IX.] Mr. Buckle's Fallacies. 133 



Comte. In this noble work, social as well as phy- 

 sical changes are shown to conform to invariable laws. 

 Comte thus founded social science, and opened a 

 path for future discoverers. But he did not perceive, 

 any more than previous inquirers, the fundamental 

 law of human evolution. It was reserved for Herbert 

 Spencer to discover this all-comprehensive law, which 

 is found to explain alike all the phenomena of man's 

 history, and all those of external nature. This sub- 

 lime discovery — that the Universe is in a continuous 

 process of evolution from the homogeneous to the 

 heterogeneous — with which only Newton's discovery 

 of the law of gravitation is at all worthy to be com- 

 pared, underlies not only physics, but also history. 

 It reveals the law to which social changes conform. 

 This preliminary glance is necessary, in order to 

 comprehend the relation of Mr. Buckle's work to the 

 treatises on social science which have preceded it. 

 Mr. Buckle is one of that series of philosophers who, 

 from Plato downwards, have studied human affairs. 

 The Introduction to his History of Civilisation in 

 England is similar to the works we have just men- 

 tioned, in attempting to discover the laws which 

 regulate the progress of society; and in many respects 

 it surpasses them all. Mr. Buckle, it is true, gives us 

 no new method of research, like Comte ; nor does he 



