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TTISTORY of CIVILIZATION in ENGLAND ^ and FRANCE, SPAIN and SCOTLAND. By Hbnkt Thomas Buckle. Fifth Edition of the entire Work, with a Copious Imdkx. London: LONGMANS and CO. Ali rigkti reaerved. MISCELLANEOUS AND POSTHUMOUS WOKKS OF HENET THOMAS BUCKLE EDITED WITH A BIOQIUPmCAL NOTICE BT HELEN TAYLOR IW THREE VOLTTMES VOL. I. LONDON LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO. 1872 CONDON ! PEINTED BT 8P0TTI8W00DB AND CO., NSW-STREVT SQUABS AMD fabl:aiient STRBBT "* f CONTENTS. VOL. I. VAGM Biographical Notice . . ix Imtboduction ..,..., . Ivii MISCELLANEOUS WOEKS. The Influence of Women on the Pkogbbss of Knowledge 1 Mill on Liberty ...... . . 20 Letter to a Gentleman respecting Pooley's Case . . 71 POSTHUMOUS WORKS. Reign of Elizabeth: ...... . 85 I. Political ...... . &3 II. Toleration ..... . 88 III. Political ...... . 94 IV, Clergy . 104 V. Bishops ...... . 119 Fragments :...,... . 136 Possibility of History ..... . 136 Triumph of Intellectual over Physical Laws . . 143 Disputes among Diiferent Branches of Knowledge . 149 Physiology ...... . 152 Climate ...... . 164 Crime ....... . 158 Middle State of European History . 161 Causes of Backward State of History . . 170 Absurdities as Specimens of Historifins . . . 171 Absurdities in Eariy History .... . 174 Progress in History ..... . 176 Ballads, &c. ..... . . 180 Preliminary for Reign of Elizabeth . , . 185 Sixteenth Century . . . . , . . 186 Seventeenth Century . . . . . . . 191 Philology . , . . ... . 193 Eighteenth Century . . . , . , . 19.5 England — for Introduction . . . . . . 202 General References for Introduction . . . . 215 Influence of German Literature in England . 217 English Literature in the Nineteenth Century . . 219 George III. ....... . 234 Reaction in England late in the Eighteenth Century . . 229 Bad Points under George III. , . . , , . 232 Despotism under George III. . . . . . . 236 Disasters under George III. ... . 237 n CONTENTS. ^''c^onEttTs—coniinued. After French Revolution . , Improvements under George III. Pi'ogress in the Eighteenth Century Circumstances favourable to the Euglish Pe^plo earlv in tlio Nino teenth Century England in the Nineteenth Century . [ Errors of Voltaire . . . ' Bousseau Rnd Materialism Rousseau and his School French Literature after 1750 . . [ ^stheticMovement alter 1750 . \ Classical School •..*.' Scepticism • . . . Political Economy in France in the Eighteenth Century Religious Persecution under Louis XV Louis XV. ...'.." The Jesuits in France in the Eighteenth Century Jansenism , The French Government attacked the Clergy Character of Louis XVI. French Revolution .... Notes for French Revolution . Influence of England and Coalition on France .' Consequence of England interfering with French Revolution France m the Nineteenth Century Greece ... Decline of Greece Africa . . . . ' ' Asia .... America • • . Observations on the Spirit and Tendency of Commerce and Blerchant? „ Tendency of Military Institutions and Character of Soldiers History of Military Institutions and the Army' >i the English Army . The Rise of Agriculture and its Influence on Civil-'zation History of Agriculture .... Historj' of the Prices of Corn . ', ' Influence of the Clergy upon Civilization Tendency of the Laws respecting Apprentices . Observations upon Freemasonry The Condition and Influence of Women '. Causes and Eifects of Duelling " Notes on the Tendency of Education Democracy • . . Medicine ... Connexion between Medicine and History Puritans ..." Witchcraft • , . . ' History of the English Navy . Administration of Justice and Influence of Lawyers Notes for History of Money and Precious Metals History and Influence of the Aristocracy Laws of Primogeniture . Remarks on the Pqor Laws . TAOU 237 239 240 243 244 261 361 265 257 259 260 261 262 264 266 266 266 267 267 270 271 274 274 281 292 304 311 819 332 336 341 346 34S 349 366 867 369 365 36& 367 38» 38S 397 401 40S 41» 42f> 429 43» 440' 44» 452 .^^^.¥^ CONTENTS. Yll Nino- TAon FakOMiiST3—(eo7i(inued) PAOI 237 History of Prices ....... 454 239 Colonies ..... . 458 240 Wages ..... Chivalry .... . 459 . 4i;3 243 Towns and Cities , 465 244 Beggiirs in England . . , , 4(i7 261 History of Eents , 468 361 Royal Revenue and Taxes , 469 266 Progress and Tendency of Enclosures . . 471 257 „ of Toleriition . , 472 259 The Theatre .... . 481 260 Ballads ..... .. 490 261 The Press .... , 493 262 Origin of the Middle and Honied Classes . 495 264 Arminianism .... . 496 265 Observations upon Suicide . 497 266 Improvement of Morals . 600 266 Horses .... . 601 267 Hereditary and Divine Right of Kings . 602 267 Obser\'ations on Metaphysics . . 604 270 Substance .... . 607 271 Leases ..... . 608 274 Chancery and its Equitable Jurisdiction . 509 274 Esthetics and History of the Arts .. 609 281 Literature .... . 621 292 Travelling .... . 623 304 French in England in the Sixteenth Century . 52i 311 Public and International Law . . 626 819 Jansenism .... . ssts 332 Statistics .... . 626 336 Political Economy . , Ethics ..... . ^28 .. 633 341 Churches .... . 634 345 Calvinism ..... . 635 348 Manufactures ..... -. 637 349 The Reformation and Protestantism . . 639 35G Civilization compared with Barbarism . 641 357 Crimes— their Statistics, &c. . . 542 359 Philology ..... . 547 36.> Manners ..... . 560 366 Population ..... . ^6» 367 Physiology ..... .. 650 38.'> Tendency of Classical Literature . 652 388 Theology and Religious Superstitions . . 4i63 39(> National Character of the Dutch > 656 397 1, ,1 French . 657 401 II II Spanish . 659 408 1, ,1 Irish . 564 418 1, „ Italians . 665 42ft II II Scotch , 566 429 1, ,1 Russians . 687 438 II II Germans . 589 440 America ..... . 589 448 General Remarks on National Character . . 591 452 Increase of Humanity and Virtue . « « . 692 Vlll CONTENTS. i Diminished Superstition Decline of Ignorance . Mahometanism . Insanity Slavery FAOa 593 594 694 694 697 VOL. II. COMMON PLACE BOOKS VOL. in. COMMON PLACE BOOKS . Sixteenth Centuhy Manners m the Seventeenth Centuby Notes fob English History: Henry VIII. Edward VI. Mary . Queen Elizabeth James I. Charles I. Cromwell Charles II. James II. William III. Anne . Index to Common Place Books I) Sixteenth Century ,, Manners in the Seventeenth Century II Notes for English History 1 515 535 601 602 603 604 620 681 635 637 641 643 044 647 701 702 706 BIOGEAPHICAL NOTICE. Few men, perhaps, have been placed throughout life in cir- cumstances more favourable to the development and utilisation of intellectual power than those which surrounded Henry Thomas Buckle, the author of the History of Civilization in England. He belonged by birth to that middle class of whose services to the world he himself entertained so high an estimate ; and he had the good fortune also to belong to a family which seems to have united considerable taste for literature with sufficient for- tune to place at his disposal, from an early age, such means of study or travel as he himself desired. These advantages he shared, it is true, with thousands of young men who never make any visible return to the world for their good fortune ; neverthe- less, it is probable that a larger jDroportion of young men so cir- cumstanced do actually distinguish themselves, than of any other class in life. But Mr. Buckle's good fortune consisted more especially in two other circumstances which fell to his lot. In the first place, his mother, who seems to have early formed a high estimate of her son's abilities, unceasingly stimulated and encouraged him to exertion. And, in the second place, the delicacy of his health, from childhood upwards, shut him out from schools, from the universities, and from the professions— from all those places and pursuits, in short, where boys and men learn to imitate one another; where they learn to accept conventional solutions to the problems which are sure to present themselves to every active intellect; or where they learn co limit their ambition to the acquirement of wealth or of worldly success. For his love of Inlii ^ BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. Study, as ^vell as for his undoubted ambition to distinguish him- self, Mr. Buckle was probably indebted to his mother. But to the weak he:.lth which led him to solitary study, must be at- tributed much, not only of his universally admitted originality of thought, but also of that characteristic Mgour of expression ^vhicji enabled him to bring his thoughts home to the popular mmd with such striking success. His standard of expression was formed, like that of most other people, by his mental companions- but these companions were, in his case (fortunately for his renown and his readers), composed of the great minds of all af his ideas, methods of who might world, was n by three do it, had , from the )erience in 'the noble al evidence ite him to n after hi:r es nothing, I fear, or e, but that ub*, more- s writings, nal talent, e aid and t constant ct on the 3iography. a, p. 72. Fortunately, however, we may be tolerably sure that it would have been his own wish that a biography of him should be mainly concerned with his writings. " I live," says he, " only for literature , my works are my only actions ; they are not wholly unknown, and I leave it to them to protect my name." ' The present sketch, therefore, will be in the main confined to tracing, as far as his very dry and succinct Journals will allow, the preparatory studies which led up to his writings, and to preserving such remarks of his own upon their scope and purport as it has been possible to collect. Even for this the materials are but slight ; but before entering upon them it will be well that the reader should be in possession of an outline of the facts of his life, for which we are indebted to his surviving sister : " Henry Thomas Buckle was the son of Thomas Henry Buckle, a wealthy merchant, who was born 6th of October, 1779, died 24th of January, 1840, and who married Jane, daugliter of Peter Middleton and Mary Dodsworth his wife, both of the county of York, in 1811, by whom he had three children : a sun, Henry Thomas, and two daughters. Henry Thomas was bom at Lee, in Kent, 24th of November, 1821, whilst his parents were on a visit to his father's only brother. Greatly beloved by his family, the author of the History of Civilization in England was a feeble and delicate infant. He had no pleasure in the society of children of his own age, nor did he care for children's books ; his great delighc was the Bible; he would sit for hours by the side of his mother to hear the Scrip- tures read. But although his mother bought hira books without end, he felt no interes: in any of them until one day she brought him home the Arabian Nights, which he ^letdily devoured, and from that time he loved books. His father was a staunch Tory, and at an early age his son took interest in politics, and held liis father's views. When he was quite a youngster he and a cuusin of about his own age, who was brought up with him ls a brother, used to play at Parson and Clerk as thoy called it. Henry Thomas would always preach, and although quite a child his mother used to say that his eloquence was extraordinary. A i a cliild he was never awkward or intrusive, but always did the right thing in the right place. From a child he liad conversational powers, and made himself acquainted with e rerything that was going on. He was sent to school to a clergyman, it being thought that a change from home might be of service to him ; but his health failed, and he was soc.i taken away. His father encouraged his love of reading, and he had nany advantages at home. In the year 1837, being with his family at Tuabridge Wells, he indulged m billiards, and after three months lost a considerable sum of money, which his mother paid. He often alluded to this in after life, thinking it ' Lettor to a Gentleman respocting Pooley's Case, infra, p. 71. zu BIOGEAPHICAL NOTICE. fortunate that he ^ad lost rather than won. After this, his health improv- ing, he was placed with a private tutor. He never learnt any lessons, but he was always foremost in his class. Again, his health failing, he returned home ; and he now began to form a smaU library, arid was in the habit of walking all about London in search of cheap books. He had long been a great reader of novels, and his father, who had a very retentive memory was fond of reciting Shakespeare in his evenings at home. On the 24th of January, 1840, his father died, after an illness of four weeks, and his last words were addressed to his son when he called him to his bedside, a few mmutes before his death, ' Be a good boy to your mother.' Young Buckle was immediately seized with a fainting-fit and taken out of the room. For some mouths after this he was attended by his physicians, and had frequent attacks of fainting, with great prostration of strength. His mother, then in delicate health, was advised both for herse'f and hoc son to try entire change of scene and climate,'and in July, 1840, his mother, his unmarried sister, and himself left England, and remained a year abroad. His health improved wonderfully, and during that time he studied the lan- guages and the literature of the various countries he visited, was always at his books, and kept regular and early hours. On his return to England he contmued to study languages, and in 1841, his mother writing to him, says, ' I am glad that you continue your Dutch master.' In the spring of 1843 he was presented at the English court, and immediately afterwards left England in company with a friend, and visited many of the capitals of Europe. In the autumn of the same year his sister married, and imme- diately afterwards his mother left England to join her son in Munich, where he had been laid up with a severe attack of rheumatic gout She remained with him until the spring of 1844, when they both returned to England, and his mother again settled in London. He then began to collect his extensive library, and his diary shows how regular his habits and hours were. He delighted in dinner-company and good talk. He never danced • had no taste for music. He disliked horse exercise, and though ordered when he was young to ride for his health, would never ride alone, as he said he lorgot he was on horseback; and on one occasion, when riding xvith Mrs Hutchinson, one of his sisters, at Hastings, he was so entirely absorbed .itli his own thoughts that he allowed his horse to take him into the library on the Parade. He had no taste ur the country or country pursuits • and although his healtli was delicate he liked no place but London. He was fond of walking alone, as he used to say that he could talk to himself. He made few friends, and rather disliked strangers; and though he was affable to every one, he only admired talent, and what he called ' good talk.' Ho was fond of children, and would play with his own nephews and niece in a simple and childlike way. Ilis disposition was kind, and in many letters written to one of his sisters there breathes much love, symnathy, and kind- heartedness. He had an aunt, his mother's last surviving sister, to whom he was much attached ; also a favourite cousin ; .and though he disliked letter-writing, and used to say it was great waste of time, he°never forgot BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. • a • Xlll ialth improv- r lessons, but he returned I the habit of long been a ive memory, 3n the 24th Jeks, and his lis bedside, a ler.' Young n out of the i^sicians, and ength. His d hor son to mother, his 'ear abroad, lied thelan- as always at to England ;ing to him, he sp;:iug of { afterwards e capitals of and imme- in Munich, gout. She returned to an to collect s and hours ^er danced ; igh ordered e, as he said ? xvith Mrs. 3orbed .ith tlie library rsuits; and 1. He was inself. He was affable talk.' Ho tid niece in lany letters , and kind- r, to whom he disliked iver forgot his near relatives. He was very methodical, careful, scrupulously correct in accounts and all money matters, and could calculate the expenses of any household. He was just in all his dealings, and although he disliked being called charitable, as it is termed, there are many who can testify to his kindness. He was always ready ' to help those who helped them- selves,' but he would never ' let his left hand know what his right hand doeth.' His mother died in April, 1859, and through her distressing illness she had but one thought — her children, and more especially her son, who was her friend and companion. In the frequent wanderings of her mind for many months before her death she was always cheerful and collected when her son came into her room, so that he could not see her imminent danger, and even on the day of her death he was unwilling to telegraph to the family; and when it was only a matter of hours or perhaps minutes, he was still sanguine. But the hour came ; and the great man was prostrate. He had lost in that mother everything that made his home happy. During the remainder of that year he was a constant wanderer. He visited his friends, and later in the year his sister. A heavy domestic affliction which befell the family at that time weighed heavily on him. The following year his health from time to time was much enfeebled, and in 1861, feeling still wretched and un- settled, he made up his mind to leave England. On the 20th of October in that year he left Southampton for Alexandria ; and on the 29th of May, 1862, died at Damascus of fever." From this outline of Mr. Buckle's life it will be seen that at the age of nineteen he was free to choose a career for himself • and that he then spent a year on the Continent with his mother and on his return to England continued the study of languages which he had begun abroad. He appears to have known some- thing of Latin, nothing of Greek, and to have had' some know- ledge of French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Russian, and Danish. It was probably during this period, between the age of nineteen and twenty-one, that he formed a determination out of which grew, in time, the work by which he became known. The most interesting passage in the whole of his Journals is that in which he notes down this resolution : — " Saturday, October 15, 1842.— Being this day settled in my new lodg- ings. No. 1, Norfolk Street, I determined to keep a journal of my actions —principally, for the sake of being able to review what I have read, and consequently to estimate my own progress. My reading has, unfortu- nately, been hitherto, though extensive, both desultory and irregular. I am, however, determined from this day to devote all the energies I may have, solely to the study of the history and literature of tis grout w„rk the mon, .loiightod T am, particularly at tho new views It opons to mo, and of which Simon soonus to have no i,loa, I n.can the connoct.on hotwcon his rosoarchos and speculations, and the philosophic lustory of man. ' From tliis it maybe inferred with tolerable certainty that it was during these eight years— from 1842 to 18.^j()—that his gradually amassed knowledge of the great outlines of modern history, together with the experience he was acquiring of the tendencies of his own mind, led him to the choice of his subject. His literary style seems also to have been completely formed by this time, for all its main characteristics are to be found in the fragments on the reign of Klizal>eth, written at least as early as l«oO. Oiu^ of its most marked characteristics, and one which principally contributes to its energy and, above all, to its picturesque charm, is his frequent use of those metaphors and of those rhetorical forms of speech to which all the world is accustomed, and which have become common-places in the language. In tho last century this was more common than it IS now. tor writers then talked a great deal more about «an elegiuit simplicity." or a "severe taste," or "purity of style" than tlu^ practised it. But at the present time the dread of criticism makes the style of most of our writers very colourless; and, unfortunately, when anyone has a taste for fine language, he generally thinks it necessary to invent it for himself, by which means he is pretty sure to be incomprehensible and affected, witliout always succeeding in being fine. There is much to be said in favour of using, in prose at least, the metaphors, the pathos, and the grandiloquence to which all the world is ac- customed, and to which all the world attaches much the same sort and amount of meaning. These things are, like legendary and religious or national traditions, common ground for all men s^ imaginations; they touch that second nature which makes ft.. w.)o ..peak the same language, kin. Like proverbs, these BioGRArnrcAL notice. xyji common-places have got into common use just hecause they were apt and happy expressions fitted to bring a meaning home to most people's minds; and a man may easily go farther and fare worse in seeking to replace them by some original turn of his own. When anyone talks, for instance, of « bearding the lion in his den," all the world knows what is meant to be conveyed • and (wliat is no less important) all the world receives at once an impression of something grand and uncommon. It is true wo are so used to the phrase that we may forget to ask whether the l.on has got any beard, and may apply it, as Mr. Buckle has done in the ca^e of (Jueen Elizabeth, to someone who certainly had not J3ut a writer may very well trust to correcting these little over- sights when he revises liis work, whereas certainly no one ever put vigour into his style as it passed through the press We know that Mr. Jiuckle was fond of reading alond and recitmg poetry, and that he was, in after years, fond of reading Shakespeare aloud, as his Mher had been, from whom, perhaps he may have acquired the taste. We know also that he greatlJ admued and studied Burke; and it may be questioned whether a style so brilliant and so ele^r as his, is not always founded more or less on oratory. The Greeks-the greatest masters of style- produced the greatest orators, and must have formed their ide^us of style rather upon spoken than on written speech. The m-istcr pieces of French literature were immediately preceded 'bv . •series ot great preachers, while in England, and in German^ the drama led the way to the most brilliant periods of the natioiiiil literature. The wonderf,il group of Enc.H.h . 7 (Shelley, Wordsworth, ..leridge, Keat.,'and'B; on no to sre k ot U.ser liglits), who shone on the beginning of tL ninet I'tt 1 :tt 1-ox, Burke and Sheridan, who must have made it difficul or hose who had heard them to forget altogether that langu 1 . meant to be spoken. The statement of Mr. Buckle's sist;r that m his ehi dliood he was addicted to preaching sermons, is in Burke and Shakespeare. It is in the year 1851 that there occurs the first evidence of his having decided on the form his » book " was to take. * a XVIU BIOaRAPHICAL NOTICE. f •• But although he must already have made considerable progress even to entertain such a hope, no one will be surprised that it was many years before his book was really ready for publication. During the next three years — from May, 1851, to November, 1854— he was continually occupied in writing and re- writing what subsequently appeared as the first volume of his History. Thus, for example, in 1853, he wrote as chapter iii. what afterwards appeared as chapter v. ; in 1854 he re-wrote large portions, such, for instance, as " the beginning of the view of French civiliza- tion ; " the " view of the influence of England on the French Revolution ; " his " account of the connection between science and the confusion of ranks preceding the French Revolution ; " and in July, 1854, he mentions that he " liad long had in his mind " the "■ physical laws which made the old civilizations superstitious." At length, in November, 1 854, he for the second time thought he had his work ready for publication, and on November 25 he says that he hopes to publish vol. i. of " my work next summer." Six months more, however, passed before he (in July, 1855) "began at length the great task of copying my work for the press ;" and a few months later still he " began to revise spelling in MS." Copying, revising, and looking out notes, with some few additions to the original matter, occupied him for two years more after the work was substantially finished, before it actually appeared. During these six years, which were probably the happiest of his life, he lived in London, at 59, Oxford Terrace, with the exception of occasional short visits to relations a*t Brighton, Boulogne, &c., and a few short excursions on the Continent. He led a very quiet and regular life, noting down day by day in his Journal, the number of hours during which he wrote or made entries in his Common Place Books ; the titles of the books he read ; the number of hours he gave to reading, and the number of pages he read in them. All this is put down in the fewest words and the minutest handwriting into which it is possible to compress it, and diversified only by an equally dry and minute statement of the hours at which he rose, took his meals, walked out, &c. Even when he was travelling the Journal is continued in exactly the same form, and never diverges into any remarks on what he saw. One or two examples will be sufficient to give the reader an idea of it. