All individual examples are rejected. As all things act in harmony, we can only draw deductions by regarding the race in the aggregate, and studying its progress through long periods of time. Statistics is the basis of all generalizations, and it is only from a close comparison of these, for ages, that the harmonious movement of all things can be clearly proved.
Mr. Buckle was a fatalist in every sense of the word. Marriages, deaths, births, crime—all are regulated by Law. The moral status of a community is illustrated by the number of depredations committed, and their character. Following the suggestions of M. Quetelot, he brings forward an array of figures to prove that not only, in a large community, is there about the same number of crimes committed each year, but their character is similar, and even the instruments employed in committing them are nearly the same. Of course, outside circumstances modify this slightly—such as financial failures, scarcity of bread, etc., but by a comparison of long periods of time, these influences recur with perfect regularity.
It is not the individual, in any instance, who is the criminal—but society. The murderer and the suicide are not responsible, but are merely public executioners. Through them the depravity of the public finds vent.
Free Will and Predestination—the two dogmas which have, more than any others, agitated the public mind—are discussed at length. Of course he accepts the latter theory, but under a different name. Free Will, he contends, inevitably leads to aristocracy, and Predestination to democracy; and the British and Scottish churches are cited as examples of the effect of the two doctrines on ecclesiastical organizations. The former is an aristocracy, the latter a democracy.
No feature of Mr. Buckle's work is so prominent as its democratic tendencies. The people, and the means by which they can be elevated, were uppermost in his mind, and he disposes of established usages, and aristocratic institutions, in a manner far more American than English. It is this circumstance which has endeared him to the people of this country, and to the liberals of Germany—the work having been translated into German. For the same reason, he was severely criticised in England.
Having devoted the first volume to a discussion of the laws of civilization, it was his intention to publish two additional volumes, illustrating them; taking the three countries in which were found certain prominent characteristics, which he conceived could be fully accounted for by his theories, but by no other, and above all, by none founded upon the doctrine of free will and individual responsibility. These countries were Spain, Scotland, and the United States—nations which grew up under the most diverse physical influences, and which present widely different civilizations.
The volume treating upon Spain and Scotland has been published about a year; and great was the indignation it created in the latter country. In Spain it is probable that the work is unknown; but it was caught up by the Scottish reviewers, who are shocked at any thing outside of regular routine, and whose only employment seems to be to strangle young authors. Blackwood, and the Edinburgh Review, contained article after article against the 'accuser' of Scotland; but the writers, instead of calmly sifting and disproving Mr. Buckle's untenable theories, new into a rage, and only established two things, to the intelligent public—their own malice and ignorance.
Amid all this abuse, our author stood immutable. But once did he ever condescend to notice his maligners, and then only to expose their ignorance, at the same time pledging himself never again to refer to their attacks. A thinking man, he could not but be fully aware that their style, and self-evident malice, could only add to his reputation.
As already remarked, he did not write to immortalize a hero, but to establish an idea; did not labor to please the fancy, but to reach the understanding; hence we read his books, not as we do the brilliant productions of Macaulay, the smooth narratives of Prescott, or the dramatic pages of Bancroft; but his thoughts are so well connected, and so systematically arranged, that to read a single page, is to insure a close study of the whole volume. We would not study him for his style, for although fair, it is not pleasing; we can not glide over his pages in thoughtless ease; but then, at the close of almost every paragraph, one must pause and think.
Being an original writer, Mr. Buckle naturally fell into numerous errors; but now is not the proper time to refute them. He gives more than due weight to the powers of nature, in the civilization of man; and although he probably intimates the fact, yet he does not add that as the intellect is enlightened, their influences become circumscribed, and must gradually almost entirely disappear. In the primitive state of the race, climate, soil, food, and scenery, are all-powerful; but among an enlightened people, the effects of heat and cold, of barren or exceedingly productive soils, etc., are entirely modified. This omission has given his enemies an excellent opportunity for a display of their refutory powers, of which they have not failed to avail themselves.