207 
ORDINARY MEETING, April 20, 1868. 
The Rey. Walter Mitchell, M.A., Vice-President, 
in the Chair. 
The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed. 
The Rev. C. A. Row then read the following paper : — 
ON SOME OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES 
CONTAINED IN MR. BUCKLE’S “ HISTORY OF 
CIVILIZATION” IN REFERENCE TO THE LAWS 
OF THE MORAL AND RELIGIOUS DEVELOP- 
MENTS OF MAN. By the Rev. C. A. Row, M.A., M.V.I. 
T HE wide extent of the religious, moral, and philosophical 
subjects which the work of the late Mr. Buckle em- 
braces, and some of which I am about to submit to your 
consideration, compels me to use the utmost possible brevity 
in my mode of treatment. I trust that my desire to be brief 
will not render my observations obscure, or cause me to do 
injustice to the author; or, what is even more important, to 
the great moral, religious, and philosophical interests con- 
nected with this subject. Mr. Buckle's work is professedly a 
history of civilization. The plan is formed on a gigantic scale. 
Owing to the premature death of its author it will remain a 
fragment. That fragment, however, consists of not less than 
1,600 pages, and this forms little more than an introduction 
to his vast original design. It contains the philosophic prin- 
ciples on which the great work was intended to have been 
based. Few books which I have read raise questions which 
more deeply affect the dearest interests of mankind, or the 
whole range of Philosophy which is connected with religion 
and morality. 
Mr. Buckle belonged to that school of thought which has 
been designated by the term Positive. In his work, the sys- 
tem of the Positive Philosophy is applied to the elucidation of 
history. The chief principles he has laid down in the opening 
portion of it. It is hardly too much to say that, if his 
views are right, the position occupied by those who have dealt 
with the great subjects connected with mental philosophy. 
