Mr. Buckle s Fallacies. 177 



It is quite a relief, on emerging from this laby 

 rinth of baseless assertion and ill-directed argu 

 ment, to find that our author at last seems to re 

 member his original object, as he sets himself to 

 work really to show the &quot; superiority &quot; of knowl 

 edge over feeling as a civilizing agent. His rea 

 soning is here very plausible, and his illustrations 

 drawn from the history of war and religious per 

 secution are well chosen, and appear at first quite 

 convincing. He tells us that good intentions were 

 of no avail in stopping persecution, because perse 

 cutors themselves have generally had the best in 

 tentions. The heathen emperors of Rome, who tor 

 tured Catholics, the Catholic Inquisitors of Spain, 

 who tortured Protestants, all meant well enough, 

 he argues, they were very often men of the pur 

 est character ; but they did not know that it was 

 wrong for them to interfere with the religious con 

 victions of others. So Mr. Buckle does perceive, 

 after all, that our knowledge of our moral obliga 

 tions has increased somewhat ! We are no bet 

 ter, he says, than the Inquisitors of old, but we 

 know that religious persecution is wrong, wicked, 

 harmful; while they, in their mistaken zeal, 

 thought it to be right, holy, beneficial. This 

 point he argues admirably, but he does not suc 

 ceed in absolving religious persecutors from all 



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