IX.] " Mr. Buckle's Fallacies. 171 



rule — after the primeval nomadic mode of life had 

 been long abandoned, and agriculture and commerce 

 had in course of time, by mingling men with each 

 other in peaceful relations, called forth social virtues 

 — that scepticism could safely arise; And then it 

 did arise. We find it first showing itself in the states 

 of Greece, where popular despots arose and were 

 overthrown, as at Korinth, Sikyon, and Megara ; and 

 where philosophers began to speculate about the first 

 principles of things, as Thales, Xenophanes, and Hera- 

 kleitos. Thenceforward scepticism increased, until it 

 reached for a time its culmination in the universal 

 doubts of Pyrrho. But it is not in ancient times at 

 all that we are to look for any very prominent mani- 

 festation of scepticism. The spirit of doubting and 

 hesitating inquiry was of slow growth, and did not 

 attain to its maturity until monotheism had been 

 established in Europe for more than a thousand years. 

 Not only, therefore, has scepticism not always been 

 essential to progress ; not only have some important 

 changes in human opinion — as the change from 

 fetishism to polytheism — been accomplished without 

 it ; but also, in the first of the three great periods of 

 civilisation it did not arise at all until very late, and 

 was then but a secondary force in the minds of men. 

 It is in the metaphysical or revolutionary period of 



