IX.] Mr. Buckle's Fallacies. i8i 



far from being prejudicial to progress, was one of its 

 most essential conditions. Indeed, on calling to mind 

 all those centuries of primeval history, when there 

 was nothing to counteract the workings of the pro- 

 tective spirit, and when all things conspired to 

 strengthen its power, one might reasonably ask at 

 the outset why it was that under such circumstances 

 the human race made such sure and unceasing pro- 

 gress ; why it was that it progressed at all ; why it 

 was that it did not even retrograde. If the protective 

 spirit is of necessity in every age the enemy of civili- 

 sation, how did it happen that we ever emerged from 

 a state of barbarism .-' How comes it that we have 

 not remained uncivilised — mere nomads, or at best 

 diggers of earth, living from hand to mouth, little 

 better, on the whole, than a race of chimpanzees ? 

 For Mr, Buckle's own facts show that the protective 

 spirit has never been so strong as in the early ages of 

 history. " In India, slavery, abject, eternal slavery was 

 the natural state of the "great body of the people." ^ 

 The " vast social system " of Egypt was " based on 

 despotism" and "upheld by cruelty." ^ In Mexico 

 and Peru, " there was the same utter absence of any- 

 thing approaching to the democratic spirit : there was 

 the same despotic power on the part of the upper 

 1 Vol. i, p. 73. 2 Ibid. p. 83. 



