254 MAN AND NATUEE. 



looking for those Utopian commonwealths which have 

 never existed but in the brains of philosophers and 

 philanthropists, we see enough, even in the sad ex- 

 perience of this war, to show how great is the energy 

 and expansive activity of the race ; how much they are 

 certain yet to accomplish in moulding nature to their 

 purposes, and changing the aspects of the great con- 

 tinent they inhabit. America and Australia are the 

 two fields in which the intelligence and inventions of 

 our own age find their widest application. The ordi- 

 nary growth of centuries is here compressed into two 

 or three generations, and the surface of the earth sub- 

 mitted to changes which have no parallel in the earlier 

 history of nations. 



In looking at the subject of Mr. Marsh's volume, 

 as expounded by its title, we find something like an 

 antithesis to the scheme of that larger work of Mr. 

 Buckle which was brought to an end by his premature 

 death. In two former articles of this Eeview we dealt 

 fully, and we believe fairly, with the theory propounded 

 and the arguments proffered in this remarkable work. 

 Seeking to maintain his thesis that history may be 

 raised, approximately at least, to the character of one 

 of the exact sciences, Mr. Buckle founded his main 

 argument on the assumption that man is a mere agent, 

 pliant if not passive, under the physical laws and ex- 

 ternal influences which surround him on earth. He 

 brought to the illustration of this doctrine a vast array 

 of learning, familiar or unfamiliar, exact or inexact a 

 task easy in some respects, since amidst the enormous 

 number of events and relations crowded into the circle 



