136 Mr. Buckle's Fallacies. [ix. 



concluding that the order of human progression in 

 all respects will mainly depend on the order of pro- 

 gression in the intellectual convictions of mankind ; 

 that is, on the law of the successive transformations 

 of human opinions." ^ The same is implied in Mr. 

 Spencer's law of evolution,^ and in the law of the 

 three stages of civilisation announced by Comte.^ 

 With respect to the proposition as it stands, we have 

 no criticisms to offer. It is substantiated, not only 

 by the numerous facts brought up in the course of 

 Mr. Buckle's work, but by all those furnished by the 

 history of mankind in all ages and countries. The 

 annals of our race are but an illustration of the law 

 that "the evolutions of Humanity correspond with 

 the evolutions of Thought." 



Thus far Mr. Buckle proceeds on safe ground : but 

 when he attempts, in his second fundamental law,. to 

 go still further, and to determine how much of our 

 civilisation is due to intellectual, and how much to 

 moral progress — when he attempts * to prove that the 

 intellectual element in our nature is advancing, while 

 the moral element is not, and that knowledge is the 



1 System of Logic, vol, ii. p. 517, 4th edition, 



2 Social Statics, p. 409 — 456. Essays, p. I — 54. First Principles, 

 p. 146 — 218. 



* Philosophie Positive, tome i. pp. 3 — 20. * Vol. i, chap. iv. 



