ii Parker, Son, and Bourn. vestigat ion of the laws of phenomena, and their diffusion among the .masses," but the accession of a more royal line of princes, who

curbed the power cif the Church, taxed the .ecclesiastics, established civil order, and encouraged the growth of foreign learning. This improvement lasted under the Bourbon Philip V. and Ferdinand VI., and culminated in the reign of Charles III. The colonies were liberally governed, the Jesuits were intimidated, the roads were repaired, the country repopulated, literature encouraged. Mr. Buckle admits that much was done, but implies, though he does not venture to assert, that as it was done by government in advance of thepeople, it had better been left undone. He points with triumph to the tem- poriry and imperfect reaction under the bigot Charles IV., which was terminated by Bonaparte's invasion, and maintains, contrary to all evidence, that the introduction of liberal institutions, which followed the expulsion of the French, has produced no effect on the general civilization of Spain. The truth is, that in spite of a shameless dynasty, no country in Europe shows more evidence of movement at the present moment than Spain. Gradually and painfully it is struggling against the power of a corrupt priesthood and a profligate throne, into something like self-government, liberty, and order. That the history of Spain since the beginning of the sixteenth century is a terrible testimony to the degrading power of a superstitious and licentious Church, no one can deny. But Mr. Buckle takes nothing by this patent truth that goes to support his peculiar and individual cry.

For that theory requires that the civilizing force should be ascribed always to .accumulating knowledge, and it finds the force obstructive of civilization in positive interferences (political or ecclesiastical) with the natural inlet of knowledge ; but it cannot logically admit that there is any permanently decivilizing power in moral and political causes, because it earnestly denies that there is any permanently civilizing power in them; and the two must be co-ordinate. If it is possible to barbarize a nation by directing their blind affections of loyalty and reverence to unworthy objects, then it must be possible to civilize them in the same manner. If Mr. Buckle will concede no permanent credit to the Bourbons for establishing justice, curbing rapacity, enforcing.Obedience, giving a respect for law and civil order in the eighteenth century, then he cannot accuse the Austrian dynasty of actively degrading the people in the seventeenth. If on the other hand, the corruption of loyalty and reverence were genuine barbarizing powers under Philip IV. and Charles II., ti enthe purified loyalty under Ferdinand VI. and Charles III. was a genuine civilizing force. From this dilemma there is no 'escape. Mr. Buckle cannot be allowed to exclude all the moral and political elements from the direct civilizing forces, unless he also excludes them from the direct barbarizing forces. He may say, if he pleases, that governments and churches prevent the introduction of fresh light and knowledge; lie may complain if they exclude the knowledge already possessed ; but he cannot fairly attrihute to the immoralities, and cruelties, and injustices of these governments a corrupting power, while he denies to the equity, and purity, and mildness of a good government a regenerating power. Whatever loyalty, and reverence do, they do either for good or evil, according as their object is good or evil. In theology, if the worship of an evil idol degrades, the worship of a superhuman virtue must elevate. In government, if deference to a ruler below the average level of popular virtue lowers a people, the same deference to a ruler above that level must raise them. And the history of the last three centuries in Spain illustrates both these truths. It shows a people rapidly degenerating under a cruel and licentious yoke, against which they were too dependent to rebeL But it also shows them gradually recovering under a mild and liberal government by which they were dependent enough to be guided. When Mr. Buckle shows us the sensuality, the selfishness, the licence, the extortion, the gross cruelty of the Austrian line and their vacerdotal advisers, and the indolence, the cowardice, the selfishness of the -people ruled, he shows us the true -moving forces which caused the degeneracy of the country, of which ignorance was only one of the accompanyingeonditions, though he attempts to elevate it into the primary cause. No one can read his sketch of the history of the Spanish intellect without remarking that he has inverted the true relations, and that knowledge or absence of 'knowledge is a mere effect of moral causes. The spirit of industry which had been brought into disrepute not only by the military and ecclesiastical spirit, but quite as much by the excitement of the gold discoveries in the Spanish colonies, was wanting in Spain; and industry is rather the mother of invention, than invention of industry. Courage to resist oppression was wanting; and courage is rather the cause than the consequence of a spirit of inquiry. The spirit of equity or equal justice was wanting, and this again is rather the cause than the consequence of an equal diffusion of civilizing influences. In short, Mr. Buckle uniformly puts his cart before his horse. Knowledge and the diffusion of knowledge no doubt react to promote civilization, but they cannot enter freely at all before the moralroots of civil order and equity are planted deep, and have taken hold on a people's mind.