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. ^j^ Monday JVovember 2i, 1851, Brighton.-Rose at 8. Walked half an hour and then breakfasted. Prom 10.5 to 12 read German From 2 2 1.30 read Mill's Analysis of the Mind, i., 66-140 Walk.d J l . a half and from 3.40 to 4.30 made notis kl Leigh H^n llutobio"' T^ From 4.30 to 6.20 read Lord Lyttleton's Memoirs andtrtesr^^^^^^^^^^^ S!;ratt3:'i^ri^j;i;^- 61-236." ' "-^^ '■^'^'^ Seattle's Catnpbell, ii. Another — Transactions of Asiatic Society, iii pn iss 57 n , ! "''"""^ bed a. :o,40, a„a . X1.40 .ea/ioJ„aTA:f:it,,"j^,:'3,':lf3,,?" Ru'^t °'''^'";'"''' J •'='« f»™d in any part of u, j„n„,,3 „f B s having taken the advice of a friend respecting any „ hi I had sent tX SMrLVto'^ire ^''" "' '"''''' ^"•' ^'■'''"'' tei^CT^Vr'!;.''"'-*"^ --"0 alterations in Chap- tei mv. suggested by Miss Shirreff." ^ ..adnaliy failing heaith of his lie: tl^natfa:!:^ ,1" some sad forebodings, as we find Irom some of his letters "I will not be » affected a, to conceal from „n that"l"'T\ alarmed, and at times very depressed to think that rth u h ,11\ " I have such little powers. Mv hpad i« nf t;. , , °^ ^"P^a bu.it goes off (tL feeln^Vtl, he 7 T:-fr'' ■''«''*'/ -°'i«'l. directly. They tell me I hte JlgZt^' ^ A"™ ^ J"'«) "Snin except of my fntnre. To break down if theSst of wh. °W'.''"'''"-''"« measure of greatness, is a ^eat career ''"'"'*"'' "''"''"""""-drng to my .W. I own. is a prolpec. ,'l, h I Z fe" 4e Z't" °"*' °° '*"- and the though, of which seems ooM mT l^iT' ""*' P"""""". Perhaps I have aspired too hir,h b,„ II / """P' '""" '"«■ power such a fee^in;'oTS':„: ^ ^^J^a Tf I'maVr' ^ ^"^^ '' command over the realm of thou-^h. that it was r ^T^ '^^' '"''^ * that I could do more than I shall now eve be abt^ '"^ '^^^^^'^ tract my field— mavbe I shnll fl , f ^^^*- ^ '"^ >n- 7 maybe I shall thus survey the ground the better, and \ I l! i Ut I a BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. others may not miss yvuat to me will be an irretrievable loss— since I for- feit my confidence in myself." From this and from other passages in his letters, as well as from that we have already seen from his Journal, where he sets down his intention to devote himself to a great task, it is evident that the love of fame was very strong in him. There is another passage in a letter written by him from Jerusalem, little more than a month before his death, which throws some additional light on what his feelings were before the publication of his book, but which removes some of the sadness of his early death, as it shows that he himself was able to look back with com- placency upon what he had achieved. Speaking of a friend whose health was much impaired, he said (Jerusalem, April 16, 1862), "Poor fellow! It is sad under any circumstances to feel the brain impaired; but how infinitely sadder when there is nothing to compensate the mischief; nothing to show in return. Nothing, if I may so say, to justify it." O^e cannot help seeing that he felt that in his own case there was, as he expresses it, something " to show in return." Several of his letters written about this time— shortly before the publication of his book — are very interesting. Tunbridge Wells, July 27 [1856]. " The air here is really so fine, and my mother is so much improving in it, that I am almost beginning to like the country. A frightful and alarm- ing degeneracy ! Pray God that my mind may be preserved to me and that the degradation of taste does not become permanent. I am as well as ever, and, I think, as busy as ever— deeply immersed in comparative anatomy, the dryness of which I enliven by excursions into free will and predestination. I find that jihysiology and theology correct each other very well, and between the two reason holds her own." Boulogne sur Mer, 22 December [1856]. " Fortunately, I only feel weak physically, and am as fit for head work as I ever was. This is a great comfort to me, and I am only sorry not to get on with my first volun^e, though if I were in town I should probably feel the fatigue too much of moving and openmg books, and verifying my notes. Dr. Allatt strongly urge? my putting a.dde my first volume for the present. To lose another season woiUd be a great vexation for me ; and then too, these early checks make me think mournfully of the fiiture. If I am to be struck down in the vestibule, how shall I enter the temple ? " [London] 19 January [1857]. " Being somewhat deranged, if not altogether mad, at finding I had time to spare, i Aveat out ia the afte'-noon to enjoy myself, which I BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. XXI 088 — since I for- accomplished by playing chess for seven hours — and difficult games too. I have not been so luxurious for four or five years, arid feel all the better for it to-day." Brighton, 1 March [1867]. " Pray take example from your former state, and also from mine, and proceed gradually. I- should never have been as I am now but for an eager desire to save this season. Indeed, I was getting half ashamed at constantly putting off what I was perhaps too ready to talk about. How- ever, all this is past, and comparing one month with another, I certainly am not losing ground, so that I have every right to suppose that diminished labour Avill be rewarded with increased strength." It is also partly to this period of his life that some remi- niscences refer, which have been furnished by the lady whose judgment we have seen so highly valued by Mr. Buckle ; and, although these reminiscences will anticipate what I have to say of a later period, I shall make no apology for offering them to the reader as they were written, without either transposition or alteration : " It was in the spring of 1854 that we first made acquaintance with Mr. Buckle. The intimacy became so close, and occupied so large a place in our lives while it lasted, that it seems strange, on looking back, to realise how short a time actually witnessed its beginning and its close. His mother's death, in 1859, his altered mode of life in various ways subse- quent to that, and serious illness in our own family, which Avithdrew us in great measure from society, had indeed relaxed our intercourse even before the great close of Death fell upon it ; and thus the period during which we were in the habit of frequently meeting or corresponding was little more than five years. Three years later, he who had been the life of our circle lay helpless and friendless among strangers, and the utterances of his genius were hushed for ever in that silence nothing mortal can break. " Never, perhaps, among men who have made a name and left their stamp on the thought of their generation has any one enjoyed so sudden a blaze and so brief a span of glory. From obscurity he sprang into sudden fame, and before men had reached the point of dispassionate criti- cism or appreciation of what he had done he had passed away from among us. But with his fame in the world, with the brief record of his life, such as the unusually scanty materials may allow it to be Avritten, I have nothing to do here ; my purpose is only to comply, so far as I can, with the request made to me to record a hw personal recollections of him, a few personal impressions of character ; contributions, whose insufficiency none can feel so strongly as I do myself, towards the portraiture of one who, had he lived, would assuredly have stamped his image in inefface- able characters on the memory of men. "A valued friend of ours had known Mr. Buckle and his mother for some time, and paid us the compliment of thinking we should appreciate xxii UIOGRAPJIICAL NOTICE. tribiitcd thoir host T-iIk- flnw ' " con,soquontly guonts con- J-' hoon led to expect " ' ' '" ""^""'' ^'^""'^ ^-'^^" ^'"'^ ^« than ntitivc. L eS a Zl '^ "'"''^ *''« '''"" -^'^ -g"'- "o c.la.sH^;, ; r, l; "2 '-;;>;- yo w... tal,, ... his fig..o bad 1-d no early habit of bodi y cKcn's TI "'T "*'"'"'' ""^ "^'" '^"« hand, which was well-shapoVbn Ind ^^'^"V'''' '""^'^ ^^' ^^"' '" '"« trained to wield a pen only 1,/ T"'" '"'* '"^''''^ *''^^ '^'"'^^ «"« I'im as a boy iron, .clod Sh,- ^"^ ""■'^^f '>^' ^''« ''^^'i-^^cy that ha.l kept well; and w'hilebytst^tZn;^^^^ l.im from school play L ^ater years for the one Z tl " P-'-^-anco he had made up in the end of his life T con I 'on Iv I"' ^''''' ^'^-P^"-*'=^l ^ things that to oU.er „ to t" '"^^^*' ""' "'■^'^" ^°"'^ ^^ ''« '-^^ active power was seen n h^J^uZ" "'''""' ''" '""•''"• '^'''^ --'* «<• -as very sin,ple and on e thCh^ movements. In society his n.anner nation ; an.l wo fonnd hter ? !^ '""'"'' *" excitement by conver- »ess often varied s, it .le" r'" ^"'"^"'"^ "^ ''oyislf playfnl- whi^ we. never .n^S-ir Z^ir "" ^ ''' ^'^ ^^^^ ^ienrr,';:: r:;::;:: - -ny other, at ;ur own house or among -as led to forget th r^^id JS^f™"? '''''''' ^" ^^ich he sometin.e! his uothor, for she w- 1 " " ^T'' ^' '''' ^''' ^^^^ *« know '^ring ustoUher;!Jd ::c?ed -;rve::t 'inY '^ ^^^^^ once thus begun rapidJv evf«n^ J? ^7 " ^ '"^ '''• ^'^^ acquaint- -acy with other Imbe-Ttt^V" '?'"'" ^'"^^' ^^^^ "^^" ^^i" friendships which are 1 '1^ / , ^ ^' ''"^ "^'"'^ into one of those .o..h t^.,ebeyo^th:;r;:f^^^^^ -« ^^^^ -^ ^-^ ^^-^ to time to spend a d^;\fihtV^*';^^-"f'-- invited o.ceptionhowasmaki4 n hishnllaflif" .'"7 '''" "^^''^* '"^ ^''^'•^ luncheon and stayed wL « HI t oT " ^' ''"^^ ^'^^^'^ -ere; and, like a boy ou of . I '''"'"^- ^'^'^•^''^"* ^"^^ ^^ey garden, rambHngi^^li:llf;?:'^^ "^""' to enjoy strolling in thi every imaffinabfe snh t.. i V '"""""e^ '"'^'^ i" conversation over intercourse .vfth^th.:::^' ^ t^ Tl TT'' " ^^^^'^^ '' often had occasion before to v ' r . .r f '^7 "^^ ^ '''=''''*' '"^^ ^ '^'^^« -Inch some possess o/ j^ , ■ ; ",!* ' "^.""'^^^^ ^-°i<^ ^^ that power wards I anx'unable to recall 5 e XtV 7' -«" immediately after. bearing o( what has p-sTd «,'d , 1 T ' "' '^'" ^" ^^^« *'^^ f"» passed ; and at this distance of time I feel that the BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICR. XXili he arrangod a vas a liotiao in ly gupsts Con- or speculative oven what wo kahle, tlinngh id a massive, atlier singular irt of the Oice lis figure had one who Jias be read in Jiia lat marks one Iiat Imd kept ;liool play as 1 made up in d for, and to iild not do at riiis want of ' his manner t by convcr- 'ish playful- reat subjects so or among e sometimes asy to know ^ry eager to le acquaint- :w into inti- )ne of those rly in their neighbour- I from time ^hat a rare own before days they ling in the nation over 3f his visit IS weeks of ', as I liave that power itely after, •e the full 1 that the 1; ast attempt to represent what such intercourse wan would be colourless and vaj)id ; an abstract of discussion or a dry repetition of anecdotes wliicli apropos made deliglitl'ul. The interest and the charm of conversation aro like the fleeting lights and shadows on a landscape, and what they add to the beauty can never be rendered, however faithful the sketch ; so j)er- haps it is no loss to the reader after all that the sketch itself is beyond my power. " Another and still more imusual break in ]\Ir. Buckle's ha])its was a day spent with us at the Crystal Palace, then lately opened, which he always sjiid ho never should have seen but for our taking him, and which ho never rc-visitod. It was a day more rich in many ways than mortal days aro ollen allowed to be. We wore a large party, all intimates, and all ready for enjoyment, and for the kind of enjoyment which tlie Crystal Palace ofTtTcd for tbe first time. It was a lovely summer's day, and the mere drive son,'; uiiios out of London — for tliero Avas no noisy, whistling railway then — was a delight. The art collections were not so full, the flowers not in such rich luxuriance as they have been since ; but there was a charm about the fresh beauty of the place, and in the new views ol popidar enjoyment that it offered, which added to the pleasure then, some- thing which more than loss of novelty has since impaired. " We were not altogether disiibuscd at that time of the illusions of a new era of peaceful progress which the first Exhibition of 1851 had seemed to inaugurate. It is true that we were even then in the first st'ige of the Crimean war; but many still believed that the struggle would ((uickly end ; the glorious days, the dark months of suflPering yet to come were little anticipated. Still less did any prophetic vision disclose to us the dire future that was to bring the Indian Jlutiny, the American war, the battle-fields of Italy and Denmark, of Germany and of France ; or tell us thiit twenty years after nations had met in amity, and seemed pledged to rim a new course of friendly emulation, we should be plunging deeper and d'ieper into the barbarism which turns the highest efforts of man's skill and inventive power towards producing instruments of destruction. " None shared the illusions of that period more fondly than Mr. Buckle. He thought he had reached philosophically, and could prove as necessary corollaries of a certain condition of knowledge and civilization, the con- iuisjp-.i which numbers held, Avithout knowing why; and it was this :viir, :if though, v.tiich made the opening of 'The People's Palace' interesting to him. Habitually sanguine views of the future, combined - with intense interest in every democratic movement to heighten his enjoyment of what might not otherwise have been greatly to his taste, for his love of art was not keen. This and a want of sensibility to the beauties of nature, always seemed to me strange deficiencies 'n a mind so highly imaginative in other respects ; but so it was. He said he had been very sensitive to both in earlier youth, and had keenly enjoyed the various galleries as well as the grandest mountain scenery of Europe ; but that year by year, as philosophical speculation engrossed him more and more, what only appealed through the outward senses lust its power ,V\> xxiv BIOGRiPHlCAL NOTICE. I •; \rB hirrii'"'™' ^' '"'" r'^ ^"' "^"'"^'^ *^^* ^^ .cl'-e««<^-fap«rial Eome-ltalem GrLjn, »,cl It.ily Urongh hci days of glory to her decline il' l,„l K. , • -view, and he .hen'^.urnel 2 he W lrad taken a cottage at Highgate for a few months. Mrs. Buckle InThad :;::•:: tr; ''' rr n ^^-^ *'- ^^-^^ °^' which it wi: snffei ng, and f om which, indeed, she never entirely recovered I mav ahnos .ay that it permanently a.Toctod her son also, ^t had b en h s S huX ^ T 1 • ^ " ''=''^""' ''^'^"^ ^'^ '^•■'^^ for-^^d Wmself to work • but this double strain on the nerves was too much for an originally deli -ito oi^nisation, and, when startled by some symptoms that oc^^ dt m diately after his mother's illness, he consuLd her physician he ws otr'd "m "'^ -d;-Plote rest; and for the til'he rt'lrefy - ill 1 itl I 7" "'''^' ^"' ac^ unconscious of the inlluences that X ctlvTll T"^ '""^ "P"" *'^«"^- ^^^^'^ ^f-- B"ekle it was xact ly the reverse. The events, the person,, the book, that had .ffel" W at particular times or in a particular manner, whatever liad Infl^t^d BIOGEAPHICAL NOTICE. XXV I never having led untonchedi aman interest, and feciing - en ntoved ho lights; and it I knew later linary conver- rodncing in a ; past. i'Voia jranada, and een passtJ in iture, with its t"iin"nph over 'ansition irom n he took up >le in reason I impassioned, ; and it has :nown its full Buckle, who :^kle had had she was still red. I may oeen his first health than If to work ; lally delicate ri'ed imme- ian, he was entirely re- •poarance of the state of he blow he ntance Avith ion, she was Goplo there 'Hion ; tliey 1 their own uenccs that ;kle it was ad affeeted influenced 4 her actions or opinions, remained vividly impressed on her mind, and she spoke freely of her own experience, and eagerly of all that bore rpon her son. He was the joy, even more than the pride of her heart. Having saved him from the early peril that threatened him, and saved him, as she fondly believed, in great measure by her loving care, he seemed twice her own ; and that he was saved for great things, to do true and permanent service to mankind, was also an article of that proud mother's creed, little dreaming how short a time he -.vas to be allowed even for sowing the seeds of usefulness. A few months at the utmost had been the limit of separa- tion from her that he had ever known, thus the two lives had grown, as it were, one into the other. The ordinary state of things had been reversed in the family, and Mrs. Buckle had S( nt her daughters to school, while ill-health kept her son at home. Then, as both the daughters married early, no claim had arisen to interfere with her devotion to him. Once he went abroad alone, intending to stay for some time in Germany ; out he was taken ill at I.Irmich, and Mrs. Buckle hurried over to join him. Thus ended the first and last attempt at any real separation. ^ " When I said above that Mrs. Buckle spoke fruely of her own expe- rience, I should add that her conversation was the very reverse of gossip. It ->vas a psychological rather than a biographical experience that she detailed. I rarely reniember any names being introduced, and never imless associated with good. Of" all her husband's family, the one she spoke of most often was his nephew, Mr. John Buckle, for whom she had great respect and affection. Henry Buckle also made frequent reference to his cousin's opinions, and had the highest esteem for his abilities and confidence in his friendship. " One point in Mrs. Buckle's ear'y experience that she spoke of more than once to me is worth mentioning, as it exercised probably no small influence later upon her son. She had lived at one time surrounded by persons who held strict Calviniftic opinions, which she felt compelled to adopt under their influence. The intense suffering caused by this she could hardly look back upon with calmness, even at the distance of half a lifetime. Views full of terror and despair, with their wild visions of vengeance and condemnation, which have shattered the peace of many a noble mind, wrought into hers a deep-seated misery which no external circumstances could alleviate, and which only passed away when she had conquered her own freedom through years of thought and study. Hence, when she had a young mind to train, her most anxious care was that no such deadly shadow should come near it. She appeared to me to be a person of a naturally strong religious temperament, and the sentiment re- mained untouched by the fierce struggle she had gone tlirough. Such are, indeed, always the minds that suffer most cruelly under that dire form of creed which lighter natures profess without ever seeming to feel the awful scope of the tenets their tongues run so glibly over. In her horror of imposed doctrines, she refrained ft-om teaching dogmatically even such views as were full of hope and consolation to herself. Where her son differed from her, she was content to wait. She had boundless faith in the final fti-i XXVI BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. ' 'i i'f! fit \H triumph of truth, and could trust to it. even when her best loved was in question ; and that noble sentiment, so pronnnent in her son's writings, was Jrst inspired by her. If to this precious influence we add that his t^iste for metapiiysical speculation and his love for poetry were also inherited rom lus mother, wo may judge in some measure how much he owed to iK,.r. And gladly and Ibndly at all times did he acknowledge the debt It was a theme he loved to dwell upon, and it always seemed to me that her presence brought out all that was best in him. In his manner with her he had playful boyish ivays, mixed with exquisite tenderness, and ater, when the cloud of fear and «idnes3 had iiiHon upon their intercourse, the leeling of what the past had been seemed to grow deeper still. In one let er, written when she was ill, he .ays, ' You, who can 'form some idea! unhappy "r- "' "'"' "^ ""''" '" ''"^ *° "^' "">^ ""''•S'"^ ^'"- "All the notices of Mr. Buckle's life that have appeared have .spoken more or less accurately of his delicate he.Ith as a boy, which caused him to be a self-educated man. His mother spoke of it often, and in w'lat follows I speak only of what I heard from her. The subject is of import- ance from Its bearing on his after life, which was more or less coloured throughout by the two flicts of his self-acquired knowledge, and his com- parative isolation ; both caused by his exclusion from school and colle-e which Z7 '"7 '^'''f'f^S of evil than of present danger in tlie attacks f on 1 'i" 'f '"''"^''''^ '''^"^"'' *° ^"« b^5"S taken at an early age away f on school. &he was quite aware that many had thought her foolish at tlK time, and possibly that some believed she had influenced the medical opmm.i or exaggerated its import; and she left me the impression that e usbaiK had yielded the point, in part at least, as a concession to her etlings _ t,he was content to bear any blame tl,at might be thrown upon er in this matter. The doctors had ordered complete cessation of study ollowed their directions implicitly. For years sh. persevered in the .-ystem, making her boy's health the first object, but never lo.ing her hope -so well rewarded m the end-that with bodily vigour die mental power ould assert itself, and overcome the manifold ;iisa:ivantages entaileTby 1 loss of regular occupation. So complete was the idleness, that to keep m quiet at times, she had taught him to knit. It does no appear from ^vl, t he used to say of it himself, that he was impatient under this system or tliat It was one of painful repression. It ma; have been that a c'e tab degree of mental lethargy accompanied the physical weakness, and mere" my sh.elded the iculties which, had they maintained tl.e . ctivity 1 ey displayed in early childl.ood, might never have reached maturity ^ ^ Before he was trusted with books, his mother ventured to read to him mostly travels, poetry, or the Bible, and it was from these readings th" he dated lus passionate love of Shakspeare. Gradually, as time went on his health nnpi.ved, and his mind began to work upon'many sul)! Zl not in any regular or .fudious flisluon. The newspapers, taken up ca .'allv then began to stir his attention, and the powerful interest of polit s ^r fj ■J BIOGRArniCAL NOTICE. xxvii St loved was iri I'a writings, was d that liis t^iste e also inherited eh ho owed to edge tlie debt, icd to me that 3 manner with cnderness, and 3ir intereourse, !• still. In one rm some idea, imagine how I have .spoken h caused him , and in w'lat t is of import- less coloured and his com- )1 and college, n the attacks irly age aAv.ny ler foolish at the medical pression that lession to her thrown upon ion of study ; le, — and she ^ered in the ing her hope iiental power entailed by that to keep appear from this system, lat a certain , and merci- ctivity they ity. •ead to him, adings that le went on, objects, but Lip casually, ilitics grow upon him, and perhaps biassed the course of his after labours. His earliest elforts^ at connected thought took the shape of speculation on free-trade, the principle of which he seemed to have seized as soon as it was presented to him, in the discussions then rife in all the papers. He had no hom« bias or assistance in forming his opinion, for his lather's views were, as I understood, quite different. On one occasion he even grew so er^cited on the subject as to sit up at night to write a letter to Sir Kobert Peel, which, however, he had not courage to send. " But the first thing in which he manifested real power was chess, and that to so remarkable a degree, that before he was twenty he had made a name in Europe by his playing. Through life it remained a great source of pleasure to him, and an afternoon devoted to it from time to time was the form of holiday he most often allowed himself. ; " Seeing him fairly restored to health and giving promise of ability, his ; father thought it was time that he should beg'in life in earnest; and that life Avas destined by him to be spent, as his own had been, in City busi- ness. Mrs. Buckle more than once described to me her dismay wlien .she found it impossible to move her husband from this resolution. Her own tastes were .studious, she had watched the growing vigour of her son, and this was not the future she had dreamt for him ; but resistance Avas vain, and instead of repairing the loss of early education by some course of regular study, he Avas placed at eighteen in his iiither's counting-house. At times he looked back with shuddering to the period of weariness that he spent there, ])ut he also owned that it had not been without its use as a strict discipline, after the desultory idleness of his boyhood. » A'hat shape his mental activity Avould have taken had this compul- sory drudgery continued, it is vain to conjecture, the i-estraint was removed by his father's death before any decided bent had shown itself. He was free then to choose his own path, for ]\Irs. Buckle's authority was exerci-sed only to protect him from the interference of others. She was left in easy circumstances; there was no necessity for him either to remain in business or to prepare for a profession ; and she resolved that the life and brain so narrowly rescued from destruction, should in their almost unhoped-for maturity, be devoted only to the career he might choose for liunself. The first obvious step was to acquire in.