HISTORICAL METHOD. 525 



doubt, reacted potently upon the cause. Every considerable 

 advance in material civilization has been preceded by an 

 advance in knowledge : and when any great social change has 

 come to pass, either in the way of gradual development or of 

 sudden conflict, it has had for its precursor a great change in 

 the opinions and modes of thinking of society. Polytheism, 

 Judaism, Christianity, Protestantism, the critical philosophy 

 of modern Europe, and its positive science each of these has 

 been a primary agent f in making society what it was at each 

 successive period, while society was but secondarily instru 

 mental in making them, each of them (so far as causes can be 

 assigned for its existence) being mainly an emanation not 

 from the practical life of the period, but from the previous 

 state of belief and thought. The weakness of the speculative 

 propensity in mankind generally, has not, therefore, prevented 

 the progress of speculation from governing that of society at 

 large ; it has only, and too often, prevented progress alto 

 gether, where the intellectual progression has come to an early 

 stand for want of sufficiently favourable circumstances. 



From this accumulated evidence, we are justified in con 

 cluding, that the order of human progression in all respects 

 will mainly depend on the order of progression in the intel 

 lectual convictions of mankind, that is, on the law of the 

 successive transformations of human opinions. The question 

 remains, whether this law can be determined; at first from 

 history as an empirical law, then converted into a scientific 

 theorem by deducing it cl priori from the principles of human 

 nature. As the progress of knowledge and the changes in the 

 opinions of mankind are very slow, and manifest themselves 

 in a well-defined manner only at long intervals ; it cannot be 

 expected that the general order of sequence should be disco 

 verable from the examination of less than a very considerable 

 part of the duration of the social progress. It is necessary to 

 take into consideration the whole of past time, from the first 

 recorded condition of the human race, to the memorable 

 phenomena of the last and present generations. 



8. The investigation which I have thus endeavoured to 



