ILLUSTRATIONS AND CRITICISMS 



grained habit of weighing evidence and testing 

 one's hypotheses. 



Now to say that scepticism is one of the 

 causes of progress is to make a historical induc- 

 tion which is valuable as far as it goes ; but it 

 is at best an empirical generalization. To make 

 it a scientific law, we need to express the func- 

 tion of scepticism in terms of some formula 

 which covers all the phenomena of progress. 

 And who does not see that in so expressing it 

 we are obtaining a far more definite and accurate 

 and serviceable notion than when we merely 

 state vaguely that scepticism is a cause of pro- 

 gress ? 



Just so with the statement that the protective 

 spirit is a hindrance to progress. By the collo- 

 quial phrase ** protective spirit," Mr. Buckle 

 means the control, or at least the undue con- 

 trol, of the community over its individual mem- 

 bers. Now in estimating the effect of this cir- 

 cumstance upon progress, everything depends 

 upon the precise amount of such control which 

 we are to regard as excessive. But this varies 

 with each epoch of civilization. What would 

 now be intolerable despotism was once needful 

 restraint. You cannot have a constitutional 

 democracy of Vandals or Moguls. So long as 

 men's altruistic feelings are not powerful enough 

 to make them spontaneously respect the claims 

 of their fellows, the only force which can make 

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