«truction ; and it was proposed that, after some preliminary study, he should go to college, whence the opening to any liberal profession Avas secure. But the painful sense of his own ignorance made him most reluctant to adopt this course. His whole aciuiroments then consisting of little more than reading and writing English and proficiency in chess, it seemed indeed hopeless, withm such limits of age as University education commonly embraces, to make up for lost time ; and his growing sense of power, and the noAV ambition beginning to stir within him, would have ill-brooked defeat among his contemporaries. He knew that he had not only to ac(iuire • I Imvo been latoly told tlmt Mr, Biioklo only remninorl tliroo months in the counting houae. Uowevor short Iho time ho attributod to it the effect spoken ot above. xxviii BIOGEAPIIICAL NOTICE. 'It ...i„ „„a .„„»„,. Of .„u ,„, i:;p:";^;.^^ r: '; ;'":;;^ns there 18 absolutely no record, and thoutrh bath nf fl J^uckles lifo Mia. liuckle loved to dwe I nnon tl.nf >:„k;«„<. -i. , i , ^^'^'<^n as an.l physical ,cio„i. Ami ^he rfioj 7 T ,-,"'"' "■»««""•■«!- more ami moreirarkoil- ™ 1 ! ' '">"» "f l'i> "iM bocaine 1.0 fonmi that the k,,ow Ife^r'^o, 'rf„'T 1°'""'' '° '■""»"■ *™ .nca„a,a„- daily, to go through a' minute andTd oL ver^ hou tr- u'^f Yr^'^'^ '^'^ '^'^•^ *° '"--^^ - blessing of every hour; he sought it frankly, and seemed to depend on receiving it with an almost ru^^e confidence which had a charm of its own, hoj perhaps denoted his scanty dealings with the world. But he .Ct^l sympathy m ftdl measure, and his manner of showing it wasamon/ he things tha made his friendship as valuable as his socifty was deli^h^fUl Doub less his mother's influence, the feeling of all he owed o her ^ intellectually, as well as for her devoted care and love led hTlt 1 < ttuTtTr^ '-' '•'-'-''-''' '' worn'::: ^le Tar l^^t through her a keen appreciation of what their peculiar intellectu-tl , quahties-so commonly neglected-ought to do for society and the 1 1 -g >v^ich prompted his choice of a subject, the only time' he ever spit nTo^::iier tZl:^' ""'"^*°°' ^ ^" --'^ had'watched motlVr 1 did nSZT r ' """"' '"'■^"S"^^ ^''"^'"'^ ^hen it was said that he did not care for men's society because he was spoiled by women who fed «« be for some ,„ali.ie, that wV ecoZe'i 1^^ . 7°°* ™' " find among n,en. Women „av, a;d3fte„ltot^' k"""' ""^ utterl, mi..*e a man's cl-.a^ee, Z:Z':;:^'^Z:7^^-r°"' hidden from them. Th ■ „ ii„i . , «'' P"."'"' ™ i"' Me ate his vices; and, in ,»„ora. 1 u '",""""'"« "s virtue, as severely a's „eli as ^r^, ^, ' ""*: i? t'" '" °''"''™" '~ kea they are not so casilv de f ' °°'"^' "'"''» "'eir they more often pity and trgve the to tsT" "t°'°" '"'*="■''»• """ .hem. When, th'erLe. a m^^ *„de ' IrmedTnd'Tf " f °' " women, we mav be mir^ tl^o.^ • ,• , „ '^'""^^ and valued among BncU,e.'s o.e on'e '^"uaii ^ „:' havt"b '"™ /"' "■ '» «' whieh, when united with rower wliTr , ''"''™" 8"mesii, a peculiar charm for 1 eT ' WhatL""! "' ^ 'T""'' ''™^' >■- Bnckle being a favourite with w„JI„ 7 7 . "' """'""M. of Mr. by other men a, a ZoiltZu)lt^: T"'""^ "*""='''• ' "=-»*■ which is supposed to be Xesi tile to „,?r >,°"' " '",""' '""'><'"''"■=. his most valued female friends"; wi Zone It"? '*> "" ' "" hi. name was known to the world aTd Tl "',°'=P'"'°' f<'™=^ed through school and college, and belongs to a profession or a party. This social disadvantage, entailed by his early ill-health, told even in gravel? BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. XXXVll other's health house, where ated. Later, iinner-parties ar from 'him- ial meetings, own to need ly it was the 3 it was at a e outpouring ore of book- cim of many linly not his. lat his oppo- such opposite le dropped or ' gave oifCTice the ball, and snt on getting ith difficulty 16 set it forth, ■gument, and was perfect:; e traced, like possess that le with men, olitiarty. This n in gravel? matters ;. and some things by which he gave offence would perhaps never have been, said or done had he lived in the close intimacy of school or college friends, where the frankness of boyish days often lives as a privi- lege long aiter it has ceased to be the natural habit of life. " In. many ways, the influence of self-education and of a retired home- life was apparent in the tone o£ Mb. Buckle's opinions and character. Hud it been possible to write a real biography of him, it must have afforded the most interesting illustrations of two important points — the influence of self- training on a powerful mind, and the influence of a mother on her son.. As it is, those who knew them can feel how much there was of both, but have no means of making it evident to others. Having won every- thing by his own exertions, and never tried hia strength against others, he eomet.iraes appeared to underrate, sometimes to overrate, the common average of ability and of attoinments. Accordingly, in bis work we occa- sionally find points elaborately dwelt upon, and enforced by repeated quotation, which few would have been inclined to dispute ; and occasion- ally, on the other hand, a belief in the ready acceptance of some principle which the majority of men are still far from acknowledging. A man who had gone through the normal routine of education and of life would not, even with half his ability, have fallen into these mistakes. "On another point he judged others too much by his own standard. To himself, recognising a truth and accepting it as a principle to be acted upon,, were one and the same thing ; and I believe it was. his ignorance of the world that made it, hard for him to admit how feeblysin general men are stirred by an appeal to their under.standing. The very common incon- sistency between opinions and practice which perhaps sarves as much evil in one directio'i as it causes in another, was so foreign to his own mind that he often failed to allow for it. The profession, for instance,, of intole- rant views in religion or politics made him look upon the persons who professed them, as if they were prepared to carry them into practice, as perhaps they might have done in times when the symbols of their religious or political allegiance had a living ])ower among men. He gave one sig- nal i)roof of his uncompromising mode of judging matters of, thistkiad in his severe strictures on Sir John Coleridge,' which caused deep pajiu to many of his friends,, and to none more than to myself. Every form of in- tolerance roused the intolerant spirit in him ; for he could not forgive that anyone should pretend in dealing with his- fellow-men to abridge tnat per- feet freedom of thought and speech which, to himself, was the most precious inheritance of an era of knowledge and. civilisation. "On one other point only I have known Mr. Buckle to depart from his habitually indulgent view of the conduct of others. This was extrav;i,- ' In a revipw upon J. Stuart Mill's w«rk on Liberty, published in Eraser's Magiv- zine, May 1859. The earnest letters of remonstrance that I wrote to him at the time were, I suppose, destroyed ; his answe. I kept, and portions of tliem at loast vyill be publishrd b. re ; they give whiithu considered his own justification ; they also illustrate the spirit in which he met opposition. rxxviu BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. I f) gance or rlisorder in money matters. A man who could endure debt was lo Iiiin not only wanting in rigid uprightness, Init almoi^t incurred his con- tempt I'or tlie unmanly feebleness he thought it indicated. His strong feeling on this subject, and his adherence to the maxims of political economy as regards charity, were perhaps partly the cause of his being considered close, and fond of money. It requires a very accurate acquaintance Avith a man's private affairs to substantiate or rebut such an accus-ft.ion, and it does not concern me to do either. I speak of my own recollection only, and I have known of kind and liberal offers made by Mr. Buckl , which, in the case I allude to, were repeatedly urged in S])ite of refusal. It must also be remembered that his delicate health enhanced the value of money to him by rendering a certain scale of comfort and even of luxury so indispensable that without it no mental exertion would have been possible. At any rate, if he loved money, he loved knowledge more. With his abilities none can doubt that golden success might have been his had he gone to the bar, tor instance, or turned his attention to any lucra- tive employment; but he deliberately preferred the moderate independence which leit him free to follow his own pursuits. And never yet did such pursuits pay any man the money's Avorth of the time he has devoted to them. The public hearing uoav and then of large sums paid to an author, straightvv-ay iorms a magniHcent notion of the profits of literary labour, and yet never, perhaps, except to the succes.sful novelist, was literary labour profitable. Even in the few cases which form apparent exceptions to this rule, the element of time is left out in the popular estimate. But ii' we consider the men who alone are capable of producing a great Avork, and remember Avhat such men might probably have made in business or in a profession during the ten, fifteen, or twenty years of life that have been spent in studious preparation, and in the slow ripening of thought and speculation, it is evident that no Avork of real value ever can find its money price. The Avriter may be paid in coin more precious to him than gold and silver, but at least let no such man be reproached with a sordid love of wealth. " In the summer of 1855 Iliad promised to pay a visit to Mrs. Buckle at Hendon, Avhere they had moved according to their animal custom of leaving London early in the season ; their choice of a summer re.sidence being governed generally by consideration of an easy journey for her, and easy access for him to his library Avhenever some iresh supply of books should be needed. But my visit was hindered by Mrs. Buckle being taken seriously ill. His letters at that time were full of alarm for her and of general discouragement; he Avas not strong enough to react against de- pression, and it Avas fortunate, therefore, that in the ordinary state of things after this illness, he got used to his mothei-'s invalid condition, and only at times Avas roused from his false security by 3ome fresh symptom. T Avent abroad for some months, and Ave did not meet till the Avinter ; the ]}ainful change in Mrs. Buckle a'-'hs very apparent then to unaccustomed eyes. '* In 1850 he began to prepare his first volume for publication. Whether this Yolume should or should not appear alone, had been the subject BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. XXX IX ?: debt was 'd hiscon- lis strong )f political ' his being accnrate it sucli an if my own 3 made by ed in S])ite I enhanced •t and even rould have 3dge more. e been his any lucra- lependence t did such devoted to an author, abour, and ary labour ons to this But ii' we Avork, and ess or in a have been lought and its monev than gold sordid love . Buckle at custom of • residence :)r her, and y of books cklo being for her and against de- ry state of dition, and I symptom, nnter ; the yumed eyes. 1. Whether ;he subject of much discussion, and it was Mrs. Buckle's earnest wish, founded on her own sense of her precarious terra of life, that finally prevailed. His own intention had been at least to finish the Introduction before he gave any portion of his work to the public. He felt no impatience about it. Engrossed with his labour, and confident of power, he was content to wait. la the words of one, who, though strenuously opposed to his opinions, yet paid a graceful tribute to his memory, ' he knew that whenever he pleased he could command personal distinction, but he cared more for his subject than for himself. He was content to work with patient reticence, unknown and unheard of, for twenty years, thus giving evidence of qiiali- ties as rare as they are valuable.' ' But his mother knew too well that she could not aflfbrd to wait. During the spring and summer of 1856 she was more ill, and had a more general sense of failing than she Avould allow him to know. She kept up her courage and her spirits for his sake, lest he should be diverted from his work, I was staying with them for a short time at Tunbridge Wells, and. daily she betrayed to me her knowledge that her days were numbered, and her anxiety to see her son take his right place in the world. Slio had had no vulgar ambition for him ; she had l)een content that he should hide his bright gifts in their quiet home so long as the serious purpose of his life required it, but now that it was partly attained, that a portion of his work was ready, she grow eager to see tliose gifts acknowledged before she herself went foi'th to be no more seen on earth. Chapter by chapter, almost page by page, had that first vohinie been planned with her, commented by her ; every speculation as it arose talked over Avith her; and now her mind Avas oppressed with the ii-ar that she might never know how those pages, so unutterably precious to her, would be Avelcomed by those Avhose welcome Avould croAvn her beloved with fame. Yet, to spare him, she never Avould betray in his ]iroscnce the real secret of her groAving impatience ; only when Ave Avere alone .she would say to me, ' Surely God will let me live to see Henry's book ; ' and she did live to see it, and to read the dedication to herself, the only Avords there that she Avas tmprepared to meet. Mr. Buckle told me he bitterly repented the rash act of laying the volume before her to enjoy her surprise and pleasure ; for he Avas alarmed at her agitation. Even the next day, Avhen shoAving it to me, she could not speak, but pointed Avith tears to the few Avords that summed up to her the full expression of liis love and gratitude. She thus saAV her ardent Avish gratified, and her im- ])atience was but too well ju.stified. The second volume Avas dedicated to her memory alone ! " But to return to the motives Avhich determined Mr. Buckle to publish a single volume. I wish to speak of them, for probably these Avere never understood; but to do so I must say a few words of the book itself. The j)lan of his Introduction required that, after laying doAvn the principles of his method, and enumerating the laAvs he believed to have governed the ' Froudo Ipptiiro, delivored at tho Royal Institution, February, 1864, and published in the volume of Short Studies on Great Subjects. I xl BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. I :■ k course of human progress, he should illustrate these principles from the history of those nations in which certain tendencies had predominated. The first volume— the only one then ready— contained his theory. The histories of Spain and of Scotland were to furnish a portion of the requi- site illustrations of the theory, and the remainder were to be drawn from the social condition and intellectual development of Germany on the one hand, and of the United States on the other. For the portion relative to Spain and Scotland he was prepared ; but he held that he was not com- petent to work out the other without spending some time in the countries to be studied. This, however, would have involved a lengthened sepa- ration from his mother, which, in her condition, he could not encounter ; and this consideration finally decided him to publish what was ready, and wait for the remainder till he should be able to accomplish his purpose. Friends combated his view of the necessity of this delay ; they reminded him of the mass of information he had collected and might yet collect from books ; but he was not to be moved. The United States especially could not, as he believed, be studied thoroughly through books, and no argument could induce him to hurry over his work or be content with any less laborious investigation than he himself felt to be desirable. Neither would he leave England in the precarious state of his mother's health. He would wait and work, if needs be, for years j he had work enough before him, but he would not slur it over, nor, on the other hand, bring upon her and himself the bitter anxiety of a long separation. Thus It happened that the materials which he considered necessary for com- pleting the mere introduction to his work never were collected; for when he was, all too soon, free to follow his own wishes, he was too much broken down to travel for any serious purpose. And of a plan so gigantic an unfinished introduction was all he lived to accomplish. It has been judged as a work— it was only a fragment. Of the body of the work itself, for which he had amassed considerable materials, he wrote nothing, though doubtless some fragments found among his papers, and since given to the pixblic, were roughly sketched out for it. " It was in the summer of 1856 that Mr. Buckle determined to pub- lish his first volume. So little did the sagacity of publishers foresee its success, that no admissible ofl^er was made for it, and he resolved on publishing it at his own cost. He did so, and the volume appeared early in 1857. "^ " Sanguine as had been the anticipations of friends who had seen the MS., the result far exceeded them. His circle of acquaintance had been gradually enlarging, still it was a comparatively small one, aid strictly private ; he did not till some time after belong even to a club. He had never tried his strength in reviews or magazines; once only, to help a friend, he had offered to review a work, but tlie offer of the unknown writer was refused, and thus not a line from his pen had ever been seen till this volume of 800 pages, purporting to be the first of a long work, took the public by surprise. He sprang at cm-o into celebrity ; and sin- gularly enough, considering the nature of the book, he attained not merely BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. Xli s from the dominated, iory. Tlie the requi- rawn from an the one relative to i not com- 3 countries 3ned sepa- 3n counter ; ready, and 3 purpose. ^ reminded yet collect 1 especially (s, and no Qtent with desirable, s mother's had work ther hand, on. Thus ' for com- for when too much a plan so iplish. It ody of the , he wrote apers, and d to pub- foresee its isolved on ired early i seen the had been id strictly He had to help a. unknown been seen ong work, and sin- lot merely to literary fame, but to fashionable notoriety. To his own great amuse- ment, he became the lion of the season ; his society was courted, his library besieged with visitors, and invitations poured in upon him, even from houses where philosophical speculation had surely never been a passport before. To himself, as to the public, his previous obseurity added to the glare of his sudden triumph ; but it is pleasant to remember that he Avas unaltered by his changed position. Such as he was before, such he re- mained afterwards. He enjoyed it, indeed, freely and frankly, all the more, probably, because no school or college competition, no professional struggles, had given him before an assured place among his contemporaries. He had been proudly confident in his own power, and he felt a natural pleasure in seeing it for the first time publicly acknowledged ; but his mind was too earnestly bent on what he yet hoped to achieve to dwell with complaxjent satisfaction on the social distinction won by past exertion ; and in the first flush of his triumph he refused the most flattering invitations to different parts of the country, in order to spend the few weeks of absence from bis mother with friends in a small country parsonage, where his time was divided oetween study, playing and talking with children, and long evening conversations, into which he threw the same richness and animation as if the most brilliant circle had been gathered round him. " It was the same the following summer (1858), when I was again, and for the last time, staying in the same house with him.. The intervening months, while he was enjoying the new and valuable society to which his l)ook had introduced him, entering into correspondence with eminent men at home and abroad, preparing a second edition which was rapidly called for, and working at his second volume— tliese months so spent had been very bright and liappy but for the increasing anxiety about his mother. She had now given up all society, even intimate friends rarely saw her,' and giadually she was unable more and more to join iu any conversation with him, or even to hear him talk. Some of his letters during this time were full of gloomy despondency ; then again he seemed to persuade him- self that she would yet recover. It was during a bright interval that we met, as I .said above, and I never saw him more full of fun and spirits, more eager about his work, or more ready to take an interest in that of others. In the following spring the long-dreac i blow fell at last ; Mrs. IJuckle died, and he seemed stunned as by an unexpected calamity. But it^ is needless to. dwell upon that dark time, especially as I scarcely saw him. After a while he went among strangers, but it was long before he could bear to be with those who had been the chosen companions of happier days. In some painfid letters he expressed that feeling so strongly as to make us cease to press him. From that time I have little to record. He prepared and published lii.s second volume, he returned to the world, he went more into general society, and accepted invitations into the country now that no home con- siderations fettered his movements • but our nW frequent intereoursu had been altered, partly by circumstances in our own family, which made us live more retired, while he was a great deal out of town ; and all through if 1 IS 1 1 ^i ^^^^1 T 1 «^H in klii BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. both tlie summers of 1860 and 1861, wandering about from place to place in hopes of recovering the effect of over-work that he Avas suifering from. He had been severely tried by preparing his second volume for the press, and would not rest till it was done. It was published early in 1861, and then it seemed for a time as if he could never rally working-power again. " In the autumn of that year he began to talk of going to the United States, but all who cared for him felt that he was unfit for a journey which was to be connected with serious study ; and partly to divert him from it, a friend suggested Egypt, that he had often wished to visit. The plan delighted him from the first ; his arrangements were soon made, and vainly did we protest against some of them, which we felt Avere incompatible with his state of health. He dined with us the last night but one that he passed in London, and Ave parted, never to meet again ! " The story of that fatal journey has been often told. At first all went well. He wrote little, but his few letters spoke of intense enjoyment. We measured the'benefit he had derived by the physical exertion lie Ava3 able to make, and esi^ecially by his willingly encountering the extreme fatigue of crossing the Desert of Sinai. Such an exertion was so contrary to all his former habits, that his successful accomplishment of that expe- dition seemed like the promise of renewed and more vigorous youth. The spring of 1862 came ; we looked forward to the pleasure of seeing him among us again, and to the far deeper pleasure of seeing him resume his interrupted labours, when the fatal news reached us, and Ave knew that a solitary grave in the far East had closed over all our hopes — over all his visions of earthly fame ! " ■fill We must now return to the epoch of the publication of the first volume of the History of Civilization in England. Early in the year 1857, the author made arrangements Avith Mr. Parker, the publisher, to publish his Avork on commission, and at length, on June 9, 1857, he entered in his Journal: "Looked into my Volume I., of which the first complete and bound copy was sent to me this afternoon." His oaa'u account of the intended scope of the book, and his own estimate of various passages in it, have been preserved in several letters and in one or tAvo passages of his Journal : " The fundamental ideas of my liook are : 1st. That the history of every country is marked by peculiarities Avhich distinguish it from other countries, and Avhich, being unaffected, or slightly affected, by in- dividual men, admit of being generalised. 