Mr. Buckle's Fallacies. 193 



shows that government and legislation are incom- 

 petent to direct the affairs of .men. He shows 

 that politicians have injured trade by interfering 

 with it ; that legislators have caused smuggling, 

 with its attendant crimes ; that they have also in- 

 creased hypocrisy and perjury ; and that, by their 

 laws against usury, they have but heightened the 

 evil they sought to prevent. He shows that the 

 protection of literature by Augustus, by Leo X., 

 and by Louis XIV. caused literature to decline. 

 In each case "there was much apparent splen- 

 dour, immediately succeeded by sudden ruin." * 

 The system of protecting literature was carried 

 to its fullest extent by Louis XIV., and nowhere 

 can we see more clearly the baneful effects of 

 such a course. For the scientific progress which 

 had been so marked in the reign of Louis XIII. 

 stopped forthwith. Descartes and Pascal, Fer- 

 mat, Gassendi, Riolan, Joubert, and Par6 died, 

 and left no successors. Nothing was done in as' 

 tronomy, in chemistry, in physiology, or in bot- 

 anv. Of mechanical inventions there were none. 

 Even the fine arts soon began to decline ; and in- 

 tellectual decay, the natural consequence of pat- 

 ronage, was seen in every department of thought. 

 So in many other cases we see the damage en- 



i Vol. i. p. 647. 

 13 



