CH. XIX.] ILLUSTRATIONS AND CBITICISMS. 229 



This consideration explains the manifest failure of all the 

 attempts which have been made to determine the general law 

 of progress by a simple historical induction. Take, for ex- 

 ample, the two crude generalizations which pretty nearly 

 sum up the philosophy of history as it is contained in the 

 work of Mr. Buckle ; that " scepticism " is uniformly favour- 

 able to progress, while the " protective spirit " (or, the spirit 

 of over-legislation) is uniformly detrimental to it. These, in 

 the first place, are generalizations drawn from a peculiar and 

 temporary phase of society and illegitimately extended to all 

 phases of society ; and, in the second place, even so far as 

 they go, they have but a limited applicability, — expressing 

 at best certain aspects of intellectual and industrial progress, 

 but leaving quite out of sight that slow moral evolution 

 which underlies the whole. Whatever of truth is contained 

 in these statements is also contained in the formula which I 

 am here expounding, and is much more accurately ex-pressed 

 in the terms of that formula. Scepticism, for instance, in 

 the best sense of the word, is the attitude of mind which is 

 caused by the perception that certain inner psychical rela- 

 tions — say, a given set of beliefs or institutions — have ceased 

 to be adapted to outer relations. The mediasval conception 

 of the world, as presented in Dante's treatise on "The 

 Monarchy," was very closely adapted both to the know- 

 ledge and to the social needs of the time. The conception 

 of man as the centre of a universe made solely for his use 

 and behoof, with a sun to give him light by day and a 

 moon and stars to give him light by night, with an Em- 

 peror and a Pope divinely appointed to rule him in this 

 life, and an Autocrat in heaven uniting in himself the 

 functions of these two, and ruling nature according to his 

 arbitrary will ; this conception, I say, was in harmony both 

 with the best science and with the most urgent social 

 requirements of the time, and the fact of its long duration 

 shows how profound was the harmony. While this state of 



