From Mill's constant insistence upon the power of association and the empirical character of all knowledge,it might be inferred that even scientific progress is precarious and unstable.To Buckle the development of scientific knowledge seems to be inevitable,if only the mind is allowed to work freely.The most conspicuous facts of the day gave force to his conviction.The enormous changes in the whole constitution of society were due to the advance of mechanical discoveries and to the triumph of free-traders.Watt and Adam Smith,not the religious preachers,represent the real transforming force.The steam-engine has altered the whole position of the human race.The sermons of Methodists and Catholics have left the average man just where he was.Napoleon was a great criminal,and Wilberforce,perhaps,a great philanthropist.Their influence has been transitory,while the scientific inventors have set up changes which will continue to gather force as the ages roll.
The truth contained in this,again,seems to be Undeniable.
Modify the 'environment'and your organism is modified throughout.Alter the climate,the soil,the amount of fertile land,and the whole state of mankind will be altered.That,again,has been virtually achieved by modern discoveries.Though the natural forces may be the same,our relation to them has been altered;and,if more fertile soil has not been wrought into existence,the fertile soil has been brought,we may say,nearer to our doors.Moreover,the change has been primarily due to scientific discovery and not to any moral change;or the moral changes,whatever they may be,have been the consequence,not the cause.So far as Buckle emphasised this aspect,he was clearly insisting upon a truth which requires recognition.The question is what bearing this has upon the philosophy of history,and whether it justifies us in discarding the influence of the 'moral'element in building up the social structure.
The general doctrine leads to the conclusion that the essential difference between two stages of history is the difference between the quantity of knowledge possessed and its diffusion throughout all classes.That is really Buckle's contention,from which all his conclusions are deducible.The 'totality of human actions,'as he says,is 'governed by the totality of human knowledge;(44)or,as he elsewhere puts it,(45)the history of every 'civilised country is the history of its intellectual development.'If early societies are governed by the 'physical laws,'later societies are governed by the action of those laws upon our minds,and the action is thus profoundly modified as our knowledge of the laws extends.The 'environment'has a different relation to us,but remains the ultimate and independent determinant.If this be the whole truth,it would follow that we might write the history of mankind by writing the history of science.All other phenomena would be simply deducible as corollaries from the state of knowledge.
Comte had suggested that history might be written without mentioning the names of individuals.On Buckle's assumption,history may deal simply with the growth of scientific ideas;and,therefore,we need not take into account the moral ideas or all the complex system of actions which come under the head of the will and the emotions in psychological treatises.
Is it possible to write a history upon such terms?Granting that knowledge defines the base upon which the whole structure must repose,Can we abstract from all this considerations of the way in which men's beliefs are brought to bear upon the constitution of society?The difficulty becomes obvious as soon as Buckle turns from his general principle to the historical application.Mark Pattison,(46)in his review of the History on its first appearance,puts the point.Buckle,he says,after insisting upon the utter inadequacy of the old historical and metaphysical methods,proceeds to 'exemplify the very method of writing history which he had condemned.'His account of French society is,as Pattison says,a 'masterly sketch,'unequalled in breadth and comprehensiveness of view by any English writer.But,then,it brings in precisely the elements of individual influence,and so forth,which Buckle expressly professed to exclude.I will add nothing to the commendation possessing a higher authority than my own.Buckle's surveys,not only of French,but of English,Spanish,and Scottish,I believe,may fully justify the opinion that his abilities,rightly directed,might have produced a history surpassing the achievement of any of his rivals.But the only question with which I am concerned is the relation of the history to the philosophy.Buckle,if he had simply written a history of England,might have eclipsed Hallam or Macaulay in their own line.Did he really inaugurate a better method of writing history in general?or,if not,what caused the failure of a man possessed of such singular qualifications?
A difficulty is suggested even in regard to the purely scientific development.Buckle speaks with the warmest enthusiasm of great men,such as Descartes,whose scientific discoveries revolutionised thought,or Adam Smith,(47)who,by publishing a single work,contributed more to human happiness than all the statesmen and legislators of whom we have an authentic record.
How can this be reconciled with the insignificance of the individual?A great discovery is necessarily the work of an individual.No combination of second-rate men could have supplied the place of a single Newton.It therefore occurs to Buckle that,after all,the individual has to be taken into account.If Descartes and Smith had died of the measles in infancy,progress would have been arrested.To escape this conclusion,he refers to the 'spirit of the age,'which would have made the discovery fruitless at a different period.What is covered by that phrase?