2nd. That an essential pre- liminary to such generalisation is an enquiry into the relation between the condition of society and the condition of the material world surround- ing such Kocicty. 3rd. That the iiistory of a aiiigie country (such as England) can only be understood by a previous investigation of history BIOGEAPIiJ> IL NOTICE. xliii lace to place ffering from, or the press, n 1861, and power again, the United urney which him from it, . The plan e, and vainly ipatible with lat he passed irst all went ! enjoyment, rtion he Avas the extreme 1 so contrary f that expe- yoiith. The seeing hira L resume his inew that a ■over all his tion of the , Early in ilr. Parker, at length, d into my y was sent nded scope in it, have passages of the history aish it from cted, by in- isential pre- ion between d surround - •y (such as m of history generally. And the object of the Introduction is to undertake that investigation. " I may fairly say that I have bestowed considerable thought on tlie general scheme, and I think I could bring forward arguments (too long for a letter) to justify the apparently disproportionate length of the notices of Burke and Bichat.' As to the French Protestants, I am more inclined to agree with you, though even here it is to be observed that general historians represent the struggle between Protestants and Catholics as always a struggle between toleration and intolerance ; and as I assert that the triumph of the Catholic party in France has increased toleration, I thought myself bound to support with full evidence what many will deem a paradoxical assertion I have also worked this part of the subject at the greater length because I thought it confirmed one of the leading propositions in my fifth chapter, to the effect that religious tenets do not SO' much affect society, as they are affected by it. I wished t;> show how much more depends on circumstance than on dogma. It was therefore useful to prove that though the Catholics are theoretically more intolerant than the Protestants, they were, in France, practically more tolerant, and that this arose from the pressure of general events." ^ • •.... " I want my book to get among the mechanics' institutes and the peojyle ; and to tell you the honest truth, I would rather be praised in popular and, as you rightly call them, vulgar papers than in scholarly publications. . . . . They are no judges of the c?7Y2C«Z value of what I have done, but they are admirable judges of its social consequences among their own class of readers. And these are they whom I am now beginning to touch, and whom I wish to move. [September, ]8o7.] " You remind me that I have not answered your former questions respecting transcendental convictions and the relation between them and religious belief; the reason of my silence is the impossibility of treating such subjects in a letter. In conversation you would raise difficulties and ask for further information on what seemed obscure, but you cannot cross- examine a letter, and on subjects of such inunense difficulty I fear to be misunderstood; and I shrink from saying anything that might give a painful direction to your speculations. In regard to books, on this ' " October 1. 1852.— Continued writing my acoount of Burke, which I think will be one of the best parts of the Introduction." — Journal. ^ "January I7th, 1853.— AVrote in my book what I think a fine comparison be- tween Calvinism and Arminianism, as illustrating the influence of Jansenism on the French Revolution. "Fe/mtari/ ind, 1853. -Read Comto's Trait6 de Legislation; a profound work, which has anticipated some views that I thought original upon the superiority of intellect over morals as a dircciiiiy principle of society."— /«((»•««/;. II |! xliv I'l. 'IV BIOGKAPHICAL NOTICE. there is nothing in English, and what perhaps I shoxild most recommend are the minor works of Fichte, which I could lend you if you find yourself strong enough in German to master them. The difference between the transcendental operations of the reason and the empirical operatioaa of the understanding is also worked out by Kant, and at the end of my first chapter you will find all the passages collected in which that wonderful thinker applies the theory of their difference to solve the problem of free will and necessity. Coleridge saw the difficulty, but dared not investigate it Miserable creatures that we are, to think that we offend ^o '. >>■ us'ijg with freedom the faculties that God has given us ! There - one safe maxim on these questions, viz.,. that if we strive honestly . >r the truth we satisfy our conscience, and having done all that lies in our power, may wash our hands of the result. If this maxim be neglected then investigations will only lead to a life of misery, and had far better be lefb alone. [January, 1858.] "You ask me how I reply to the charge of not taking into consideration the effect produced by the passions of men on the course of history. My answer is that we have no reason to believe that human passions are mate- rially better or worse than formerly — nor that they are smaller or greater. If, therefore, the amount and nature of the passions are unchanged, they, cannot be the cause either of progress or of decay — because an unchangeable cause can only generate an unchangeable effect. On the other hand, it is true that the manifestation, and, as it were, the shape of the passions, is different in diflTarent periods ; but such difference not being innate, must be due to external causes. Those causes propel and direct the passions of men, and these last are (in so far as they are changeable), the products of civilisation and not the producers of it. In my book I always examine the causes of events as high up as I can find them, because I consider the object of science is to reach the largest and most remote generalisations. But my critics prefer considering the immediate and most proximate causes— and in their way of looking at the subject they naturally accuse me of neglecting the study of emotions, moral principles, and the like. According to my view the passions, &c., are both causes and effects, and 1 seek to rise to their cause — while if I were apractical writer I should con- fine myself to their effects. But I despair of writing anything satisfactory in the limits of a letter on this subject." [December, 1859.] " It is impossible in a letter to answer fully your questions on the utili- tarian theory of morals. But I do not think that you separate rigidly two very diflTerent matters, viz., what morals do rest upon, and what they ought to rest upon. All yevy honest people who have not any reach of mind, regulate the greater part of tlieir moral conduct without attend- -% ■s iQg, field. i I BIOGEAPHICAL NOTICE. xlv lary, 1858.] onsideration istory. My ns are mate- ' or greater, anged, they, ichangeable • hand, it is passions, is nnate, must passions of products of xamine the onsider the 3ralisations. proximate "ally accuse i the like, effects, and should con- satisfactory 3er, 1859.] n the utili- •ate rigidly and what fc any reach out attend- ing to -consequences ; but it does not follow that they ought to do so. The doctrine of consequences is only adopted by persons of a certain amount of thought and culture, or else by knaves, who very likely have no thought or culture at all, but who find the doctrine convenient. Thus it is that the science of political economy perpetually leads even disinterested and generous men to conclusions which deliglit interested and selfish men. The evil of promiscuous charity, for instance, and the detriment caused by foundling hospitals and similar institutions, is quite a modern discovery, and is directly antagonistic to that spontaneous impulse of our nature which urges us to give, and always to relieve imnjediate distress. If there ever was a moral instinct, this is one, and we see it enforced with great pathos in the New Testametit, which was written at a period when tlie evil of the instinct (as shown by a scientific investigation of the tiieory of conse- quences) was unTinown. I have no doubt that when our knowledge is more advanced, an immense number of other impulses Avill be in the same way proved to be erroneous ; but even when the proof is supplied there are only two classes Tvho will act upon it : those who are capable of understanding the argument, and those who, without comprehending it, are pleased with the doctrine it inculcates. What is vulgarly called the moral faculty is always spontaneous — or at least always appears to be so. But science (i.e. truth), is invariably a limitation of spontaneousness. Every scientific discovery is contrary to common sense, and the history of the reception of that discovery is the history of the struggle with the common sense and with the unaided instincts of our nature. Seeing this, it is aurely absurd to set up these unaided instincts as s^preme ; to worship them as idols ; to regret the doctrine of consequences, and to say, < I will do this because I feel it to be right, and I will listen to nothing which tempts me from what I know to be my duty ; ' to say this is well enough for a child, or for an adult who has the intellect of a child ; but on the part of a cultivated person it is nothing better than slavery of the understand- ing, and a servile fear of that spirit of analysis to which we owe our most valuable acquisitions. " I wish I could publish an essay oa this ! How I pine for more time and more strength ! Since I have been here I have read what Mill says in his Essays, and, like everything he writes, it is admirable— but I think that he has done better things. Pie does not make enough of the historical argument of unspontaneous science encroaching on spontaneous morals, and the improvement of moral conduct consequent on such encroachment! I saw this when I wrote my fourth chapter on the impossibility of moral motives causing social improvement. But here r am getting into another field, and it is hopeless . . . ." ^ • • • •. . Almost directly after the publication of his first volume, he applied himself to the preparation of the second, for which, indeed, he had prepare..! Home matter several years before, aiiiee' in October, 1855, he noted in his Journal that he had "begun xlvi BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. ]. H' 'I a I ?r. ',i i and finished " a " notice of the history of Spain and the In- quisition, to prove that morals cannot diminish persecution." He interrupted this work in January, 1858, in order to prepare the lecture, on the Influence of Women on the Progress of Know- ledge, which he delivered at the Eoyal Institution on March 19 of the same year. On January 1 9 he entered in his Journal, that he " began to write a lecture on the Influence of Women ; " and he continued to enter, nearly every day, the number of hours (generally from two to four), that he gave to writing it until February 21, when he notes "finished writing lecture on women." On the following day he enters " studied lecture on women ; " and this entry is repeated several times a week until March 19, when he notes, " From 10*10 to 1'30 studied Lecoure . At 9 I delivered at the Eoyal Institution a lecture on the Influence of Women on the Progress of Knowledge. I spoke from 8'55 to 10*25 without hesitation and without taking my notes out of my pocket." His self-gratulation on not requiring the aid of his notes appears to have produced the mistaken impression in some quarters that he spoke extempore. The next event in his life was the loss of his mother, an event the coming shadow of which had already been gathering for many years. In 1857 he had written to a friend on the occasion of the death of a mother : — " I have more than once undergone in anticipation what you are suffer- ing in reality, and it has always seemed to me that consolation may be for the dead, but never for the living. Still, you are not as I shall be you have not lost all — you do not stand alone in the world." In the same year he writes of his mother in other letters : " Month after month she is now gradually altering for the worse ; at times slightly better, but on the whole perceptibly losing ground . . Nothing remains of her as she once was except her smile and the exquisite tenderness of her affections. I while away my days here, doing nothing and caring for nothing, because I feel that I have no future. "In the last three weeks I have been unable to write a single line of my history, and I now confine myself to reading and thinking, which I can do as well as ever, though I am too unsettled to compose. My mother is just the same as when I wrote last, caring for nothing but seeing me, though she is too unwell to converse. . . . While she is in this state, nothing could induce me to leave her. even for .i day without absolute necessity. She has no pleasure left except that of ; BIOGRAPHICAT. NOTICE. xlvii d the In- rsecution." »repare the of Know- March 19 urnal, thai len ; " and r of hours g it until n women." women ; " March 19, . At 5 Influence 3m 8*55 to out of my aid of his n in some r, an event hering for le occasion I are sufFer- niay be for ill be — you tterc : — B worse ; at nd . . . lie exquisite ing nothing single line king, which opose. My lothing but While she for .1 a;i ■J> ?pt that of knowing that I am near her, and as long as that remains she shall never lose it. ... I want change, for besides my anxiety I am vexed, and, to say the truth, a Uttle frightened at my sudden and complete inability to compose." [February, 1859.] " I am still immersed in Scotch theology, for I am more and more con- vinced that the real history of Scotland in the seventeenth century is to be found in the pulpit and in the ecclesiastical assemblies. A few days ago I tried to compose, and with better success than previously. I wrote about three pages that morning, and this has given me fresh courage. But it is only after the great excitement of conversation that I can write in the morning. Nothing now stirs me but talk. Every other stimulus has lost its power. I am dining out a good deal, and hear much of my own success ; but it moves me not. Often could I exclaim with Hamlet, * They fool me to the top of my bent.' " On February 6 and '', 1859, he notes in his Journal that he " read Mill on Liberty ; " and two days afterwards he " began to arrange notes with a view to reviewing, in Fraser, Mill's new work on Liberty." With this view he re-read the same writer's System of Logic, Principles of Political Economy and Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform ; and the writing of his own review occupied him for several hours every day for upwards of two months. It was while he was thus engaged that the death of his mother took place. " April 1, 1859. At 9'15 p. m. my angel mother died peacefully without pain," is the record in his diary on that day, on which he had been occupied in the morning in writing his account of the Pooley case ; and it was under the immediate impression of his loss that he wrote what he calls " the evidence of immortality supplied by the affections," which forms part of his Essay on Mill. In spite of this blow he continued steadily at his work, and did not leave London till he had finished his Essay. Soon after it was published (in Eraser's Magazine) he writes to a friend, who had remonstrated with him on the violence of his attack in it on Mr. Justice Coleridge. 10 May [1859]. " What you say about my notice of Justice Coleridge does a httle sur- prise me. I knew at the time that most persons would think I had shown too much virulence ; but I believed then, and 1 believe now, that in this case, as in other cases where I have taken an un'iopular view (such, for instance, as the absence of dynamical power in morals), those who object to my treatment have not taken as much pains to inform themselves as I have done. You know that I have no personal animosity against^Coleridge, ;i' r 1 xlviii BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. 111*. ■>' it t\i itU Ji SI.. and yet I say that, to the beat of my JTidgment, hia aentence on Poolev 18 the most criminal act committed by an English judge aince the seven- teenth century. Most acts of religioua cruelty have been in compliance with the temper of the age; but here we have a man going out of hia way and runnmg counter to the liberal tendenciea of the time in order to gratify that malignant passion— a zeal for protecting religion. I have Jelt all I have written ; and I should be ashamed of myself if on such a subject, and with my way of looking at affairs, I had expressed less warmth. Of course I may be wrong; but it seemed to me that the influence, the name, and the social position of the Judge made it the i lore necessary to be uncompromising, and to strike a blow which should be felt I believe that the more the true principles of toleration are understood the more alive will people be to the magnitude of that crime. At all events, I know that even if I had used still sti-onger language, I should only have writtoi what a powerful and intelligent minority think. And I have yet to learn that there are any good arguments in favour of a man concealing what he does think. I never have and never will attack a man for speculative opinions ; but when he translates these opinions into acts, and m so doing commits cruelty, it is for the general weal that he should be attacked. A poor, ignorant, half-wittec' man, sentenced to be impri- soned for a year and nine months, for writing and speaking a few words against the Author of the Christian religion ! And when I express the loathing and abomination with which I regard so monstrous an act, you my dear friend, ' regret the extreme violence ' of my expressions. To me it appears that your doctrine would root out indignation from my vocabu- lary; for if such an act is not to rouse indignation, what is? With all honesty do I say that I attach the highest value to your judgment, and therefore it is that I should really be glad if you will let me know why you dislike these remarks on Coleridge." u AUT. t. r ■, . , 13 May [1859]. "Although I admit the force of all your reasoning, i am not convinced by It, simply because our premises are different. We look at affairs from an opposite point of view, and therefore adopt opposite methods. My habits of muid accustom me to consider actio7is with regard to their con- sequences—you are more inclined to consider them with regard to their motives. You, therefore, are more tendt: to individuals than I am par- ticularly if you think them sincere; and you hold that moral principles do hasten the improvement of nations; I hold that they do not. Irom these fundamental differences between us, it inevitably happens that we estimate aifferently such an act as the sentence on Pooley. We are both agreed that the sentence was wrong; but you consider that the Judge not having bad motives (but who can penetrate the heart and discern motives ?), and not being a bad man, diminishes the criminality of the sentence, and therefore should have prevented me from using such strong language. ! understood me. At all je, I should 'nk. And I ur of a man .ttack a man ns into acts, It he should 3 be impri- i few words express the an act, you, ns. To me my vocabu- With all Igment, and know why ay [1859]. b convinced iffairs from hods. My I their con- rd to their 1 am, par- principles wt. I'rom IS that we 2 are both he Jiidge, nd discern Uty of the sing such 4 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. xlix "However, I should prefer resting my view upon grounds still broader than these As a pubhc writer (not as a private or practical man) txmate ac .ons solely according to their consequences. The consenuenc of this sentence I deem far more pernicious than I have been able o state m my essay, because I could not, for want of space, open up al tl e topics connected with it. Dealing, as I always do, witL fhe inte st c^' masses, and striving to reach the highest view of the subject, I hoTdIha when an act is pernicious, when it is done in the teeth of the liberal tt' dencies o the time, when t,ie punishment far exceeds the offence hen t IS not only cruel to the victim but productive of evil consequenc s as pub.c example_..hen these cjualit-es are combined in a sing e~ction criminal '" ' '"'^" "^'"^' ^"'^ ^'^^^^^^^^ ^^^ -*- of ^^T^^- be'lrt^'? "Yout'"?^"r? T^' ^" ^^*' ^"" ^^^^^^ ^'^ P^-P'^' -tor be treated? lou say that I should not hav- used language which one gentleman ' would not have used to another in converltion 1 re we are altogether at issue. My object was not merely to vindicatM principle of to erat on Cfor that tn ill ^^„ c ^ vmaicate the nnri h,.^..,} 1 ) ^"^*' *° ^" P^r'^ous of Competent understandinjr and knowledge was done before I was born), but to punish a great .nd KlTrZ '^'f " ' '^"^ ^^^^ *^ P"-^^ is another^ ti::" *^ ^ . . P— "y '^"'^ "ot ^vrong as to 'ntention That i"? thinrr T i,oL i-'--v..o,.iy tne theory of method that underlies everv- chastise as well as to persuade ? T f 1 '• u • *^^,b"«Jness of literature to Mostialy do /know th " u X* !