Mr. Buckle s Fallacies. 187 



shadow of doubt that in the twelfth century the 

 sceptical spirit had begun greatly to increase its 

 power and extend its influence ; that in the six- 

 teenth it bad become a mighty civilizing force ; 

 and that in the eighteenth it had penetrated all 

 departments of thought. It was this sceptical 

 spirit which gave rise to the conceptualism of 

 Abelard, the infidelity of Vanini, and the heresy 

 of Wyclif. It became, as Mr. Buckle remarks, 

 " in physics, the precursor of science ; in politics, 

 of liberty ; and in theology, of toleration." But 

 for the scepticism in his own mind, Luther could 

 not have become the founder of Protestantism ; 

 and but for the scepticism already rife in the 

 minds of others, he could have found no followers. 

 We find scepticism dictating the metaphysics of 

 Descartes and the diplomacy of Richelieu. We 

 find it inciting the English to rebellion against 

 the despotism of the Stuarts, and striving, though 

 vainly, in the wars of the Fronde, to establish po- 

 litical liberty in France. It lay at the foundation 

 of the sensationalism of Locke and the idealism 

 of Berkeley, and was itself at last organized into 

 an independent system by Hume. It was the 

 opening phase of that negative philosophy which, 

 first receiving definite shape in the deism of Her- 

 bert and Bolingbroke, ended in the atheism, of 



