178 Mr, Buckle's Fallacies. [ix. 



" the notion that society cannot prosper, unless the 

 afifairs of Hfe are watched over and protected, at 

 nearly every turn, by the state and the church ; the 

 state teaching men what they are to do, and the 

 church teaching them what they are to beheve." 1 

 Here, as in the foregoing case, Mr. Buckle errs only in 

 stating his law without any limitations, as if it were a 

 universal one. It cannot be questioned that for several 

 centuries the protective spirit has been extremely pre- 

 judicial to progress. The notion that government 

 ought to control the actions and beliefs of men has> 

 when carried into politics, furnished a plea for despot- 

 ism, and when carried into theology, it has been produc- 

 tive of intolerance and persecution. Mr. Buckle devotes 

 a large portion of his work to the establishment and 

 elucidation of this fact. He shows that government 

 and legislation are incompetent to direct the afifairs of 

 men. He shows that politicians have injured trade 

 by interfering with it ; that legislators have caused 

 smuggling, with its attendant crimes ; that they have 

 also increased hypocrisy and perjury ; and that, by 

 their laws against usury, they have but heightened 

 the evil they sought to prevent. He shows that the 

 protection of literature by Augustus, by Leo X., and 

 by Louis XIV"., caused literature to decline. In each 



^ Vol. ii. p. I. 