„tt S "" '?:'' """« ' "«™'-' of your heart i and I value m«f 'L , ° ',7'^ *^'"==' """^ "">'"'■» proves y„„ friendship, ia rjdld „l' Zf 6^1' "/T'""' Ti"* you that we are in thi- -oif,., .. r ' 7 ' ™°'"" "™"=»' f'"™ I will always Twht 1 t L ^77 ^ "' "' '"'''• ^' »" ">'">»'. niy path pipetrLd :; 1 t:e*U„d1:fl„:?rf "' ^"^ '=°'"== °"'» Jo»ve„.iona,andV.J.J,.Jii:l«^^^^^^^^ h;'i:Lt.u:h t 'aiiTnd'i i r '""-'"-^ °"^ --*--• v'ith you in Jt Manv wint i "^ f ''"^' ' ■"" '"""""'I "> ■•"«■■« Lo„d,?n drawCooni ,L 1 eif ; ""' " " ""' *' ^'O'"' "' greatoareertol 3 *t-Ti" "'"" " ' '"' ■"" " ""'" "'""■"»" .0. Willingly seen.aJ;nrhrS;:::itd:rdl^^^^^^ c MM 1 BIOORArmCAL NOTICE. pm 1^ li ^( say that I feel that within me which can sweep away such little obstacles, and force people to hear what I have to offer them." For a short time after his mother's death he seems to have been sustained by the excitement of composition ; but the letters he wrote during the following year show that, as is usual where a loss is very great, the sense of it became deeper with time : — [Apil, 1859]. "Do not be uneasy about me. I am quite well, and within such limits us are left to me, I am happy. I can work freely and well ; beyond this there is nothing for me to look for except the deep conviction I have of another life, and which makes me feel that all is not really over." [April, 1859]. " I remain quite well, but my grief increases as association after asso- ciation rises in my mind, and tells me what I have lost. One thing alone I cling to — the deep and unutterable conviction that the end is not yet come, and that we never really die. But it is a separation for half a life, and the most sanguine view that I can take is that I have a probability before me of tliirty years of fame, of power and of desolation." [Brighton] 19 May [1859]. "Here I am, working hard ; ard it is my only pleasure, just as the capacity of work and of thought is the only part of me that has not deteriorated. Strange, that the intellect alone should be spared ! but so it is. The feeling of real happiness I never expect again to know, but I am perfectly calm." Tlie next letter was written in the midst of illness, and about the time o;' the death of a young nephew to whom he was attached : — [Boulogne, December, 1869]. " I cannot tell you how I dread the idea of going to London, to that dull and dreary house which was once so full of light and of love ! On the other hand, my ambition seems to grow more insatiate than ever, and it is perhaps Avell that it should, as it is my sheet-anchor." He continued to work steadily at his new volume, and while it was passing through the press he wrote to a friend to whom he sent the proofs : ' I hope you will like the peroration (of Chap. I. vol. ii.). I am hardly a fair judge ; but as a mere piece of English composition, I think it is much the best thing I have written." But at the very time that he was writing this " perora- tion," with which he was so much pleased, he seems to have been suffering, more even than he had done a year before, from the low spirits and weakened health consequent on the loss of his mother. BIOUKAFHIUAL MOTICK. u April, 1859]. in after asso- e thing alone nd is not yet or half a life, a probability > May [1859]. ,s the capacity deteriorated. !. The feeling rfectly calm." , and about lom he was mber, 1869]. ndon, to that •f love ! On lan ever, and md while it whom he oration (of mere piece hing I have is " perora- ) have been 3, from the loss of his [November, 1860], "I see too surely how changed I am in e.ery way, and how impoasible it will be for mo to complete schemes to which I once thought myself fully equal. My next volume is far from being ready for the press, and when it is ready, it will be very inferior to what either you or I expected." After the publication of his second volume (in May, 1861), his health gave way still more completely, and in the following autumn he determined to lay aside all literary work for a time, and to try the effect of a winter in Egypt and Syria. This journey seems to have been begun under favourable auspices, and if we may trust his own letters, it would appear that all his hopes of invigorated strength were realised by it, and that the fever by which it was cut short was purely fortuitous, and not at all the result of his previously weakened health. He was accompanied by the two young sons of a friend, of whom he writes ; ' They are very pleasant, intelligent boys, and I delight in young life.' That the friendly feeling was reciprocated we may infer from a sentence in a letter home, in which the boys enunciate the opinion that ' Bucky's a brick ' ! "I cannot tell you," writes he a few days before leaving England, « I cannot tell you the intense pleasure with which I look forward to seeing Egypt— that strange mutilated form of civilization. For years nothing has excited me s much." He left England towards the end of October, and early in November he writes from Alexandria: "I feel in better health and spirits than at any time during the last three years. Especially I am conscious of an immense increase of brain-power, grasping great problems with a firmness which at one time I feared had gone from me for ever. I feel that there is yet much that I shall live ' to do." And again, ten days later from Cairo ; " I am better than I have been for years, and feel full of life and thought. How this country makes me speculate ! " To the friend whose sons accompanied him he wrote from Cairo : Cairo, 15 November, 1861. " I feel the responsibility of your dear children perhaps more than I expected ; but I am not anxious, for I am conscious of going to the full extent of my duty and neglecting nothing, and when a man does this, he must leave the unknown and invisible future to take care of itself." And in the same letter he wrote in reply to some questions which had been addressed to him :— c2 Hi BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. J 'IJ " All I can say is, that the true Utilitarian philosophy never allows anyone, for the sake ot present and temporary benefits, either to break a promise or tell a falsehood. Such things degrade the mind, and are there- fore evil in themselves. . . . The other point is more difficult ; but / •would not hesitate to tell a falsehood to save the life of any one dear to me, though I know that many competent judges differ as to this ; and in the present state of knowledge, the problem is perhaps incapable of scientific treatment. It is, therefore, in such cases, for each to act accord- ing to his own lights." From Thebes he writes, on January 15, 1862 : — " We arrived at Thebes this morning. We have all been, and are, remarkably well. The journey into Nubia, notwithstanding its many dis- comforts, was in the highest degree curious and instructive. Not one Egyptian traveller in ten enters Nubia, but, as you see, I felt confident in bringing us all well out of it ; and now that we have been there, I would not have missed it for five hundred pounds, I feel very joyous, and alto- gether full of pugnacity, so that I wish someone would attack me — I mean, attack me speculatively — I have no desire for a practical combat." On his return to Cairo he writes : — Cairo, 7th February, 1862. " We have returned to Cairo all quite well, afler a most interesting journey to the southern extremity of Egypt and on into Nubia, as far as Wady Halfeh (the Second Cataract). I feel better and stronger than I have done for years. In about ten days we leave here for Mount Sinai, and intend proceeding thence through the desert to Gaza, and then to Jerusalem by way of Hebron. Fancy me travelling on the back of a camel for seven or eight hours a day for from four to six weeks, and then travelling on he seback through Palestine and Southern Syria I That I have not already been thrown is a marvel, seeing that among other audacious feats I went from the Nile to Abydos on a donkey with a cloth for a saddle and two pieces of rope for stirrups, and in this wretched plight had to ride between eight and nine hours. " To give you any, even the faintest idea of what I have seen in this wonderful country, is impossible. No art of writing can depict it. If I were to say that the temple of Karnac at Thebes can even now be ascer- tained to have measured a mile and a half in circumference, I should perhaps only tell you what you have read in books ; but I should despair if i were obliged to describe what I felt when I was in the midst of it, and contemplated it as a living whole, while every part was covered with sculptures of exquisite finish, except where the hieroglyphics crowded on each other so thickly that it would require many volumes to copy them. There stood their literature, in the midst of the most magnificent temples ever raised by the genius of man. I went twice to see it by moonlight, when the vast masses of light and shade rendered it absolutely appalling. But I fear to write like a guide-book, and had rather abstain from details BIOGEAPHICAL NOTICE. Uii nary, 1862. interesting a, as far as than I have ; Sinai, and 3 J erusalem el for seven avelling on not already eats I went lie and two ide between een in this ict it. If I rv be ascer- ce, I should )uld despair St of it, and vered with jrowdod on copy them. ent temples moonlight, Y appalling, from details till we meet. One effect, however, I must tell you that my journey has produced upon me. Perhaj-s you may remember how much I always preferred form to colour ; but now, owing to the magical effect of this, the driest atmosphere in the world, ." am getting to like colour more than form. The endless variety of hues is extraordinary. Owing to the transparency of the air, objects are seen (as nearly as I can judge) more than twice the distance that they can be seen in England under the most favourable cir- cumstances. Until my eye became habituated to this, I often over-fatigued myself by believing that I could reach a certain point in a certain time. The result is a wealth and exuberance of colour which is hardly to be credited, and which I doubt if any painter would dare to represent. . . . " If you were here, and felt as I do what it is to have the brain every day over-excited — be constantly drunk with pleasure — ^you Avould easily understand how impossible much letter- writing becomes, and how impatient one grows of fixing upon paper ' thoughts that burn.' But, as you know of old, if my friends were to measure my friendship by the length of my letters, they would do me great injustice." He reached Jerusalem on April 13, 1862, and in a letter written a few days later, he gives the following account of the journey: — Jerusalem, 16 April [1862]. " We arrived here three days ago, afler a most flitiguing and arduous journey through the whole desert of Sinai and of Edom. We have tra- versed a deeply-interesting country, visited by few Europeans and by none during the last five years, so dangerous was the latter part of the journey reputed to be. But I had taken my measures before venturing to go beyond Sindi, and, gradually feeling my way, secured, as I went on, the protection of every leading sheik, having studied at Cairo their relative power and posi- tion. Having an ample stock of provisions, I was prepared at any moment to fall back and return, if need be, to Egypt. Three other parties, chiefly Americans, joined us at Sinai, each having their separate establishment ar- ranged with their own dragoman, but all, for greater safety, keeping togo^^'ier till we reached Hebron. We were in all sixteen persons, and with our ser- vants and escort we numbered 110 armed men. Nothing but a combination of tribes could hurt us ; and such u combination I considered to be morally impossible in the face of the precautions which I suggested, and to which, after some demur, the other parties agreed. When I say ' morally im- possible,' I mean the odds were so largo as not to be worth the considera- tion of a prudent man. There were several alarms, and there was undoubted danger ; but, in my deliberate judgment, the danger was not greater than would be encountered in a rough sea with a good vessel and a skill'ul captain. Some of our fellow-travellers were in great fear two or three times, and assured me that they had no sleep on those occasions. For Hi}' ovvii {jurt I never was kept awake ten minutes Tlie result is that we have seen Petra— as wonderful and far mere beautiful than anything in Egypt. Bui-khardt, about forty years ago, was the first i':t liv BIOGKAPHICAL NOTICE. \m .m m European who ever set foot there, and since then, not more, probably, than a hundred persons have seen it — that is to say, have really seen it as ■we did, at leisure, and spending three whole days there. Occasionally gentlemen without tents and with no food but what they can carry on their own horse, gallop from Hebron to Petra (about one hundred and twenty miles) in two days and a half, reaching Petra in the evening, seeing it by moonlight, and then gallop back again before the Bedouins and Fellahin are aware of their presence. The English and other consuls and the Governor of Cairo, with other persons of influence, all declared that this was the only way I could see Petra; but the hardship of the journey, and the risk of sleeping in the open air, prevented me from thinking for a moment of such a plan. Among the English here the journey has created quite a sensation, and the result is one of many proofs which have convinced me of the profound ignorance of officials in the East of everything which their eyes do not see. I had to collect all my fa :ts through an interpreter, but I analysed and compared them with something more than official care and piecision. Having done so, I acted ; and I look back to this passage through Petra from Egypt as by far the greatest practical achievemeat of my life. I believe that you are both laughing, and I am almost inclined to laugh myself But I am conceited about it, and I think I have reason to be so. For I must moreover tell you that nearly all our party were more or less ill with fatigue, anxiety and the extraordinary vicissitudes of temperature, . . . but we three had not oiice the least pain or inconvenience of any kind. . . The dear little kids are now the picture of health, and we are all as brown as Arabs. . ... The fact is, that we were the only ones Avho had proper food, and were properly clothed I am far stronger both in mind and body than I have been since you knew me, and I feel fit to go on at once with my work. But I neither read nor write ; I think, I see, and I talk. Especially I study the state of society and habits of the people." Cheerfully as he speaks of this journey by Petra, it is probable that the fatigue, excitement, and anxiety he underwent in the course of it, laid the foundation of the fever which was so soon to carry him off. He spent eleven days at Jerusalem, and three days after commencing his journey from Jerusalem to Beyrout he was attacked by the first symptoms of illness. He ought at once to have returned to Jerusalem and rested until every sign of illness had disappeared, but unfortunately his eneigetic and hopeful disposition prompted him to struggle cj, in spite of suffering, until the malady had too tifjht a hold on him ever to be shaken off. From the first attack, at Nazareth, to his death a month later at Damascus, his diary records all the vicissitudes of BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. Iv illness, brought on by fatigue and exhaustion. At Nazareth he was attended by an American doctor, and at Sidon by the French resident doctor, of whom he says that he " turns out to be an intelligent man," and who told him that v/hat he wanted was rest. Had he taken this advice his lite would probably have been saved, but he continued his journey to Beyrout, where he arrived on May 14, thinking himself cured, although " still very weak." From Beyrout he wrote cheerfully and full of plans for the future. « We arrived here to-day, all well ; " and then he goes into minute details of his plans for spending the summer at Gratz. Nor was it only in his letters, but also in his Journal, that he spoke of himself as " feeling better " at Beyrout, and even there rest might yet have saved him. But directly he re- commenced his journey his illness returned, and on the day he arrived at Damascus (May 18), he spoke of himself as "utterly prostrate." At Damascus he received the utmost kindness from Mr. Sand- with, the English consul, but from this time the fever never left him, and he sank under it on May 29, 1862. His last words were words of kindness to his two young companions. r ! I . III I ' H i li ever. INTEODUCTION. The contents of the following volumes may be divided into three portions. Firstly, the Miscellaneous Works published by the author during his lifetime, consisting of a lecture on the Influ- ence of Women on Knowledge, of a review of Mr. Mill's work on Liberty, and of a short defence of this review under the name of ' A Letter to a Gentleman on Pooley's Case." Secondly, of the contents of Mr. Buckle's Common Place Books, which fill the second and third volumes of the present work. These have been printed precisely as they were left by the author, with the exception of the omission of a few articles on account of the subjects of which they treated. The numbering has, how- ever, been carried on as in the original, both on account of re- ferences to the articles by number in other places, and that those who care to do so, may see where omissions have occurred. The Index to the Common Place Books was made by the author him- self, and has been printed verbatim ; it therefore contains re- terences to the omitted articles. A large proportion of the Common Place Books, even when Bubstantially extracted from other writers, is in Mr. Buckle's own words especially towards the latter part. On this account it has been thought best to make as few alterations as possible in them as they originally stood, although the reader may observe many mistakes which the author would probably have corrected had he himself given the books to the press. But they have been left unaltered because some statements which may appear mistakes to the editor or reader might have proved to be deliberate opinions of the writer, which he might have been able to substantiate; while the alteration or omission of others, about which there seems no room for doubt, would have diminished the autobloj,ra- phical value of the remains-a great part of their value to the general reader. • 1 Iviii • INTRODUCTION. ■I IS ( li" The tliird part consists of the Fragments, the most connected portions of which (on the reign of Elizabeth) appeared in Eraser's Magazine about five years after the author's death. So much of the Common Place Books is original and so much of the Frag- ments consists of little more than abstracts of books, that the difference of character between the two is not very great. But the Common Place Books were so called by their author, and their contents were entered by him in consecutive numbers. The Fragments seem to consist partly of notes from books such as he afterwards might have entered in his Common Place Books, partly of the first rough form in which he was in the habit of putting his ideas upon paper,' and partly of those |)ortion8 of the original sketches of his published work which he had not incorporated into it. Not one is a completed paper ; and to have presented any of them in a connected form would have been in fact to have re- written them. Even to alter the order in which the disjointed fragments are thrown together would often have been to run a considerable risk of substantially misrepresenting the author's ideas. For, m the first place, it would be to represent opinions as settled and matured, which were in fact only tentative suggestions and provisional hypotheses. There are instances where he seems to have worked in one direction, and then, convinced by the re- sults beginning to come out from his own labour, he seems to have begun again upon a totally different track. "We cannot tell how often this was the case, and it is due to a mind at once so bold and so laborious, carefully to avoid presenting his guess-js in a form that might lead to the impression that they were his con- victions. There is another reason why no attempt has been made to work up these materials into any connected form. The originality of the author's mind was shown in a great degree in the arrange- ment of his materials, and it would be as rash as presumptuous for anyone but himself to disturb the order in which he has him- self thrown together even the most apparently disconnected facts. This order may be, in many cases, entirely accidental ; but it also may be the result of some of the writer's most characteristic powers, destined, had he lived, to throw new light on the rela- tions of history. To disturb it therefore might not only be unfair This is shown by the numerous notes of interrogation which he was in the habit of putting where he was not quite sure of the statements made. INTEODUCTION. lix to Mr. Buckle, it might also be unfair to the studious among hie readers. To some of these the apparently accidental order of some of the great heap of facts and ideas here thrown together may be like a flash of light, and may lead the way to new com- binations. To have meddled with this order might have been to destroy their chief value to kindred minds. s in the habit i H Bl H WM i«c^H |fi^^H ^Pw liJ'H if 9 1 II -} I MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON THE PEOGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE.' The subject upon which I have undertaken to address you is the influence of women on the progress of knowledge, undoubtedly one of the most interesting questions that could be submitted to any audience. Indeed, it is not only very interesting, it is also extremely important. When we see how knowledge has c'vilized mankind ; when we see how every great step in the march and advance of nations has been invariably preceded by a correspond- ing step in their knowledge; when we moreover see, what is as- suredly true, that women are constantly growing more influential, It becomes a matter of great moment that we should endeavour to ascertain the relation between their influence and our know- ledge. On every side, in all social phenomena, in the education of children, in the tone and spirit of literature, in the forms and usages of life ; nay, even in the proceedings of legislatures, in the history of statute-books, and in the decisions of magistrates we find manifold proofs that women are gradually making their way, and slowly but surely winning for themselves a position superior to any they have hitherto attained. This is one of many peculiarities which distinguish modern civilization, and which show how essentially the most advanced countries are different from those that formerly flourished. Among the most celebrated nations of antiquity, women held a very subordinate place. The most splendid and durable monument of the Roman empire, and the noblest gift Rome has bequeathed to posterity, is her juris- prudence—a vast and harmonious system, worked out with con- summate skill, and from which we derive our purest and largest notions of civil law. Yet this, which, not to mention the immense « A Discourse delivered at the Royal Institution, on Friday, the 19th of March 1858 (Reprinted from • Fraser's Magazine,' for Apnl, ] 858.) ' r. n fv: Wi Pi \h : liitirtila i 2 INFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. sway it still exercises in France and Germany, has taught to our most enlightened lawyers their best lessons ; and which enabled Bracton among the earlier jurists, Somers, Hardwici.e, Mansfield, and Stowell among the later, to soften by its refinement the rude maxims of our Saxon ancestors, and adjust the coarser principles of the old Common Law to the actual exigencies of life ; this imperishable specimen of human sagacity is, strange to say, so grossly unjust towards women, that a great writer upon that code has well observed, that in it women are regarded not as persons, but as things; so completely were they stripped of all their rights, and held in subjection by their proud and imperious masters. As to the other great nation of anriquity, we have only to open the literature of the ancient Greeks to see'with what airs of superiority, with what serene and ^ofty contempt, and sometimes with what mocking and biting scorn, women were treated by that lively and ingenious people. Instead of valuing them as com- panions, they looked on them as toys. How little part women really :ook in the development of Greek civilization may be illus- trated by the singular fact, that their influence, scanty as it v^^as, did not reach its height in the mcst civilized times, or in the most civilized regions. In modern Europe, the influence of women and the spread of civilization have been nearly commen- surate, both advancing with almost equal speed. But if you compare iae picture of Greek life in Homer with that to be found in Plato and his contemporaries, you will be struck by a totally opposite circumstance. Between Plato and Homer there intervened, according to the common reckoning, a period of at least four centuries, during which the Greeks made many notable improvements in the arts of life, and in various branches of spe- culative and practical knowledge. So far, however, from women participating in this movement, we find that, in the state of society exhibited by Plato and his contemporaries, they had evi- dently lost ground ; their influence being less then tlian it was in the earlier and more barbarous period depicted by Homer. This fact illustrates the question in regard to time ; another fact illus- trates it in regard to place. In Sparta, women possessed more influence than they did in Athens ; although the Spartans were rude and ignorant, the Athenians polite and accomplished. The causes of these inconsistencies would form a curious subject for investigation : but it is enough to call your attention to them as one of many proofs that the boa^jted civilizations of antiquity were eminently one-sided, and that they fell because society did not advance in all its parts, but sacrificed some of its constituents in order to secure the progress of others. THEIR INFLUENCE IN MODERN EUROPE. 