Henry Thomas Buckle [pp. 339-345]

HrENR Y THOMAS B UCKLE.
for careers in which they would compete with
men. He made instinctively all the reserves for
which the orthodox are fighting more or less
hopefully now; he took over without discussion
the sharp dualism between body and mind trans mitted through Locke from Descartes. Even
such a phrase as mental disease displeased him.
Disease could only consistently be thought of in
connection with a material organism. After this
it is not surprising that he held that in another
life there would be no difference between the ge nius and the idiot of this: they differed because
their brains differed. At the same time, the dif ference between learning and ignorance might be
more permanent, for it is by its own action that
the mind acquires learning. He understood, and
was half inclined to adopt, Kant's distinction be tween transcendental freedom and empirical ne cessity, although he was fully convinced by his
statistical studies that any limited power of self determination the individual might imaginably
possess could safely be neglected in the scien tific study of masses. Most important of all, he
recognized as clearly as Pascal the logic of the
heart. Instead of treating the convictions as a
mere disturbing force warping the action of the
pure reason, he dwelt eloquently upon their char acter as an orderly independent factor in our
deepest convictions. This combination of fun damental conservatism, with revolutionary energy
upon two or three large yet definite questions, is
not unlike Mr. Bright-a politician who is, or
was, unpopular with just the critics who depre ciated Buckle as a thinker.
One can hardly think that the literary class
were so much to blame for their hostility as Mr.
Huth supposes. They had emancipated them selves as far as they cared to be emancipated;
they held implicitly a great deal that Buckle proclaimed emphatically; they held it with all sorts
of qualifications which they felt not unreasonably it was easier to apply in practice than to formulate beforehand; they found plenty of crudity
in Buckle's special theories, and were angry with
him for not advancing knowledge upon special
matters in the way in which Sainte-Beuve or even
Macaulay did. It was not their fault that in their
eyes individual facts, which Buckle made a point
of despising, were more interesting as well as
less uncertain than the general facts, which no
doubt are more important. Besides, it was quite
true, if not exactly relevant, that they might have
found whatever they were inclined to accept in
Buckle in Comte, or Quetelet before. Their justification is complete when we remember that
Buckle's method and generalizations have been
quite unfruitful. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Herbert
Spencer and Sir H. S. Maine have had followers;
Bugkle had only readers. At the time criticism
did not hurt him, as he said himself he throve on
it. His superiority to his critics was too evident.
He was the lion of the literary season; he was
elected a member of the Athenaeum, after some
ineffectual threats of clerical opposition; he lec tured at the Royal Institution on the " Influence
of Women on the Progress of Knowledge," and
Faraday, Owen, and Murchison severally thanked
him for the great treat they had enjoyed.
In the midst of his great success the great
sorrow of his life came upon him; his mother's
health had been failing since 1852, and in i856
she feared that she should not live to see the re ception of his work, and the fame that her coun sel and sympathy had done so much to prepare.
When at last her son showed her the first volume,
with its magnificent dedication, he was frightened
at her agitation. On the IIth of August, 1857, he
writes: " Month after month she is now altering
for the worse, at times slightly better, but percep tibly losing ground. Her mind is changed even
since I was here last; she is unable to read; she
confuses one idea with another; and nothing re mains of her as she once was, except her smile,
and the exquisite tenderness of her affections. I
while away my days here doing nothing, and car ing for nothing, because I feel I have no future."
" For the last six months of her life she was from
time to time delirious, but such was her strength
of mind that always when her son entered the
room she became perfectly rational." He was
no longer able to write except after the stimulus
of conversation; and at last the sight of her
" slowly but incessantly degenerating, mind and
body both going," brought his work to a standstill, and Mr. Capel suggested that he should try
the distraction of reviewing Mill's "Essay on
Liberty." On the Ist of April, i859, he entered
in his diary, "At 9.15 my angel mother died
peacefully, without pain." When all was over
he sat down, " in the dull and dreary house, once
so full of light and love," to write his proof of
the immortality of the soul. It is very like St.
Anselm's proof of the being of a God. It is a
weak feeling that can believe that it adds to or
creates its object; a strong feeling is sure that
its object is eternal.
The next twelve days were spent upon his review of Mill's "Liberty," which is still momorable for the grotesque, pathetic, eloquent philippic
on Pooley's case. It is never clear what we are
to be indignant at; no doubt it was a miscarriage of justice that the judge did not find out
that Pooley was mad; perhaps the law under
which he was sentenced was getting rather rusty;
still poachers are sentenced more severely, and
Pooley was as great a nuisance as a poacher in a
respectable neighborhood. But Buckle was in a
state of exaltation where he had too little sense
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