first law confirms our rejection of his second, and we see, more clearly than ever, that "the double movement, moral and intellectual, is essential to the very idea of civilisation," and that, without including both elements, there can be no complete theory of progress.

It may likewise be well to remark that a discussion of this sort has no immediate bearing on the subject of Christianity. It has been supposed by some persons that Mr. Buckle's entire argument is nothing but a sinister attack upon the Christian religion. We see nothing of the kind in it. Christianity is a system of belief, in which both intellectual and moral forces must co-operate; and a person, while denying the civilising agency of the moral element, may with perfect consistency maintain the civilising agency of that set of opinions in the formation of which the moral element has had but a partial share. Our author's argument, therefore, is not to be construed into an assault upon Christianity, nor is our own argument to be construed into a defence of it. Confusion necessarily results from mixing questions which should be kept separate.

We come now to Mr. Buckle's third1 law-that

1 On the first page of his second volume, Mr. Buckle places this law second in order, and the law just considered third. But as it is con

1

scepticism "has in every department of thought been the invariable preliminary to all the intellectual revolutions through which the human mind has passed," and that "without it there could be no progress, no change, no civilisation." In examining this proposition, it is needful, at the outset, to have a clear idea of the nature of scepticism, as understood by Mr. Buckle. The word itself has been variously interpreted; sometimes in a more general sense, as meaning the absolute denial of all dogmas, theories, and beliefs whatever; sometimes in a more special sense, as signifying disbelief in the peculiar doctrines of Christianity. It is in neither of these senses that Mr. Buckle uses the word. He defines scepticism as suspension of judgment, or hesitation in forming or receiving an opinion. A true sceptic, then, would neither believe nor disbelieve anything at all. He would doubt even his own doubts. History presents but few instances of a consistent and thorough-going sceptic. Pyrrho and Hume will, however, serve sufficiently well as examples. Scepticism is not to be confounded with that philosophy which, not content with doubting, absolutely denies. This might

venient to examine this law in connection with the fourth, we have taken the liberty to alter Mr. Buckle's arrangement.

1 Vol. i. page 328.

be called negative philosophy, or negativism, in broad distinction from positive philosophy, which aims at establishing from incontrovertible data a system of results comprising all that it is in the power of the human mind to know. Negativism and positivism, then, constitute two opposite phases of human thought. As examples of negative thinkers, we have Hobbes, Voltaire, Lessing, and Rousseau; while as instances of positive thinkers we may cite Bacon, Leibnitz, Newton, and Spencer. Scepticism is identical with neither of these philosophies, though it has some points in common with both. Scepticism, indeed, is not a philosophy at all; it is a no-philosophy-a transition state where, robbed of its belief, the mind rests not, but stays unresting, in dreary incertitude and distressful vacillation, until it finds refuge in belief again.

Bearing in mind this meaning of the word, we can safely proceed to examine the proposition before us. We do not think it altogether probable that Mr. Buckle would, on mature reflection, lay down this law about scepticism as a universal one, operative alike in all stages of progress; but, as he makes no limitations to it in the course of his work, we must discuss it here in relation to the three stages of mental evolution, and see whether or not it is alike applicable to all.

We shall find, to begin with, that it is not applicable to the theological state. When man first looked upon the wonders of Nature, his untaught imagination gave birth to weird, fantastic shapes innumerable, peopling the air, the streams, the forest, and the mountain-chasm. Just awakened, as it were, to selfconsciousness, and feeling his own life thrilling within him, he ascribed that life to everything around him. He looked upon the wide, dark surface of the "manysounding sea," and saw there a mighty, restless, earthupheaving Power, which refinement afterwards personified, and called Poseidon. Gazing above him on the blue expanse which seemed to encompass the "plain of the earth," he came to recognise there a Divinity of light and warmth, a Devas, a paternal Zeus. When the bright clouds flitted along the sky, it was Hermes driving the celestial cattle to the milking; when the north-wind arose, cold and blustering, it was Boreas storming in his wrath; when the stars came out at night, there were countless deities to whom this primitive man made sacred the days of the week. The changes of the seasons, the ceaselessly recurring death and resurrection of Nature, were typified in wild legends of Jemshid and Zohâk, of Osiris and Thammuz, of Hylas and Orpheus. The whole universe was thinking, feeling, and willing. Nothing was

dead or inert; all things were endowed with life and activity. From this came sacrifices, shrines and temples, oracles, and sacerdotal orders. It would be difficult to find any traces of scepticism in all this. Belief then reigned alone in the human mind, and doubt found no place there. As long as the phenomenal was as yet harder to comprehend and more difficult to control than the unseen and unexplored world that lay beyond it, scepticism was impossible. Not only was it impossible, but it would have been harmful. For the primitive man was barbarous, treacherous, revengeful.1 His selfish instincts were as yet all in all. His sympathetic and social feelings were as yet undeveloped. In such a rude condition it was only the bond of a firmly-rooted and wide-spread belief—it was only the ascendency of a priestly and governmental order, thus secured-which could keep society from being disorganised. Had scepticism been once let in, religious and political organisation would have been weakened, sects and parties would have sprung up prematurely, and the strong check needful to curb the undisciplined passions of men would have been destroyed, civilisation would have stopped, and society could no longer have existed. It was only after centuries of theocratic and monarchic

1 Spencer's Social Statics, pp. 409–413.