8 In modern European society we have happily no inatfince of tliis sort ; and, if we now inquire what the influence of women lias been upon that society, everyone will allow that on the whole it has been extramely beneiicial. Th.iir influence has prevented life from being too exclusively practical and selfish, and has saved It from degenerating into a dull and monotonous routine, by in- fusing into it an ideal and romantic element. It has softened the violence of men ; it has improved their manners ; it has les- sened their cruelty. Thus far, the gain is complete and unde- niable. But if we ask what their influence has been, not on the general interests of society, but on one of those interests, namely, the progress of knowledge, the answer is not so obvious. For, to' state the matter candidly, it must he confessed that none of the greatest works which instruct and delight mankind have been composed by women. In poetry, in painting, in sculpture, in music, the most exquisite productions are the work of men. No woman, however favourable her circumstances may have been, has made a discovery sufficiently important to mark an epoch in' the annals of the human mind. These are facts which cannot be contested, and from them a very stringent and peremptory infer- ence has been drawn. From them it has been inferred, and it is openly stated by eminent writers, that women have no concern with the highest forms of knowledge; that such matters are alto- getuer out of their reach ; that they should confine themselves to practical, moral, and domestic life, which it is their province to exalt and to beautify; but that they can exercise no influence direct or indirect, over the progress of knowledge, and that if they seek to exercise sucli influence, they will not only fail in their object, but will restrict the field of their really useful and le^i- timate activity. ° Now, I may as, well state at once, and at the outset, that I have come here to-night with the intention of combating this proposition, which I hold to be unphilosophical and danoerous • lalse in theory and pernicious in practice. I believe, and'l hope before we separate to convince you, that so far from women exer- cising little or no influence over the progress of knowledge, they are capable of exercising and have actually exercis d an enormous influence; that this influence is, in fact, so great that it is hardly possible to assign limits to it ; and that great as it is. it may with advantage be still further increased. I hope, moreover, to con- ^'lnce you that tliis influence has been exhibited not merely from time to time in rare, sudden, and transitory ebullitions, ou^ th^t 1 acts by virtue of certain laws inherent to human nature ; and that although it works as an under-current below the surface, and B 2 'Sir " t| I . '1 4 INFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE, u n ;'i is therefore invisible to hasty observers, it has already produced the most important results, and has affected the shape, the cha- racter, and the amount of our knowledge. To clear up this matter, we must first of all understand what knowledge is. Some men who pride themselves on their common sense — and whenever a man boasts much about that, you may be pretty sure that he has very little sense, either common or un- common — such men there are who will tell you that all knowledge consists of facts, that everything else is mere talk and theory, and that nothing has any value except facts. Those who sp k so much of the value of facts may vmderstand the meaning ot fact, but they evidently do not understand the meaning of value. For, the value of a thing is not a property residing in that thing, nor is it a component ; but it is simply its relation to some other thing. We say, for instance, that a live-shilling piece has a certain value ; but the value does not reside in the coin. If it does, where is it ? Our senses cannot grasp value. We cannot see value, nor hear it, nor feel it, nor taste it, nor smell it. The value consists solely in the relation which the five-shilling piece bears to something else. Just so in regard to facts, tracts, as facts, have no sort of value, but are simply a mass of idle lumber. The value of a fact is not an element or constituent of that fact, bvit is its relation to the total stock of our knowledge, either present or prospective. Facts, therefore, have merely a potential and, as it were, subsequent value, and the only advantage of possessing them is the possibility of drawing conclusions from them ; in other words, of rising to the idea, the principle, the law which governs them. Our knowledge is composed not of facts, but of the relations which facts and ideas bear to themselves and to each other ; and real knowledge consists not in an acquaintance Avith facts, which only makes a pedant, but in the use of facts, which makes a philosopher. Looking at knowledge in this way, we shall find that it has three divisions — Method, Science, and Art. Of method I will speak presently ; but I will first state the limits of the other two divisions. The immediate object of all art is either pleasure or utility : the immediate object of all science is solely truth. As art and science have different objects, so also have they different faculties. The faculty of art is to change events ; the faculty of science is to foresee them. The phenomena with w^hich we deal are controlled by art ; they are predicted by science. The more complete a science is, tlie greater its power of prediction ; the more complete an art is, the greater its power of control. Astro- nomy, for instance, is called the queen of the sciences, because it THE MOST IMPORTANT FORM OF KNOWLEDGE. stand wliat ir common on may be ion or mi- knowledji^e ad theory, 10 Sp k HO \g of fact, ilue. For, thing, nor ome other ,s a certain f it does, ;annot see I it. The ling piece s. Facts, ss of idle stituent of :no\vledge, merely a advantage iions from ie, the law t of facts, selves and [uaintanct^ 3 of facts, lat it has lod I will other two leasm'e or ruth. As / diflfereut faculty of h we deal The more ition ; the i. Astro- because it is the most advanced of all ; and the astronomer, while he aban- dons all hope of controllinnr or altering the phenomena, frequently knows what the phenomena will bo years before they actually appear ; the extent of his foreknowledge proving the accuracy of iiis science. So, too, in tlie science of mechanics, we predict that, certain circumstances being present, certain results must follow ; and having done tliis, our science ceases. Our art then begins, and from that moment the object of utility and the faculty of control come into play ; so that in the art of mechanics, we alter what in the science of mechanics we were content to foresee. One of the most conspicuous tendencies of advancing civiliza- tion is to give a scientific basis to that faculty of control which is represented by art, and thus afford fresh prominence to the faculty of prediction. In the earliest stages of society there are many arts, but no sciences. A little later, science begins to appear, and every subsequent step is marked by an increased desire to bring art under the dominion of science. To those who have studied the history of the human mind, this tendency is so familiar that I need hardly stop to prove it. Perhaps the most remark- able instance is in the case of agriculture, which, for thousands of years, was a mere empirical art, resting on the traditional maxims of experience, but which, during the present century, chemists began to draw under their jurisdiction, so that the practical art of manuring the ground is now explained by laws of physical science. Probably the next step will be to bring another part of tlie art of agriculture under the dominion of meteorology, which will be done as soon as the conditions which govern the changes of the weather have been so generalized as to enable us to foretell what the weather will be. General reasoning, therefore, as well as the history of what has been actually done, justify us in saying that the highest, the ripest, and the most important form of knowledge, is the scientific form of predicting consequences ; it is therefore to this form that I shall restrict the remainder of what I have to say to you respect- ing the influence of women. And the point which I shall attempt to prove is, that there is a natural, a leading, and probably an indestructible element, in the minds of women, which enables them, not indeed to make scientific discoveries, but to exercise the most momentous and salutary influence over the method by which discoveries are made. And as all questions concerning the philosophy of method lie at the very root of our knowledge, I will, in the first place, state, as succinctly as I am able, the only two methods by which we can arrive at truth. The scientific inquirer, properly so called, that is, he whoso '1 1 Km 'if i I hilll; . I 13 111 dp m 6 INFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. object is merely truth, has only two ways of attaining his result. He may proceed from the external world to the internal ; or he may begm with the internal and proceed to the external. In the former case he studies the facts presented to his senses, in order to arrive at a true idea of them ; in the latter case, he studies the Ideas already in his mind, in order to explain the facts of which his senses are cognizant. If he begin with the facts his method IS inductive; if he begin with the ideas it is deductive. Ibe inductive philosopher collects phenomena either by observa- tion or by experiment, and from them riees to the general principle or law which explains and covers them. The deductive philoso- pher draws the principle from ideas already existing in his mind and explains the phenomena by descending on them, instead of rising from them. Several eminent thinkers have asserted that every idea is the result of induction, and that the axioms of geo- metry, for instance, are the product of early and unconscious in- duction Li the same way, Mr. Mill, in his great work on Logic, affirms that all reasoning is in reality from particular to particular, and that the major premiss of every syllogism is merely a record and register of knowledge previously obtained. Whether this be true, or whether, as another school of thinkers asserts, we have ideas antecedent to experience, is a question which has been hotly disputed, but which I do not believe the actual resources of our knowledge can answer, and certainly I have no intention at pre- sent of making the attempt It is enough to sav that we call geometry a deductive science, because, even if its axioms are arrived at inductively, the inductive process is extremely small and we are unconscious of it ; while the deductive reasonings torm the great mass and difficulty of the science. To bring this distinction home to you, I will' illustrate it by a specimen of deductive and inductive investigation of the same subject. Suppose a writer on what is termed social science wishes to estimate the influence of different habits of thought on the average duration of life, and taking as an instance the opposite pursuits of poets and mathematicians, asks which of theni live longest. How is lie to solve this ? If lie proceeds inductively he will lirst collect the facts, that is, he will ransack the bio^hies of poets and mathematicians in ditlferent ages, different clinfates and different states of society, so as to eliminate perturbations arising from circumstances not connected with his subject He will then throw tlif results into the statistical form of tables of mortality, and ou comparing them will find, that notwithstandinr. the immense variety of circumstances which he has investigated there is a general average which constitutes an empirical law, and WOMEN NATURALLY REASON DEDUCTIVELY. 7 proves that mathematicians, as a body, are longer lived than poets. This is the inductive method. On the other hand, the deductive inquirer will arrive at precisely- the same conclusion by a totally different method. He will argue thus: poetry appeals to the imagination, mathematics to the understanding. To work the imagination is more exciting than to work the understanding, and what is habitually exciting is usually unhealthy. But what is usually unhealthy will tend to shorten life ; therefore poetry tends more than mathematics to shorten life ; therefore on the whole poets will die sooner than mathematicians. You now see the difference between induction and deduction ; and you see, too, that both methods are valuable, and that any conclusion must be greatly strengthened if we can reach it by two such different paths. To connect this with the question before us, I will endeavour to establish two propositions. First, That women naturally prefer the deductive method to the inductive. Secondly, That women by encouraging in men deductive habits of thought, have rendered an immense, though unconscious, service to the progress of knowledge, by preventing scientific investigators from being as exclusively inductive as they would otherwise be. In regard to women being by nature more deductive, and men rnore inductive, you will remember that induction assigns the first place to particular facts ; deduction to general propositions or ideas. Now, there are several reasons why women prefer the deductive, and, if I may so say, ideal method. They are more emotional, more enthusiastic, and more imaginative than men ; they therefore live more in an ideal world ; while men, with their colder, harder, and austerer organisations, are more practical and more under the dominion of facts, to which they consequently ascribe a higher importance. Another circumstance which makes women more deductive, is that they possess more of what is called intuition. They cannot see so far as men can, but what they do see they see quicker. Hence, they are constantly tempted to grasp at once at an idea, and seek to solve a problem suddenly, in contradistinction to the slower and more laborious ascent of the inductive investigator. That women are more deductive tlian men, because they think quicker than men, is a proposition which some persons will not relish, and yet it may be proved in a variety of ways. Indeed, nothing could prevent its being universally admitted except the fact, that the remarkable rapidity with which women think is obscured by that miserable, that contemptible, that preposterous system, called their education, in which valuable things are care- fully kept from them, and trifling things carefully taught to I, i iT'^ri" 8 INFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON THE PROGEESS OF KNOWLEDGE. them, until their fine and nimble minds are too often irretriev- ably injured. It is on this account, that in the lower classes the superior quickness of women is even more noticeable than in the upper ; and an eminent physician. Dr. Currie, mentions in one of his letters, that when a labourer and his wife came together to consult him, it was always from the woman that he gained the clearest and most precise information, the intellect of the man moving too slowly for his purpose. To this I may add another observation which many travellers have made, and which any one can verify : namely, that when you are in a foreign country, and speaking a foreign language, women will understand you quicker than men will ; and that for the same reason, if you lose your way in a town abroad, it is always best to apply to a woman, because a man will show less readiness of apprehension. These, and other circumstances which might be adduced— such, for instance, as the insight into character possessed by women, and the fine tact for which they are remarkable— prove that they are more deductive than men, for two principal reasons. First, Kecause they are quicker than men. Secondly, Because, being more emotional and enthusiastic, they live in a more ideal world, and therefore prefer a method of inquiiy which proceeds from ideas to facts ; leaving to men the opposite method of proceeding.- from facts to ideas. "^ My second proposition is, that women have rendered great though unconscious service to science, by encouraging and keeping alive this habit of deductive thought ; and that if it were not for tliem, scientific men would be much too inductive, and the pro- gress of our knowledge would be hindered. There are many here who will not willingly admit this proposition, because, in England, since the first half of the seventeenth century, the inductive method, as the means of arriving at physical truths, has been the object, not of rational admiration, but of a blind and servile worship ; and it is constantly said, that since tlie time of Bacon all great physical discoveries have been made by that process. If this be true, then of course the deductive habits of women must, in reference to the progress of knowledge, have done more harm than good. But it is not true. It is not true that the greatest modern discoveries have all been made by induction ; and the circumstance of its being believed to be true is one of many proofs how much more successful Englishmen have been in making discoveries than in investigating the principles according to which discoveries are made. The first instance I will give you of the t .iumph of the deduc- tive method, IS in the most important discovery yet made re- '« -'^ EXAIVIPLES OF DEDUCTIVE REASONING. 9 specting the inorganic world ; I mean the discovery of the law of gravitation by Sir Isaac Newton. Several of Newton's other discoveries were, no doubt, inductive, in so far as they merely assumed such provisional and tentative hypotheses as are always necessary to make experiments fruitful. But it is certain that his greatest discovery of all was deductive, in the proper sense of the word ; that is to say, the process of reasoning from ideas was out of all proportion large, compared to the process of reasoning from facts. Five or six years after the accession of Charles II., Newton was sitting in a garden, when (you all know this part of the story) an apple fell from a tree. Whether he had been already musing respecting gravitation, or whether the fall of tho apple directed his thoughts into that channel is uncertain, and is* immaterial to my present purpose, which is merely to indicate the course his mind actually took. His object was to discover some law, that is, rise to some higher truth respecting gravity than was previously known. Observe how he went to work. He sat still where he was, and he thought. He did not get up to make experiments concerning gravitation, nor did he go home to consult observations which others had made, or to collate tables of observations : he did not even continue to watch the external world, but he sat, like a man entranced and enraptured, feeding on his own mind, and evolving idea after idea. He thought that if the apple had been on a higher tree, if it had been on the highest known tree, it would have equally fallen. Thus for, there was no reason to think that the power which made the apple fall was susceptible of diminution ; and if it were not susceptible of diminution, why should it be susceptible of limit ? If it were imlimited and undiminished, it would extend above the earth ; it would reach the moon and keep her in her orbit. If the power which made the apple fall was actually able to control the moon, why should it stop there ? Why should not the planets also bo controlled, and why should not they be forced to run their course by the necessity of gravitating towards the sun, just as the moon gravitated towards the earth ? His mind thus advancing from idea to idea, he was carried by imagination into the realms of space, and still sitting, neither experimenting nor observing, but heedless of the operations of nature, he completed the most sub- lime and majesti'3 speculation that it ever entered into the heart of man to conceive. Owing to an inaccurate measurement of the diameter of the earth, the details which verified this stupendous (.oTii^eption were not completed till twenty years later, when Newton, still pursuing the same process, made a deductive appli- cation of the laws of Kepler : so that both in tho beginning and I It J If f I r 1 , i ■ i 1 T . ... 1 in m iM ':.& ' 10 INFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. in tlie end, the greatest discovery of the greatest natural philo- sopher the world has yet seen, was the fruit of the deductive method. See how small a part the senses played in that dis- covery I It was the triumph of the idea ! It was the audacity of genius ! It was the outbreak of a mind so daring, and yet so subtle, that we have only Shakspeare's with which to compare it. To pretend, therefore, as many have done, that the fall of the apple was the cause of the discovery, and then to adduce that as a confirmation of the idle and superficial saying "that great events spring from little causes," only shows how unable such writers are to appreciate what our masters have done for us. No great event ever sprung, or ever wili spring, from a little cause ; and this, the greatest of all discoveries, had a cause fully equal to the effect produced. The cause of the discovery of the law of gravitation was not the fall of the apple, nor was it anything that occurred in the external world. The cause of the discovery of Newton was the mind of Newton himself. The next instance I will mention of the successful employment of the a prion, or deductive method, concerns the mineral king- dom. If you take a crystallised substance as it is usiially found in nature, nothing can at first sight appear more irregular and capricious. Even in its simplest form, the shape is so various as to be perplexing ; but natural crystals are generally met with, not ir primary forms, but in secondary ones, in which they have a singularly confused and \mcouth aspect. These strange-looking bodies had long excite 1 the attention of philosophers, who, after the approved inductive fashion, subjected them to all sorts of experiments; divided them, broke them up, measured them, weighed them, analysed them, thrust them into crucibles, brought chemical agents to bear upon them, and dk\ everything they could think of to worm out the secret of these crystals, and get at their mystery. Still, the mystery was not revealed to them. At length, late in the eighteenth century, a Frenchman named Haiiy, one of the most remarkable men of a remarkable age, made the dis- covery, and ascertained that tliese native crystals, irregular as they appear, are in truth perfectly regular, and that their secondary forms deviate from their primary forms by a regular process of diminution ; that is, by what he termed laws of decrement— the principles of decrease being as tmerring as those of increase. Now, I beg that you will particularly notice how this striking discovery was ntade. Haiiy wtis essentially a poet ; and his great delight was to wander in tbe Jardin. du RoL fihsprvinir r.sture not as a physical philosopher, but as a poet. Though hfs under- standing was strong, his imagination was stronger ; and it was for EXAMPLES OF DEDUCTIVE EEASONINQ. 11 the purpose of filling his mind with ideas of beauty that he directed his attention at first to the vegetable kingdom, with its graceful forms and various hues. His poetic temperament luxu- riating in such images of beauty, his mind became saturated with ideas of symmetry, and Cuvier assures us that it was in conse- quence of those ideas that he began to believe that the apparently irregular forms of native crystals were in reality regular ; in other words, that in them, too, there was a beauty— a hidden beauty— though the senses were unable to discern it. As soon as this idea was firmly implanted in his mind, at least half the discovery was made ; for he b«d got the key to it, and was on the right road, which others had missed because, while they approached minerals experimentally on the side of the senses, he approached them speculatively on the side of the idea. This is not a mere fanciful assertion of mine, since Hauy himself tells us, in his great work on Mineralogy, that he took, as his starting point, ideas of the symmetry of form ; and that from those ideas he worked down deductively to his subject. It was in this way, and of course after a long series of subsequent labours, that he read the riddle which had baffled his able but unimaginative predecessors. And thei-e are two circumstances worthy of note, as confirming what I have said respecting the real history of this discovery. The first is, that although Hauy is universally admitted to be the founder of the science, his means of observation were so rude that subsequent crystallographers declare that hardly any of his measurements of angles are correct ; as indeed is not surprising, inasmuch as the goniometer which he employed was a very imperfect instrument ; and that of Wollaston, which acts by reflection, was not then in- vented. The other circumstance is, that the little mathematics he once knew he had forgotten amid his poetic and imaginative pursuits ; so that, in working out the details of his own science, he was obliged, like a schoolboy, to learn the elements of geo- metry before he could prove to the world what he had already proved to himself, and could bring the laws of the science of form to bear upon the structure of the mineral kingdom. To these cases of the application of what may be termed the ideal method to the inorganic world, I will add another from the organic department of nature. Those among you who are inter- ested in botany, are aware that the highest morphological generalisation we possess respecting plants, is the great law of metamorphosis, according to which the stamens, pistils, corollas, bracts, petals, and so forth, of every plant, are simply modified leaves. It is now known that these various parts, different in sliape, different in colour, and different in function, are successive M I ?! 