IX.] Mr. Buckle's Fallacies. 179 



case "there was much apparent splendour, imme- 

 diately succeeded by sudden ruin." ^ The system of 

 protecting literature was carried to its fullest extent 

 by Louis XIV., and nowhere can we see more clearly 

 the baneful effects of such a course. For the scien- 

 tific progress which had been so marked in the reign 

 of Louis XIIL stopped forthwith. Descartes and 

 Pascal, Fermat, Gassendi, Riolan, Joubert, and Pare 

 died, and left no successors. Nothing was done in 

 astronomy, in chemistry, in physiology, or in botany. 

 Of mechanical inventions there were none. Even the 

 fine arts soon began to decline; and intellectual 

 decay, the natural consequence of patronage, was seen 

 in every department of thought. So in many other 

 cases we see the damage entailed by the interference 

 of government. Laws fixing a minimum of wages 

 have caused thousands of labourers to be turned out 

 of employment. 2 Laws regulating marriage have 

 ended in increasing the number of illegitimate births.^ 

 Laws for the establishment of sanitary supervision 

 have spread disease, and lengthened out the mortality 

 returns.* Laws for the support of colonial govern- 



^ Vol. i., p. 647. 



" As in the case of the Spitalfields weavers in 1773. 



^ As in Bavaria. 



* As in England, some years ago, during the cholera pestilence. 



N 2 



