218 
paper. I can only refer to it as containing an ample refuta- 
tion of some of Mr. Buckle's fallacies, composed by a heathen 
philosopher more than two thousand years before they were 
written. 
Mr. Buckle has broadly stated his opiuion, which he says 
he has arrived at after the most careful study of ancieut 
authors, that Christianity has added nothing to our knowledge 
of morals. If this be the case, I have already pointed out 
where the principles on which his moral philosophy is based 
can be confuted by a heathen writer. But the assertion I can 
hardly treat with patience, as I am precluded from giving it a 
direct refutation by the necessary limits of my paper. As it 
is an assertion which is continually recurring, and is frequently 
put forward as if it were an indisputable truth, if I am not 
guilty of presumption I will state where I have recently 
grappled with the entire question, and, as I think, thoroughly 
refuted it. The whole subject is dealt with in the fifth chapter 
of The Jesus of the Evangelists, entitled the Moral Teaching 
of our Lord. It consists of thirty-three pages, and cannot be 
reduced in length. 
I must beg pardon for slightly diverging from my subject. 
Mr. Buckle would perhaps say that I am impelled by one of 
his antecedents to do so, and that it is a case of the necessary 
action of all-powerful motive. The impulse is, I own, a strong 
one, but I feel assured that it is under the control of my 
rational will. In connection with the subject of Morality 
and Christianity, at p. 164, Mr. Buckle has made the following 
most marvellous statement. In the text he is denying the 
influence of moral motives and moral instincts on civilization. 
He asserts that little or no progress has been made in our 
knowledge of the principles of morality and motivity for thou- 
sands of years. When they were first discovered, with singular 
facility, he forgets to tell us ; for surely there must have been 
some period when they were first brought to light, since man 
emerged from a condition of utterly savage darkness. He 
adds, Not one jot or one tittle has been added to them 
by all the sermons, homilies, and text-books which moralists 
and theologians have been able to produce." 
This is a strong statement, but the one in the note to which 
I allude is far stronger; and it is most inexplicable how a man 
of Mr. Buckle's compass of mind could have brought himself 
deliberately to assert it. It is as follows — cc That the system 
of morals propounded in the New Testament contained no 
maxim which had not been previously enunciated ; and that 
some of the most beautiful passages in the apostolic writings 
are quotations from Pagan writers, is well known to every 
scholar." 
