IX.] Mr. Buckle's Fallacies. 131 



have ever been accustomed to look upon the pheno- 

 mena of society as upon isolated facts, incapable 

 of any scientific explanation whatever. And this is 

 what might be expected from the great abstruseness 

 and complexity of the subject. Since the science of 

 human actions is the most difficult of all, and since 

 it depends on the simpler physical sciences, it was 

 not until these in the course of their development 

 had been purified from the dreamy obscurities of 

 metaphysics, that the conception of a universal and 

 undeviating regularity in the succession of historic 

 events was rendered possible. Accordingly, when 

 physical science was yet in its infancy, as in ancient 

 times, there could be no social science. The specula- 

 tions of Plato upon this subject were but profit- 

 less reveries ; and even the admirable Politics of 

 Aristotle disclosed "no sense of the progressive ten- 

 dencies of humanity, nor the slightest glimpse of the 

 natural laws of civilisation." ^ Coming down even to 

 modern times, we find in the seventeenth century 

 nothing better on the philosophy of history than 

 the puerile Discourse of Bossuet. The profound 

 remarks of Pascal and Leibnitz, in regard to the 

 progress of society, are to be deemed rather pre- 

 sentiments of the truth, than the results of deliberate 



■* Comte, Philosophic Positive, tome iv. p. 240. 



K 2 



