Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/471

Rh from the grasp of superstition. On the proof of these positions Buckle lavished labour, learning, and ingenuity, and, it will be generally admitted, attained some con siderable results. But the results were by no means so great or certain as he himself imagined. Few competent judges will deny that, in regard alike to France and Scot land, he overlooked influences which had been as powerful in shaping the characters of these nations as those on which he laid exclusive stress. No explanation of French history can be satisfactory which does not attach due weight to the series of events by which the unity of France was built up, and which only begins after that unity was com pleted ; no explanation of Scottish history can be satis factory which slurs over the wars with England. The French Revolution was, as Buckle represents it, a reaction against the protective spirit, but it was a great deal more, and that he did not see ; the Scottish Reformation was due in some measure to the antagonism between the nobility and priesthood, as he has amply shown, but he might easily have still more amply shown that it was very far from wholly due to it. To some extent the Scotch philosophy of the 18th century was a reaction against the theological spirit of the 17th, as he saw; but to a much greater extent it was a natural development of British and even European thought, which he should not have overlooked. That either the Scottish philosophy or the Scottish intellect was essentially deductive he wholly failed to make out, and would never have tried to make out, had it not been that his views as to the difference between induction and deduction were strangely vague and confused. Hume was not as deductive as Hobbes. Adam Smith, at least as a political economist, was less deductive than Malthus and Rieardo. Black was less so than Dalton and Davy. To say that deduction is a prominent characteristic of Hutcheson, Reid, or Dugald Stewart, is glaringly contrary to fact. If their writings show any particularly Scottish trait, it is Scottish caution manifest ing itself in suspicion of deduction. Buckle had a high ideal of the historian s duties, and he laboriously endeavoured to realize it ; but he fancied himself far more successful in the attempt than he really was, and greatly underrated what had been accomplished by others. He brought a vast amount of information from the most varied and distant sources to confirm his opinions, and the abundance of his materials never perplexed or burdened him in his argumentation, but examples of well- conducted historical inductions are rare in his pages. He sometimes altered and contorted the facts ; he very often unduly simplified his problems ; he was very apt when he had proved a favourite opinion true to infer it to be the whole truth. His intellect was comprehensive and vigorous, but neither classically cultured nor scientifically disciplined ; it was amazingly stored with facts, but not rich in ideas ; it was ambitious in aspiration, confident to excess in its own powers, and exceptionally unconscious of where its knowledge ceased and its ignorance began. It was deficient in imagination, poetical feeling, and sympathy. Hence Buckle was narrow and harsh in his judgments on certain great periods of time and large classes of men, on antiquity and the Middle Ages, on the clergy and statesmen, on heroes and martyrs. But he w;as fearlessly honest according to his lights, and gave expression to the most distasteful of his opinions with a manly openness. He paid great attention to his style, and it has been pro nounced, by an eminently competent judge, &quot; equal to the subject, precise enough for the demands of science, full, flowing, and flexible enough for every purpose of eloquence. Lucid when the business of the writer is to state, explain, or illustrate, it ascends, when anger at the oppressor or sym pathy with the oppressed call upon it, to tones worthy of Edmund Burke himself denouncing the corruptions of England or the wrongs of India.&quot;

1em  BUCKWHEAT, the seeds of various species of Fago- pyrum, chiefly F. csculentum, a herbaceous plant, native of central Asia, but cultivated in Europe on account of its seeds. The seeds, as enclosed in their dark brown tough rind, are three-sided in form, with sharp angles, similar in shape to beech-mast, whence their name from the German Jj itchweizen, beechwheat. Buckwheat is grown in Great Britain only to supply food for pheasants and to feed poultry, which devour the seeds with avidity. In the northern countries of Europe, however, the seeds are employed as human food, chiefly in the form of cakes, which when baked thin have an agreeable taste, with a darkish somewhat violet colour. The meal of buckwheat is also baked into crumpets, as a favourite dainty among Dutch children, and in the Russian army buckwheat groats are served out as part of the soldiers rations, which they cook with butter, tallow, or hemp-seed oil. Buckwheat is also used as food in the United States ; and by the Hindus it is eaten on &quot; bart &quot; or fast days, being one of the phalahas or lawful foods for such occasions. When it is used as food for cattle the hard sharp angular rind must first be removed. As compared with the principal cereal grains, buckwheat is poor in nitrogenous substances and fat ; but the rapidity and ease with which it can be grown render it a fit crop for very poor badly tilled land. Ac cording to Payen it contains nitrogenous matter 13 10 per cent., starch 64 - 90, fat 3 00, water 13*00, cellulose and ash 6 00. An immense quantity of buckwheat honey is collected in Russia, bees showing a marked preference for the flowers of the plant. A dye-stuff is obtained from the leaves of a species of buckwheat, Polyyoniim tinctormm, which may be used for producing a yellow or olive colour on cotton, according to the mordant employed.  BUDA, a royal free town of the king dom of Hungary, is situated in 47 29 10&quot; N. lat. and 19 2 55&quot; E. long., on the right bank of the Danube, opposite the capital Pesth, with which it has been united since 1849 by a suspension bridge of much beauty, 1227 feet long and 39 feet wide. The nucleus of the town is the &quot; fortress,&quot; which occupies an oblong elevation of por phyry rock, not unlike the Acropolis of Athens. It contains the royal palace, the mansions of Counts Sandor, Teleki, and Erdo dy, the residence of the governor in command, the arsenal, and several buildings for official purposes. The palace includes the court church where the regalia of Hungary are preserved, a picture gallery, and a library. Around this central portion there have grown up various suburbs, known respectively as the Wasserstadt, the Land- strasse, the Neustift, the Christinenstadt, and the Taban or Rascian town, the last of which derives its name from its Servian inhabitants, who are mainly vineyard owners. In the Wasserstadt are the church of St Anne and Elizabeth, and the military hospital ; in Christinenstadt, the Horvath gardens, with the summer theatre, and the large mansion- house of Count Caracsonyi ; and in Old Buda are the royal barracks, part of which was once the monastery of 