The Press.
London, England, 1857-07-11 00:00:00

yittraturt.

Kittery of OiviAmami in England. By Henry
Thomas Buckle. Vol. I. London : J. W.
Parker and Son.
Tx one point of view the bulky volume
before us must be pronounced the book
of the season—its size is enormous. It
has 854 pages, with an average of forty
lines in a page, and it has a labyrinth of
notes, studded with references so close and
frequent as to make the eyes dizzy. It con-
tains about the quantity of matter which is
usually put in five octavo volumes ; the read-
ing displayed in it is immense ; and when we
have added that it is the first production of a
young man, ani that it is only the first part of a
general introduction to a work which is yet to
come, we shall have said enough to excite our
readers attention to this pyramid of prolego-
mena. "De omnibus rebus et quibusdam
aliis " should be the motto of this book,
whisk is quite unique in its variety of con-
tents.
Mr. Buckle, its author, is a disciple of
Comte, and is a missionary of the positive
school. His creed is that of a philosophical
Radical, and ho has all the dogmatism and
virulent prejudice which marks the school of
the elder Mill. His mind is bookridden, and
he has an extravagant faith in all the ()login,
and a sovereign contempt for most historians,
because they did not anticipate the method of
Comte. He is ignorant of the fact that
history must be composed by literary rules,
and not with a direct reference to philosophy,
because time and space prevent an historian
from describing natural and material wonders.
Mr. Buckle professes to write the history of
civilisation in England, and ho has lost him-
self in a General Introduction, in which the
history of the sciences is racked for illustra-
tion. Long dissertations on political economy,
reflections on religious animosities, popula-
tion, aspects of nature, inquiries of all sorts
on subjects of every kind, fill up this immense
book. He has given us an imperfect encyclo-
pedia. Ought not this fact to teach Mr. Buckle
that after all he knows little of the method 1111
which history should be written?
Mr. Buckle cannot be received as yet as an
original thinker. He has much talent, chiefly
of an acquisitive kind, but we do not discern
any symptoms of genius in his composition.
He wants insight and intuitive qualities. He
is deficient in the faculty of veneration, and ,
he has no appreciation of poetry. He is, we
repeat, bookridden, and he recalls to us what
, Robert Hall said of Dr. Kippis, " that he had
" put so many books on the top of his brain
1/' that he could not use his faculties with free-
" dom." A stupendous pedant differs widely
from a profound thinker.
Still we must recollect that Mr. Buckle is a
young man, and it is to be hoped that he will
Improve with time. His industry and his
pear,ents (even though he makes aof
f them) we cannot but admire. We
however, that there is too much of index-
EMr in this big book, and that the learned
lire manufactured on Toni Moore's sys-
. We shall present before the eyes of our
readers some specimens of the mode in which
this book is composed. Thus the text runs
as to the increase of scepticism :
These are only some of the innumerable signs, which
mast be discerned by every man who is not blinded by the
prvdedioes of an imperfect education. An immense
in/Jerky of the clergy,—some from ambitious feelings,
but the greater part, I believe, from conscientious motives,
—lre striving to check the progress of that scepticism
which is now gathering in upon us from every quarter.
And we have this note appended:—
As some writers, moved by their wishes rather than by
*dr knowledge, seek to deny this, it may be well to °b-
een* that the increase of scepticism since the latter part
jet the eighteenth century is attested by an immense mass
at evidence, as will appear to whoever will compare the
,
. o ing authorities : Whately's Dangers to Christian Faith,
; Kay's Social Condition of the People, vol. ii. p. SW ;
ilk, de la Democratic, vol. iii. p. 72 ; J. H. Newman
-
evelopwient, pp. 28, 29 ; F. 117. Newman's Natural
wr the Soul, p. 197; Parr's Works, vol. ii. p. 5, vol,
688. 680 ; Felkin's Moral Statistics, in Journal of
Boc. vol. 1. p, 541 ; Watson's Observations nn the
Wesley, pp. 155, 194 ; Matter, Hist. du Onosticisme,
P. 486; Ward's Ideal of a Christian (Mulch, pp. 266,
4041 7'mrsee4 *a, of lallantli VW, ii. pp. 129, l'ill

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