12 INFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON THE PKOGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. stages of the leaf — epochs, as it were, of its history. The question naturally arises, who made this discovery ? Was it some induc- tive investigator, who had spent years in experiments and minute observations of plants, and who, with indefatigable industry, had collected them, classified them, given them hard names, dried them, laid them up in his herbarium that he might at leisure study their structure and rise to their laws ? Not so. The dis- covery was made by Gothe, the greatest poet Germany has pro- duced, and one of the greatest the world has ever seen. And ho made it, not in spite of being a poet, but because he was a poet. It was his brilliant imagination, his passion for beauty, and his exquisite conception of form, which supplied him with ideas, from which, reasoning deductively, he arrived at conclusions by descent, not by ascent. He stood on an eminence, and looking down from the heights generalitS' d the law. Then he descended into the plains, and verified the idea. Whe\a the discovery was announced by Gothe, the botanists not only rejected it, but were filled with wrath at the notion of a ]:o^x, invading their territory. What ! a man who made verses and wrote piays, a mere man of imagination, a poor creature who knew nothing of facts, who had not even used the microscope, who had made no great experiments on the growth of plants ; was he to enter the sacred precincts of physical science, and give himself out as a philosopher ? It was too absurd. But Gothe, who had thrown his idea upon the world, could afford to wait and bide his time. You know the result. The men of facts at length succumbed before the man of ideas ; the philosophers, even on their own ground, were beaten by the poet ; and this great discovery is now received and eagerly wel- comed by those very persons who, if they had lived fifty years ago, would have treated it with scorn, and who even now still go on in their old routine, telling us, in defiance of the history of our knowledge, that all physical discoveries are made by the Baconian method, and that any other method is unworthy the attention of sound and sensible thinkers. One more instance, and I have done with this part of the sub- ject. The same great poet made another important physical discovery in precisely the same way. Gothe, strolling in a ceme- tery near Venice, stumbled on a skull which was lying before him. Suddenly the idea flashed' across his mind that the skull was composed of vertebra3 ; in other words, that the bony covering of the head was simply an expansion of ilie bony covering of the spine. This luminous idea was afterwards adopted by Oken and a few other great naturalists in Germany and France, but it was not received in England till ten years ago, when Mr. Owen took it ; H J' )WLEDGE. MEN OF THOUGHT AND MEN OF ACTION. 13 n a cerae- Tip, and in his very remarkable work on the " Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton," showed its meaning and purpose as con- tributing towards a general scheme of philosophic anatomy. That the discovery was made by Gothe late in the eighteenth century is certain, and it is equally certain that for fifty years afterwards the English anatomists, with all their tools and all their dis- sections, ignored or despised that very discovery which they are now compelled to accept. You will particularly observe the circumstances under which this discovery was made. It was not made by some great surgeor., dissector, or physician, but it was made by a great poet, ard amidst scenes most likely to excite a poetic temperament. It was made in Venice, that land so calculated to fire the imajana- tion of a poet ; the land of marvels, the land of poetry and romance, the land of painting and of song. It was made, too, when Gothe, surrounded by the ashes of the dead, would be naturally impressed with those feelings of solemn awe, in whose presence the human understanding, rebuked and abashed, becomes weak and helpless, and leaves the imagination unfettered to wander in that ideal world which is its own peculiar abode, and from which it derives its highest aspirations. It has often seemed to me that there is a striking similarity between this event and one of the most beautiful episodes in the greatest production of the greatest man the world has ever pos- sessed ; I mean Shakspeare's "Hamlet." You remember that wonderful scene in the churchyard, when Hamlet walks in amono- the graves, where the brutal and ignorant clowns are singing and jeering and jesting over the remains of the dead. You remember how the fine imagination of the great Danish thinker is stirred by the spectacle, albeit he knows not yet that the grave which is being dug at his feet is destined to contain all that he holds dear upon earth. But though he wists not of this, he is moved like the great German poet, and he, like Gothe, takes up a skull, and his speculative faculties begin to work. Images of decay crowd on liis mind as he thinks how the mighty are fiillen and have passed away. In a moment, his imagination carries him back two thousand years, and he almost believes that the skull he holds in his hand is indeed the skull of Alexander, and in his mind's eye he contrasts the putrid bone with what it once con- tained, the brain of the scourge and conqueror of mankind. Then it is that suddenly he, like Gothe, passes into an ideal physical world, and seizing the great doctrine of the industructibiiity of matter, that doctrine which in his age it was difficult to grasp, he begins to show how, by a long series of successive changes, the ill i u :\ I ■iif 14 INFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. head of Alexander might have been made to subserve the most ignoble purposes ; the substance being always metamorphosed, never destroyed. « Why," asks Hamlet, " why may not imagina- tion trace the noble dust of Alexander?" when, just as he is about to pursue this train of ideas, he is stopped by one of those men of facts, one of those practical and prosaic natures, who are always ready to impede the flight of genius. By his side stands the faithful, the affectionate, but the narrow-minded Horatio, who, looking upon all this as the dream of a distempered fancy, objects that--" 'Twere to consider too curiously to consider so." O ! what a picture I what a contrast between Hamlet and Horatio ; between the idea and the sense ; between the imagination and the understanding. '^ 'Twere to consider too curiously to consider so." Even thus was Grothe troubled by his contemporaries, and thus too often speculation is stopped, genius is chilled, and the play and swell of the human mind repressed, because ideas are made subordinate to facts, because the external is preferred to the internal, and because the Horatios of action discourage the Hamlets of thought. Much more could I have said to you on this subject, and gladly would I have enlarged on so fruitful a theme as the philosophy of scientific method ; a philosophy too much neglected in this country, but of the deepest interest to those who care to rise above the little instincts of the hour, and who love to inquire into the origin of our knowledge, and into the nature of the conditions under which that knowledge exists. But I fear that I have almost ex- hausted your patience in leading you into paths of thought Avhich, not being familiar, must be somewhat difficult, and I can hardly hope that I have succeeded in making every point perfectly clear. Still, I do trust that there is no obscurity as to the general results. I trust that I have not altogether raised my voice in vain before this great assembly, and that I have done at least some- thing towards vindicating the use in physical science of that deductive method which, during the last two centuries. English- men have unwisely despised. Not that I deny for a moment the immense vabie of the opposite or inductive method. Indeed, it is impossible for any one standing in this theatre to do so. It is impossible to forget that within the precincts of this building great secrets have been extorted from nature by induction alone. Under the shadow and protection of this noble Institution, men of real eminence, men of power and thought have, by a skilful employment of that method, made considerable additions to our knowledge, have earned for tliemselves the respect of their con- temporaries, and well deserve the homage of posterity. To them DRAWBACKS ON THE INDUCTIVE METHOD. 15 all honour is due ; and I, for one, would say, let that honour be paid freelj, ungrudgingly, and with an open and bounteous heart. But I \'enture to submit that all discoveries have not been made by this, their favourite process. I submit that there is a spiritual, a poetic, and for aught we knoAv a spontaneous and uncaused ele- ment in the human mind, which ever and anon, suddenly and without warning, gives us a glimpse and a forecast of the future, and urges us to sei/e truth as it were by anticipation. In attack- ing the fortress, we may sometimes storm the citadel without stopping to sap the outworks. That great discoveries have been made in this way, the history of our knowledge decisively proves. And if, passing from what has been already accomplished, we look at what remains to be done, we shall find that the necessity of some such plan is likely to Ijecome more and more pressing. The field of thought is rapidly widening, and as the horizon recedes on every side, it will soon be impossible for the mere logical operations of the understanding to cover the whole of that enor- mous and outlying domain. Already the division of labour has been pushed so far that we are in imminent darger of losino- in comprehensiveness more than we gain in accuracy. In our pursuit after special truths, we run no small risk of dwarfing our own minds. By concentrating our attention, we are apt to narrow our conceptions, and to miss those commanding views which would be attained by u wider though perhaps less minute survey. It is but too clear that something of this sort has already happened, and thao serious mischief has been wrought. For, look at the language and sentiments of those who profess to guide, and who ii some measure do guide, public opinion in the scientific world. According to their verdict, if a man does something specific and immedi-^.te, if, for instance, he discovers a new acid or a new salt great admiration is excited, and his praise is loudly celebrated. But when a man like Grothe puts forth some vast and pregnant idea which is destined to revolutionise a whole department of inquiry, and by inaugurating a new train of thought to form an epoch in the history of the human mind ; if it haijpens, as is always the case, that certain facts contradict that view, then the so-called scientific men rise up in arms against the author of so daring an innovation ; a storm is raised about his head, he is denounced as a dreamer, an idle visionary, an interloper in matters which he has not studied with proper sobriety. Thus it is that great minds are depressed in order that little minds may be raised. This false standard of excellence has cor- rupted even our language, and vitiated the ordinary forms of speech. Among us a theorist is actually a term of reproach, in- .u;» 16 INFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. stead of being, as it ought to be, a term of honour; for to theorise is the highest function of genius, and the greatest phi- losophers must always be the greatest theorists. What lakes all this the more serious is, that the farther .>ur kuowicdge advances, the greater will be the need of rising to (ii'navit '^ I'^ntal views of the physical world. To the magnificent doctrine of the indestructi- bility of matter, we are now adding the no less magnificent one of the indestructibility of force ; and we are beginning to perceive that, according to the ordinary scientific treatment, our investiga- tions must be confined to questions of metamorphosis nr: 1 ^f di • tribution; that the study of causes and of entities is forbidden to us ; and that we are limited to phenomena through which and above which we can never hope to pass. But, unless I greatly err, there is something in us wliich craves for more than this. Surely we shall not always be satisfied, even in physical science, Avith the cheerless prospect of never reaching beyond the laws of co-existence and of sequence ? Surely this is not the be-all and end-all of our knowledge. And yet, according to the strict canons of inductive logic, we can do no more. According to that method, this is the verge and confine of all. Happily, however, induction is only one of our resources. Induction is, indeed, a mighty weapon laid up in the armoury of the human mind, and by its aid great deeds have been accomplished, and noble con- quests have been won. But in that armoury there is another weapon, I will not say of a stronger make, but certainly of a keener edge ; and, if that weapon had been oftener used during the present and preceding century, our knowledge would be fa/ more advanced than it actually is. If the imagination had been more cultivated, if there had been a closer union between the spirit of poetry and the spirit of science, natural philosophy would have made greater progress, because natural philosophers would have taken a higher and more successful aim, and would have enlisted on their side a wider range of human sympathies. From this point of view you will see the incalculable service women have rendered to the progress of knowledge. Grreat and exclusive as is our passion for induction, it would, but for them, have been greater and more exclusive still. Empirical as we are, slaves as we are to the tyranny of facts, our slavery would, but for them, have been more complete and more ignominious. Their turn of thought, their habits of mind, their conversation, their influence, insensibly extending over the whole surface of society, and frequently penetrating its intimate structure, have, more than all other things put together, tended to raise us into an ideal world, lift us from the dust in which we are too prone to INFLUENCE OF MOTHEES OVER SONS. 17 grovel, and devplop in us those germs of imagination which even the most sluggish and apathetic understandings in some degree possess. The striking fact that most men of genius have had re- markable mothers, and that they have gained from their mothers far more than from their fathers ; this singular and unquestion- able fact can, I think, be best explained by the principles which I have laid down. Some, indeed, will tell you that this depends upon laws of the hereditary transmission of character from parent ':o child. But if this be the case, how comes it that while every one admits that remarkable men have usually remarkable mothers, it is not generally admitted that remarkable men have usually re- markable fathers ? If the intellect is bequeathed on one side, why is it not bequeathed on the other Y For my part, I greatly doubt whether the human mind is handed down in this way, like an heii-loom, from one generation to another. I rather believe that, in regard to the relation between men of genius and their mothers, the really important events occur after birth, when the habits of thought peculiar to one sex act upon and improve the habits of thought peculiar to the other sex. Unconsciously, and from a very early period, there is established an intimate and en- dearing connection between the deductive mind of the mother and the inductive mind of her son. The understanding of the boy, softened and yet elevated by the imagination of his mother, is saved from that degeneracy towards which the mere under- standing always inclines; it is saved from being too cold, too matter-of-fact, too prosaic, and the different properties and func- tions of the mind are more harmoniously developed than would otherwise be practicable. Thus it is that by the mere play of the aifections the finished man is ripened and completed. Thus it is that the most touching and the most sacred form of human love, the purest, the highest, and the holiest compact of which our nature is capable, becomes an engine for the advancement of knowledge and the disco\ ery of truth. In after life other rela- tions often arise by which the same p' .cess is continued. And, notwithstanding a few exceptions, we do undoubtedly find that the most truly eminent men have had not only their affections, but also their intellect, greatly influenced by women. I will go even farther; and I will venture to say that those who liave not undergone that influence betray a something incomplete and mutilated. We detect, even in their genius, a certain frigidity of tone ; and we look in vain for that burning fire, that gushing and spontaneous natiuu with which our ideas of genius are indis- solubly associated. Therefore, it is, that those who are most anxious that the boundaries of knowledge should be enlarged '«.«! ii * I l!i ;• 18 INFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. ought to be most eager that the influence of women should be increased, in order that every resource of the human mind may be at once and quickly brought into play. For you may rely upon it that the time is approaching when all those resources will be needed, and will be taxed even to the utmost. We shall soon have on our hands work far more arduous than any we have yet accomplished ; and we shall be encountered by difficulties the removal of which will require every sort of help, and every variety of power. As yet we are in the infancy of our knowledge. What we have done is but a speck compared to what remains to be done. For what is there that we really know ? We are too apt to speak as if we had penetrated into the sanctuary of truth and raised the veil of the goddess, when in fact we are still standing, coward-like, trembling before the vestibule, and not daring, from very fear, to cross the threshold of the temple. The highest of our so-called laws of nature are as yet purely empi- rical. You are startled by that assertion, but it is literally true. Not one single physical discovery that has ever been made has been connected with the laws of the mind that made it; and until that connection is ascertained our knowledge has no sure basis. On the one side we have mind ; on the other side we have matter. These two principles are so interwoven, they so act upon and perturb each other, that we shall never really know the laws of one unless we also know the laws of both. Everything is essen- tial ; everything hangs together, and forms part of one single scheme, one grand and complex plan, one gorgeous drama, of which the universe is the theatre. They who discourse to you of the laws of nature as if those laws were binding on nature, or as if they formed a part of nature, deceive both you and themselves. The laws of nature have their sole seat, origin, and function in the human mind. They are simply the conditions under which the regularity of nature is recognised. They explain the external world, but they reside in the internal. As yet we know scarcely anything of the laws of mind, and therefore we know scarcely anything of the laws of nature. Let us not be led away by vain and high-sounding words. We talk of the law of gravi- tation, and yet we know not what gravitation is ; we talk of the conservation of force and distribution of forces, and we know not what forces are ; we talk with complacent ignorance of the atomic arrangements of matter, and we neither know what atoms are nor what matter is ; we do not even know if matter, in the ordinary sense of the word, can be said to exist ; we have as yet only broken the first ground, we have but touched the crust and sur- face of things. Before us and around us there is an immense and PROGRESS OF CONFLICT BETWEEN MAN AND NATURE. 19 untrodden field, whose limits the eye vainly strives to define ; so completely are they lost in the dim and shadowy outline of the future. In that field, which we and our posterity have yet to traverse, I firmly believe that the imagination will effect quite as much ab the imderstanding. Our poetry will have to reinforce uur logic, and we must feel as much as we must argue. Let us, tlien, liope that the imaginative and emotional minds of one sex will continue to accelerate the great progress, by acting upon and improving the colder and harder minds of the other sex. By this coalition, by this union of ditierent faculties, different tastes, and different methods, we shall go on our way with the greater ease. A vast and splendid career lies before us, which it will take many ages to complete. We see looming in the distance a rich and goodly harvest, into which perchance some of us may yet live to thrust our sickle, but of which, reap what we may, the greatest crop of all must be reserved for our posterity. So far, however, from desponding, we ought to bo sanguine. We have every reason to believe that when the human mind once steadily combines the whole of its powers, it will be more than a match for the diffi- culties presented by the external world. As we surpass our fathers, so will our children surpass us. We, waging against the forces of nature what has too often been a precarious, unsteady, and un- skilled warfare, have never yet put forth the whole of our strength, and have never united all our faculties against our common foe. We, therefore, have been often worsted, and have sustained many and grievous reverses. But even so, such is the elasticity of the luiman mind, such is the energy of that immortal and god-like principle which lives within us, that we are baffled without being discouraged, our very defeats quicken our resources, and we may hope that our descendants, benefiting by our failure, will profit by our example, and that for them is reserved that last and decisive stage of the great conflict between Man and Nature, in which, advancing from success to success, fresh trophies will be con- stantly won, every struggle will issue in a conquest, and every battle end in a victory. I 03 20 MILL ON LIBERTY.' If a jury of the greatest European thinkers were to be impan- nelled, and were directed to declare by their verdict who, among our living writers had done most for the advance of knowledge, they could hardly hesitate in pronouncing the name of John Stuart Mill. Nor can we doubt that posterity would ratify their deci- sion. No other mi-n. has dealt with so many problems of equal importance, and yet of equal complexity. The questions which he has investigated concern, on the one band, the practical in- terests of every member of society, and, on the other hand, the subtlest and most hidden operations of the human mind. Although he touches the surface he also penetrates the centre. Between those extremes lie innumerable subjects which he has explored, always with great ability, often with signal success. On these topics, whether practical or speculative, his authority is con- stantly evoked ; and his conclusions are adopted by many wlio are unable to follow tlie arguments by which the conclusions are justified. Other men we have, remarkable for their depth of thought ; and others again who are remarkable for tlie utility of their suggestions. But the peculiarity of Mr. Mill is, that both these qualities are more effectively combined by him than by any one else of the present day. Hence it is, that be is as skilful in tracing the operation of general causes, as in foreseeing tlie result of particular measures. And hence, too, his influence is far greater than would otherwise be possible ; since he not only appeals to a wider range of interests than any living writer can do, but by his mastery over special and practical details he is able to show that principles, however refined they appear, and however far removed from ordinary apprehension, may be enforced, without so dangerous a disturbance of social arrangements, and without so great a sacrifice of existing institutions, as might at first sioJit be supposed. By this mean>j he has often disarmed hostility, and has induced practical men to accept conclusions on practical grounds, to which no force of scientific argument and no amount of scientific proof would have persuaded them to yield. Securing • Kepri.nted from ' Frasor's Miigazine' for Mnv, \HM. iji •?_! ,,i I r; PRACTICE AND SPECULATION. 