196 Postscript on Mr. Buckle. [x. 



for the solution of all manner of problems, psycho- 

 logical and historical. But it is just one of those 

 formulas, like Mr. Spencer's famous law of the change 

 from incoherent homogeneity to coherent hetero- 

 geneity, that needs to be charged with significance by 

 means of copious preliminary explanation in order to 

 convey any sense at all to the mind of the reader. 



To the many readers who, some twenty years 

 since, were interested in what then bid fair to be the 

 " biggest of big books," the most attractive pages in 

 Mr. Stuart-Glennie's volume will be those which give 

 us glimpses of the personal peculiarities of Mr. 

 Buckle. The sad story of Mr. Buckle's fruitless 

 journey in quest of health, the rapid decay of his 

 strength, and his untimely death at Damascus, has 

 long been generally known, but it acquires fresh 

 interest from the fuller account now given by his 

 fellow-pilgrim. Few would now rate the value of Mr. 

 Buckle's work, or the loss to science from his prema- 

 ture end, so highly as they were commonly rated at 

 the time. Yet, as a fresh instance of how life is 

 short while art is long, of how the world passes away 

 from us while yet we are stammering over the alpha- 

 bet of its mysteries, there is something infinitely 

 pathetic in the cry which went up from the exhausted 

 and fever-stricken traveller — " My book, my book ! I 