In his history of the Scotch intellect, Mr. Buckle finds still less support for his favourite paradoxes. He remarks at the outset, truly enough, that the Scotch intellect was not much hampered by the restraints of loyalty ; but this praiseworthy deficiency was, he appears to think, sadly neutralized by a deep-rooted tendency to wel- come the chains of superstition. We believe that Mr. Buckle's own narrative contains remarkable evidence that the long-lived or deeply- rooted barbarism of Scotland was in great measure due to the absence of this loyalty in the Scotch character, and that the civilization which has at length spread over the country is due mainly to the taming influence of the stern dogmatic Calvinism which seemed best cal- culated to master and rule the rugged Caledonian genius. Let us

explain in a few words what we mean. It was the marked political tendency of the ,fifteenth and sixteenth .centuries, in almost all the

principal countries of Europe, but not in Scotland, to unite the

crown with the .people, in curbing and pruning the power of the nobles. In Spain this was the policy of Ferdinand and Isabella,

and their successors. In France Louis XI., and in England Henry VII., were led to adopt a similar policy with similar success. General circumstances, amongst which probably the successful demo- cratic policy of the Roman Church was the most important, had led the monarchs in all these countries to see that combination with the growing popular power was their only means of subduing the restless and imperious power of the nobles. It is remarkable that a succes- sion of more or less able rulers in the three countries we have named rendered this policy mot only possible but effective. On the other hand the people, schooled by the long sway of the Roman Church, into a clear sense of the advantages of a central power, repre- senting law and equity, and able to •impose its authority on the most powerful and unruly, were glad to rally round the throne so long as at represented this principle of central order and impartial justice. The same sentiment of reverence which had made the Church so popular in the preceding ages as the representative of a civilizing principle which was no respecter of persons, was now partially trans- ferred to the throne wherever the throne was able to prove itself a truer representative of equity in secular affairs than the decaying Church. •

Unfortunately for Scotland, always behind the rest of Europe in civilization, this respect for a central principle of secular order and law had not grown up, and the unhappy Stuart dynasty, wholly de- stitute of that kingly. tact and dignity which the 'Tudors and their contemporaries had in no common degree, were not made of the material to quicken the growth of this popular attachment to the throne. The national virtue of the Scotch was a vivid personal attachment to family and clan leaders, but not loyalty, or attachment to the representative of law in any sense. They had not yet been schooled and drilled into any deep reverence for this centre of civil order and authority. This Mr. Buckle freely admits, but fails to see that this obstinate predominance of tribe or clan policy over that deeper and more spiritual sentiment of national order and unity Which recognizes something higher than mere party justice, was the great retarding force of civilization in Scotland. He seems to think the absence of that wide sentiment of loyalty, which first brought England under the Tudors to a true sense of national life and unity, a positive advantage in Scotland. He narrates the dismal series of predatory acts and murders which constitutes Scotch history in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, without the dimmest perception that here was a deep-rooted deficiency in the reverence for moral Order, for a righteous government that should subdue these rebel- lious and licentious wills. In a time when almost every statesman of distinction came to a violent end—such men as Murray, Morton, Lennox, and Ruthven—when the most reckless and vindictive tra- gedies were enacted in every province and town of Scotland—when the burning of a foeman's house with all its inmates was a compara- tively common event,—in such times Mr. Buckle would have us believe that the only obstacle to the progress of civilization was the absence of a " spirit of inquiry into the laws of 'phenomena and the diffusion of the results of that inqViry." Is not this trifling with history; is it not like saying, when the sun is darkened amidst a raging storm, that the wind and clouds and rain are due to the absence of light, instead of the absence of light to the wind and clouds? It is a contradiction of the historical sense to narrate the history of Scotland in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and then to tell us that the absence of loyal feeling promoted the growth of civiliza- tion.