21 by one process the assent of speculative thinkers, and securing by another process the assent of working politicians, he operates on the two extremes of life, and exhibits the singular spectacle of one of the most daring and original philosophers in Europe, winning the applause of not a few mere legislators and statesmen who are indifferent to his higher generalizations, and who, confining them- selves to their own craft, are incapable of soaring beyond the safe avid limited routine of ordinary experience. This has increased Lis influence in more ways than one. For it is extremely rare to meet vi^ith a man who excels both in prac- tice and in speculation ; and it is by no means common to meet with one who desires to do so. Between these two forms of ex- cellence, there is not only a difference, there is also an opposition. Practice aims at what is immediate ; speculation at what is remote. The first investigates small and special causes ; the other investi- gates large and general causes. In practical life the wisest and soundest men avoid speculation, and ensure success because by limiting their range they increase the tenacity with which they grasp events ; while in speculative life the course is exactly the reverse, since in that department the greater the range the greater the command, and the object of the philosopher is to have as large a generalization as possible ; in other words, to rise as high as he can above the phenomena with which he is concerned. The truth I apprehend to be that the immediate effect of any act is usually determined by causes peculiar to that act, and which, as it were, lie within it ; wliile the remote effect of the same act is governed by causes lying out of the act ; that is, by the geneial condition of the surrounding circumstances. Special causes pro- duce their effect (juickly ; but, to luring general causes iito play, we require not only width of surface but also length of time. If, for instance, a man living under a cruel despotism were to inflict a lutal blow upon the despot, the immediate result — namely, the death of the tyrant — would be caused solely by circumstances peculiar to the action, such as the sharpness of the weapon, the precision of the aim, and the part that was wounded. Bvit the remote result— that is, the i-emoval, not of the despot but of the despotism — would be governed by circumstances external to tlie particular act, and would depend upon whether or not the country was tit for liberty, since if the country Avere unfit, another despot would be sure to arise and another despotism be established. To a philosophic mind the actions of an individual count for little ; to a practical mind they are everything. Whoever is accustomed to generalise, smiles within himself when be hears that Luther brought about the Ileformatiou ; that Bacuu overthrew the ancient ■ii 1- 22 MILL ON LIBERTY. Il philosophy ; that William III. saved our liberties ; that Romilly humanised our penal code ; that Clarkson and Wilberforce de- stroyed slavery ; and that Grrey and Brougham gave us Reform. He smiles at such assertions, because he knows full well that such men, useUil as they were, are only to be regarded as tools by which that work was done which the force and accumulation of pre- ceding circumstances had determined should be done. They were good instruments ; sharp and serviceable instruments, but nothing more. Not only are individuals, in the great average of affairs, inoperative for good ; they are also, happily for mankind, inopera- tive for evil. Nero and Domitian caused enormous miscliief, but every trace of it has now disappeared. The occurrences wliicli contemporaries think to be of the greatest importance, and which in point of fact for a short time are so, invariably tra-n out in the long run to be the least important of all. They are like meteors which dazzle the vulgar by their brilliancy, and then pass away, leaving no mark behind. Weil, therefore, and in the liighest spirit of philosophy, did Montesquieu say that the Roman Repub- lic was overthroWii, not, as is commonly supposed, by the ambition of Caesar and Pompey, but by that state of things which made the success of their ambition possible. And so indeed it was. Events which had been long a;icumulating and had come from afar, pressed on and thickened until their united force was irresistible, and the Republic grew ripe for destruction. It decayed, it tot- tered, it was sapped to its foundation ; and tlien, when all was ready and it was nodding to its fall, Cjesar and Pompey stepped forward, and because they dealt the last blow, we, forsooth, are expected to believe that they produced a catastrophe which the course of affairs had made inevitable before they were born. The great majority of men will, however, always cling to Ca-sar and Pompey ; that is to say, they will prefer the study of proximate causes to tlie study of remote ones. This is connected with an- other and more fundamental distinction, by virtue of wJiich, life is regarded by practical minds as an art, by speculative minds as a science. And we iind every civilised nation divided into two classes corresponding with these two divisions. We find one class investigating affairs with a view to what is most special ; the other investigating them with a view to what is most general. This antagonism is essential, and lies in the nature of things. Indeed, it is so clearly marked, that except in minds, not only of very great power, but of a peculiar kind of power, it is impossible to reconcile the two metliods ; it is impossible for any but a most remarkable man to have them both. Many even of the greatest thinkers have been but too notorious for on ignorance of ordinary LIFE AN ART AND A SCIENCE. WS affairs, and for an inattention to practical every-day interests. While studying the science of life, they neglect the art of living. This is because such men, notwithstanding their genius, are essen- tially one-sided and narrow, being, unhappily for themselves, unable or unaccustomed to note the operation of special and proximate causes. Dealing with the remote and the universal, they omit tlie immediate and the contingent. They sacrifice the actual to the ideal. To their view, all phenomena are suggestive of science, that is of what may be known ; while to the opposite view, the same phenomena are suggestive of art, that is, of what may be done. A perfect intellect would unite both views, and assign to each its relative importance ; but such a feat is of the greatest possible rarity. It may in fact be doubted if more than one instance is recorded of its being performed without a single failure. That instance, I need hardly say, is Shakspeare. No other mind has thoroughly interwoven the remote with the proximate, the general with the special, the abstract w'th the concrete. No other mind has so completely incorporated the speculations of the highest philosophy with the meanest details of the lowest life. Shakspeare mastered both extremes, and covered all the intermediate field. He knew both man and men. He thought as deeply as Plato or Kant. He observed as closely as Dickens or Thackeray. Of whom else can this be said ? Other philosophers have, for the most part, overlooked the surface in their haste to reach the summit. Hence the anomaly of many of the most profound thinkers having been ignorant of what it was shameful for them not to know, and having been imable to manage with success even their own affairs. The sort of advice they would give to others may be easily imagined. It is no exaggeration to say that if, in any age of the world, one half of the suggestions made by the ablest men had been adopted, that age would have been thrown into the rankest confusion. Plato was the deepest thinker of antiquity ; and yet the proposals which he makes in his "Kepublic," and in his " Treatise on Laws," are so absurd that they can hardly be read without laughter. Aristotle, little inferior to Plato in depth, and much his superior in comprehensiveness, desired, on piu-ely speculative grounds, that no one should give or receive interest for the use of money : an idea which, if it had been put into execution, would have produced the most mischievous results, would have stopped the accumulation of wealth, and thereby have postponed for an indefinite period the civilisation of the world. In modern as well as in ancient times, systems of philosophy have bef.n raised which involve assumptions, and seek to compel con- He4ueuces, incoiupatible with the practical interests of society. The Germans are the most profound philosophers in Europe, and 24 MILL ON LIBERTY. It IS precisely in their councry that this tendency is most apparent. Comte, the most comprehensive thinker Prance has produced since Descartes, did in his last work deliberately advocate, and wish to organise, a scheme of polity so monstrously and obviously imm-ac- ticable, that if it were translated into English the plain men of our island would lift their eyes in astonishment, and would most likely suggest that the author should for his own sake be imme- diately confined. Not that we need pride ourselves too much on these matters. If a catalogue were to be drawn up of the prac- tical suggestions made by our greatest thinkers, it would be im- possible to conceive a document more damaging to the reputation ot the speculative classes. Those classes are always before the age in their theories, and behind the age in their practice. It is not, therefore, strange that Frederick the Great, who perhaps hud a more intimate and personal l.nowledge of them than anv other prince equall - powerful, and who moreover admired them, courted them, and, as an author, to a certain slight degree belonged to them, should have recorded his opinion of their practical inca- pacity in the strongest terms he could find. " If," he is reported to have said, " if I wanted to ruin one of my provinces, I would make over its government to the philo3ophers." This neglect of the surface of things is, moreover, exhibited in the peculiar absence of mind for which many philosophers have been remark-ible. Newton was so obhvious of what was actually passing, that he frequently overlooked or forgot the most neces- sary transactions, was not sure whether he had dined, and would leave his owi. house half-naked, appearing in that state in the streets, becaui is, that while the speculations of Bacon were full of wisdom, ids acts were full of folly= He was anxious to build up a fortune, and he did what many persons liave donejaoth before and since: he availed himself of his jurli^ il position to take bribes from suitors in his court. But h je a;ain, his operations were so clumsy, that he committed tho PTKumous oversight of accepting bribes from men against whom he afterwards decided. He, therefore, deliberately put himself in the power of thc:'e whom he deliberately injured. This was not only because he wac greedy after wealtli, but also because he was injudiciously greedy. The error was in the head as much as in the heart. Besides being !|i^ 26 MILL ON LliBEETY. a covnipt judge, he was likewise a bad calculator. The conse- quence was that he was detected, aQd beinc; detected was ruined. Wlien his fame was at its height, when enjoyments of every kind were thickening and clustering around liim, tlie cup of pleasure was dashed from his lips because he (maffed it too eagerly. To say that he fell merely because he was unprincipled, is preposterous, for many men are unprincipled all their lives and never fall at all. Wliy it is that bad men sometimes lish, and liow sucli appa- rent injustice is remedied, is a mysterious question whicli this is not the place for discus-ing ; but tli« ftict is indubitiible. In practical life men fail, partly because they aim at unwise objects, but cliiefly because tliey have not acquired the art of adapting tlieir means to their end. Tins was the case with Bacon. In ordinary matters he was triumplied over and kfeated by nearly every one with wiiofn he came into contact. His dependents cheated" him with impunity ; and notwitiistanding the large sums lie received he was constantly in (lebt, so that even while his peculations were going on he derived little benefit from them. Though, as a judge, he stole the property of others, he did not know how to steal so as to escape detection, and he did not know how to keep what he had stolen. The mighty thinker was, in practice, an arrant trifler. He always neglected the immediate and the presi-'ing. This was curiously exemplified in the last scene of his life. In some of his generalisations respecting putrefaction, it occurred to him that the process might be stopped by snow. He arrived at conclusions like a cautious and large-minded philo- sopher : he tried them with the rashness and precipitancy of a child. With an absence of common sense which would be in- credible if it were not well atte-^tcd, he rushed out of his coach on a very cold day, and, neglecting every precaution, stood shiver- ing in the air while he stuffed a fowl with snow, risking a life in- valuable to mankind for the sake of doing what any serving-man could have done just as well. It did not need the intellect of a Bacon to foresee the result. Before he had finished what he was about he felt suddenly chiUed : he became so ill as to be unable to return *o his own house, and his worn-out frame giving way, he gradually sank and died a Aveek after his first seizure. tSuch events are very sad, but they are also very instructive. Some, I know, class them under the head of martyrdom for science : to me, they seem the penalty of folly. It is at all events certain that in the lives of great tliinkors they are painfully abundant. It is but too true that many men of the highest power have, by neglecting the study of proximate causes, shortened their career, diminished their usefulness, and, bringing themselves to a THE IMPRACTICABILITY OF MEN OF GENIUS. 27 premiitiire old age, have deprived mankind of their services just at thf time when their experience was most advanced, and their intellect most matured. Others, again, who have stopped short of this, have by their own imprudence become involved in em- barrassiments of every kind, taking no heed of the morrow, wasting tlU'ir resources, squandering their substance, and incurring debts which they were unable to pay. This is the result less of vice thaBi of thoughtlessness. Vice is often cunning and wary ; but thoa^htlessness is always profuse and reckless. And so marked is the tendency, that " Genius struggling with difficulties " has grown into a proverb. Unhappily, genius has, in an immense majority of cases, created its own difficulties. The consequence is, that not only mere men of the world, but men of sound, useful understandings, do, for the most part, look upon genius as some strange and erratic quality, beautiful indeed to see, but dangerous to possess : a sparkling fire wliich consumes while it lightens. They regard it with curiosity, perhaps even with interest ; but they shake tlieir heads ; they regret that men who are so clever should liave so little sense ; and, pluming themselves on their own superior sagacity, they complacently remind each other that great wit is generally allied to madness. Who can wonder that this should be ? Look at what has occurred in these islands aione, during so short a period as three generations. Look at the lives of Fielding, Goldsmith, Smollett, Savage, Shenstone, Budgell, Charnock, Churchill, Chatterton, Derrick, Parnell, Somerville, Whitehead, Coombe, Day, Gilbert Stuart, Ockley, Oldys, Boyse, Hasted, Smart, Thomson, Grose, Daws, Barker, Harwood, Porson, Thirlby, Baron, Barry, Coleridge, Fearne, Walter Scott, Byron, Burns, Moore, and Campbell, Here you have men of every sort of ability, distinguished by every variety of imprudence. Wliat does it all mean ? Why is it that they who might have been the salt of the earth, and whom we should have been proud to take as our guides, are now pointed at by every blockhead as proofs of the inability of genius to grapple with the realities of life ? Why is it that against these, and their fellows, each puny whipster can draw his sword, and dullards vent their naughty spite ? That little men should jeer at great ones is natural ; that they should have reason to jeer at them is shameful. Yet, this must always be the case so long as the present standard of action exists. As long as such expressions as " the infirmities of genius " form an esse-.tial part of >ur language — as long as we are constantly re- minded that genius is naturally simple, guileless, and imversed in the ways of th(> world — as long as notions of patronising and protecting it continue — ss long as men of letters are. regarded Mi I I i M ^ r Y ,..l nil i'> f ' :'^ 28 MILL ON LIBERTY. witli pitying wonder, as strange creatures from whom a certain amount of imprudence must be expected, and in whom it may be tolerated — as long as among them extravagance is called gene- rosity, and economy called meanness — as long as these things happen, so long will the evils that correspond to them endure, and so long will the highest class of mindt- lose much of their legiti- mate influence. In the same way, while it is believed that authors must, as a body, be heedless and improvident, it will likewise be believed tliat for tliem there must be pensions and subscriptions ; tliat to them Government and society should be bountiful ; and that, on their behalf, institutions should be erected to provide for necessities which it was their own business to have foreseen, but wliicli they, engaged in the arduous employment of writing books, could not be expectxpected. To break stones on the highway is far more honourable than to receive such alms. Away, then, with yoiu- pensions, your subscriptions, your Literary Institutions, and your Literary Funds, by which yon organise mendicancy into a systexn, and, under pretence of increasing public liberality, in- crease the amoimt of public imprudence. But before this high standard can be reached, much remains to be done. As yet, and in the present early and unformed state of soci< ty, literary men are, notwithstanding a few exceptions, more prone to improvidence than tlie members of any other profession ; and being also more deficient in practical knowledge, it too often happens that they are regarded as clever visionaries, fit to amuse the world, but unfit to guide it. The causes of this I have exa- mined at some length, both because the results are extremely important, and because little attention has been hitherto paid to their operation. If I were not afraid of being tedious I could push the analysis still furtlier, and could show that these very causes are themselves a part of the old spirit of Protection, and as sucli are intimately connected with some religious and political prejudices which obstruct the progress of society ; and that in the countries where such prejudices are most powerful, the mischief is m I 1:1 ill ii^ ii. !■ I! n 'J A 1 d 30 MILL ON LIBERTY. most serious and the state of literature most unhealthy. But to prosecute that inquiry would be to write a treatise rather than an essay ; and I shall be satisfied if I have cleared the ground so far as I have gone, and have succeeded in tracing the relation between these evils and the general question of philosophic Method. The divergence between speculative minds and practical minds, and the different ways they have of contemplating affairs, are no doubt encouraged by the prevalence of false notions of patronage and reward, which, when they are brought to bear upon any class, inevitably tend to make that class unthrifty, and therefore un- practical. This is a law of the human mind which the political economists have best illustrated in their own department, but the operation of which is universal. Serious, however, as this evil is, it only belongs to a very imperfect state of society, and after a time it will probably disappear. But the essential, and, so far as I can understand, the permanent cause of divergence, is a dif- ference of Method. In the creation of our knowledge, it appears to be a fundamental necessity that the speculative classes should search for what is distant, while the practical classes search for what is adjacent. I do not see how it is possible to get rid of this antithesis. There may be some way, which we cannot yet discern, of reconciling the two extremes, and of merging the antagonistic methods into one which, being higher than either, shall include both. At present, however, there is no prospect of such a result. We must, therefore, be satisfied if from time to time, and at long intervals, a man arises whose mind is so happil}'^ constructed as to study with equal success the surface and the summit ; and who is able to show, by his single example, that views drawn from the most exalted region of thought, are appli- cable to the common transactions of daily life. The only living Englishman who has achieved this is Mr. Mill. In the first place, he is our only great speculative philosopher who for many years has engaged in public life. Since Ricardo, no original thinker has taken an active part in political affairs. Not that those affairs have on that account been worse administered ; nor that we have cause to repine at our lot in comparison with other nations. On the contrary, no country has been better governed than ours ; and at the present moment, it would be impossible to find in any one European nation more able, zealous, and upright public men than England possesses. In such extremely rare cases as those of Brougham and Macaulay, there are also united to these qualities the most splendid and captivating accomplishments, and the far higher honour which they justly enjoy of having always been the eager and unflinching advocates of popular liberty. It THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. 81 cannot, however, be pretended that even these eminent men have added anything to our ideas ; ill less can such a claim be made on behalf of their inferiors in the political world. Tliey have popularised the ideas and enforced them, but never created them. They have shown great skill and great courage in applying the conceptions of others ; but he fresh conceptions, the higher and larger ;., neralizations, have not been their work. They can attack old abuses ; they cannot disco s or new principles. This incapacity for dealingwith the highest problems has been curiously exemplified during the last two years, when a great ^^nmber of the most active and eminent of our public men, as well as several who are active without being eminent, have formed an Association for the pro- motion of (Social Science. Among the papers published by that Association will be found many curious facts and many useful suggestions. But Social Science there is none. There is not even a perception of what that science is. Not one spenl r or writer attempted a scientific investigation of society, or showed that in his opinion, such a thing ought to be attempted. Where science begins the Association leaves off. All science is composed either of physical laws, or of mental laws ; and as the actions of men are determined by both, the only way of founding Social Science is to investigate each class of laws by itself, and then, after computing their separate results, co-ordinate the whole into a single study, by verifying them. This is the only process by which highly complicated phenomena can be disentangled ; but the Association did not catch a glimpse of it. Indeed, they re- versed the proper order, and proceeded from the concrete tc the abstract, instead of from the abstract to the concrete. The reason of this error may be easily explained. The leading members of the Association being mostly politicians, followed the habits of their profession ; that is to say, they noted the events immediately surrounding them, and, taking a contemporary view, they observed the actual effects with a view of discovering the causes, and then remedying the evils. This was their plan, and it was natural to men whose occupations led them to look at the surface of affairs. But to any mind accustomed to rise to a certain height above that surface, and thoroughly imbued with the spirit of scientific method, it is obvious that +his way of investigating social phe- nomena must be futile. Even in the limited field of political action, its results are at best mere empirical uniformities ; while in the immense range of social science it is altogether worthless. When men are collected together in society, with their passions and their interests touching each other at every point, it is clear that nothing can happen without being produced by a great »'-i-ii lO^ "^.^a^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) '^' O A- KjS" -^tf 1.0 I.I 1.25 ■so 1^ i^ Uii 12.2 2.0 |j.g. U 11.6 %> ^ y^ 5> v» .< V--. '->-■' Photographic Sciences Corporation