Page:Historical Essays and Studies.djvu/341

Rh dualism of Church and State in the Middle Ages corresponds to the antithesis of acid and alkali, etc. etc. The same ingenious person argues from the analogy of the natural sciences, in which, with the help of an old tooth, you can reconstruct an antediluvian monster, that history has to deal with the future, and cannot submit to be confined to the knowledge of the past. Twenty years ago, the well-known novelist Gutzkow was in prison, and not having books at hand to help him in writing a novel, beguiled the time by writing and publishing a philosophy of history.

These recent examples may serve to show us that it is not to be wondered at that an attempt should be made to obtain for a new system the sanction of history ; or that, having been made, it should have produced a ludicrous result, and should have furnished the most complete confutation of the system it was meant to confirm. But we have already said that the theory is not the most remarkable part about Mr. Buckle's book. It is by his portentous display of reading that he will impose upon many in whom the principles in their naked deformity would simply excite abhorrence. The theoretical portion is completely overgrown and hidden by the mass of matter which is collected to support it, and on which Mr. Buckle has brought to bear all the reading of a lifetime. The wonderful accumulation of details and extravagance of quotation have the manifest purpose of dazzling and blinding his readers by the mere mass of apparent erudition. "So learned a man cannot be mistaken in his conclusions," is no doubt what they are expected to say. We cannot, therefore, consider the success of Mr. Buckle's work as a fair indication of the extent to which the peculiar form of infidelity which he holds prevails in this country. To accept his conclusions, we must be prepared to say, Credo quia impium ; but in order to be overawed by his learning, it is enough to have less of it than Mr. Buckle himself.

It is for this reason worth while to inquire briefly whether Mr. Buckle is in this respect so great an authority