ENVIRONMENTAL SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGISTS 10g 
In Chapter IV he uses the historical method to discover which 
of the two mental factors is the more important, the intellectual 
or the moral nature, and concludes that 
The leading countries have now, for some centuries, advanced sufficiently 
far to shake off the influences of those physical agencies by which, in an 
earlier state their career might have been troubled; and that although 
the moral agencies are still powerful, and still cause occasional disturbances, 
these are but aberrations, which, if we compare long periods of time, 
balance each other, and thus in the total amount entirely disappear. So 
that, in a great and comprehensive view, the changes in every civilized 
people are, in their aggregate, dependent solely on these things: first on the 
amount of knowledge possessed by their ablest men; secondly, on the direc- 
tion which that knowledge takes, that is to say, the sort of subjects to which 
it refers; thirdly, and above all, on the extent to which the knowledge is 
diffused, and the freedom with which it pervades all classes of society. 
Buckle is open to criticism along several lines: (1) He talks 
much about progress without giving a definite standard. He 
speaks of intellectual progress, progress of society, advance of 
civilization, increase of general happiness but nowhere sets forth 
a social goal. The dominant note, however, is the increase of 
man’s power over the material environment which we term active 
material adaptation. 
(2) Knowledge is always considered as having dynamic quality 
much as with Socrates, but this is not true of mere knowledge of 
the Jaws of nature which is the conception dominant in his 
thought. 
(3) He is not clear in his definition of the moral element. In 
one place it would seem to be a matter of will, — “ To be willing 
to perform our duty is the moral part; to know how to perform it 
is the intellectual part.” * Again it would seem to consist largely 
of emotional elements: ‘‘ If the advance of civilization and the 
general happiness of mankind depend more on their moral feelings 
than on their intellectual knowledge, we must of course measure 
the progress of society by those feelings ”’; 4 but again, morality 
appears to be a matter of conforming to standards of conduct 
varying from country to country and from year to year,® while 
on the same page we find the statement made that “ there is, 
1 History of Civilization, pp. 204, 205. 2 Thid., pp. 158 f. 
3 Ibid., p. 159. 4 Ibid., p. 159. 5 Ibid., pp. 162-163. 