And what did eventually subdue this deep4eated Scotch' arbarism? Certainly not the power of the throne, for till the union it never had any power in Scotland, and not much for a to time afterwards. Certainly not the power of the Roman Church, which made less way in -Scotland than in any other European kingdom. It was the stern and gloomy Calvinistic dogmatism which at length effected what neither Church nor g had been able to effect—which drove the iron through the soul of that untamable population, and brought them at last under the yoke of a certain austere principle of 'social order. Mr. Buckle accumulates very painful evidence of the repulsive features of the popular Scotch faith—features which show that the native barbarism of the age in Scotland perverted grossly the true Christian revelation, and gave a kind of fierce and bloody distortion even to the stern doctrines of the great Genevan divine. Still it is impossible not to read in every page of this Scotch history of the century that Scotland needed a thorough taming; that civilization could not take a step till the minds of the people were subdued; till their vehement self-will and passionate revengefulness, and unscru- pulous covetousness, were brought into some kind of voluntary sub- jection ; till they began to reverence some spiritual invisible kingship of higher and wider authority than their visible chieftaiuships. This it was the work of Knox and his followers to effect ; and though the spiritual instruments used were no doubt bent and discoloured in' the using, so that it is difficult to recognize the true revelation of Christ in the fierce and horrible doctrines of which Mr Buckle has selected so many specimens, yet the work was done. The Presby- terian ministers, for the first time, taught the Scotch to look up to a higher law than their own family traditions ; to fear a worse hell than unsatisfied passion. And we do not fear that any thoughtful reader of Mr. Buckle's volume will be tempted to believe that Bacon, Newton, or even Dr. Adam Smith (who, in Mr. Buckle's eccentric view, produced a book which has had more influence on civilization than any other that 'was ever written) could have done this work in their place. Mr. Buckle has no eye for the dynamics of 'history. He writes a very interesting account of the mere intellect of nations ; bat only puzzles himself and his readers when lie confounds this with the history of the civilizing forces which brought each nation into a condition for intellectual progress. And nowhere is he guilty of a more thorough confusion of this kind than in his chapters onthe

Scotch intellect. We find him neglecting entirely therous,1 grinding breaking in of the unruly will which first turned Scotch-

men into citizens, and insisting at great length on the dawning. of a few scientific discoveries concerning political economy, and 'cheat 'Lary, and physiology, which cannot be supposed to have really civilized .a single Scotchman, though it was one of the first fruits of their ciaili- zation.

In conclusion, 'we must say that Mt. Buckle is not very reliable in his treatment of historical evidence. With that amusing dogniatiiinn which is part of his character as au historian, he tells us in a note to p. : "Once for all, 1 may .say that I have made no assertion for the truth of which I .do not possess ample and irrefragable evidenee." But Mr. Buckle's prejudice or bias is so strong, that he is not aware of the extreme rashness of many of his statements. For example, at p. 256, lie speaks of the motive and nature of the Gowrie conspiracy as if James's account of that obscure and mysterious affair wore sub- stantiated by the strongest internal and external evidence, instead of being full of improbabilities, contradictions, and probably falsehoods, and presenting one of the most knotty problems in the field of history. Again, at p. 290, he asserts, on truly contemptible evidence, the mere hearsay evidence of enemies, that, " whenever torture was inflicted, James IL was Buie to be present, feasting his eyes and revelling with a fiendish joy." This may be true, but what is his " irrefragable authority ?" We have it in the following note:

"This was well known in. Scotland ; and is evidently alluded to by a writer of that time, the Bev. Alexander Shields, who calls James not a man, but a monster. See Shields' Hind let loose, 1687, p. 365. This man, or monster rather, that is now mounted the throne: And a monster surely he was. Compare Crookshank's History of the Church of Scotland, voL iL p. 86, where it is mentioned that, when Spreul was tortared, 'the Duke of York •was pleased to gratify his eyes with this delightful scene.' Also, Wodrow's History, vol. iii. p. 258, mid Laing's History of Scotland, voL iv. p. 116. According to Barnet, the duke's pleasure at witnessing human agony was a cold, and, as it were, a speculative pleasure, as if he were presentfor the purpose of contemplating some curious ex- periment. But James was so excitable a man, that this is hardly likely. At all events, the remarks of Burnet haves painful interest for those who study these dark, and, as we may rejoice to think, these very rare, forms of human When any are to be struck in the boots, it is donein the presence of the council; and upon that occasion, almost all offer to run away. The sight is so dreadful, that without an order restraining such a number to stay, the board would be forsaken. But the 'duke, while lie had been in Scotland, was so far from with- drawing, that helooked on all the while with an unmoved indifference, and with an attention, as if he had been io lookon some curious experiment. This gaveat terrible idea of him to all that observed it, as of a man that had no bowels nor humanity in him.' burnet's History of his own Time, voL ii. pp. 416, ea..' Such evidence as this, for such a sweeliing statement as we hue quoted, is not worthy of an historian.

We must remind our readers that our criticisms have been directed against Mr. Buckle's strange notion that he is analyzing in this work the true principles of civilization. That his volumes form a very interesting and instructive commentary on the growth of intellectual truths and their influence on the human mind, we heartily admit, and believe that they will take a permanent place in English literature.