215 
view of all the antecedents and all the consequents of human 
actions. 
I entirely agree with Mr. Buckle in a certain portion of 
his position. The incorrectness of his principles arises rather 
from a sappressio veri than a suggestio falsi. Doubtless all 
human actions are the result of motives, and these motives 
of other antecedents ; and it is quite true that these motives 
or antecedents exercise a powerful influence in producing a 
modified uniformity of result. But they act neither neces- 
sarily nor invariably, but for the most part, and subject to a 
vast complication of conditions of various degrees of contin- 
gency, and are liable to be modified within certain limits 
by that power which, despite of Mr. Buckle, we designate indi- 
viduality or will. 
One fallacy has crept into Mr. Buckle's reasoning, through 
the confusion which he has introduced between motives and 
antecedents. These, at any rate in the latter part of the 
quotation, he has identified together. The terms antecedent 
and consequent are dangerous terms to apply to the opera- 
tions of the mind, because they introduce a confusion between 
the causes and effects, the antecedents and consequents of 
nature, and the various influences which act on the mind. 
All motives are antecedents, but all antecedents are not 
motives. This, Mr. Buckle seems to have overlooked, and by 
doing so he has assumed the very point which he was required 
to prove. Among the antecedents of human actions, the 
rational will and the individuality occupy a very important 
place. According to our view of the case, they are as much 
antecedents as any motives, or the antecedents of those 
motives. The failure to perceive this has vitiated the whole 
of Mr. Buckle's reasoning, and led him to assume the point 
which he has undertaken to demonstrate, viz., the nullity of 
the influence of free-will in the affairs of men. 
Mr. Buckle also errs when he refers all motives to a common 
quantitative standard, and omits to discriminate between 
different classes of motives which differ in character from 
each other, and are incapable of being reduced to a common 
quantitative measure. Another fallacy is found in his quiet 
assumption that the action of the will is nearly, if not quite, 
synonymous with the action of chance ; and that to assert 
that human affairs are influenced by the one is much the same 
thing as to proclaim them under the dominion of the other. 
Between the action of the rational will in man, and that of the 
principle which we designate chance, I cannot see the smallest 
necessary connection. 
The imperfection of human language and the want of 
