OF

CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.

BY

HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE.

VOLUME I.

THE SECOND EDITION.

LONDON:

JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND.

MDCCCLVIII.

HARYAND COLLEGE LIBRARY

1878

ΤΟ

MY MOTHER

I DEDICATE

THIS

THE FIRST VOLUME

OF

MY FIRST WORK.

ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

STATEMENT OF THE RESOURCES FOR INVESTIGATING HISTORY, AND PROOFS OF

THE REGULARITY OF HUMAN ACTIONS. THESE ACTIONS ARE GOVERNED BY

MENTAL AND PHYSICAL LAWS: THEREFORE BOTH SETS OF LAWS MUST BE

STUDIED, AND THERE CAN BE NO HISTORY WITHOUT THE NATURAL SCIENCES.

Materials for writing history

Narrow range of knowledge possessed by historians

Object of the present work

Human actions, if not the result of fixed laws, must be due to chance

or to supernatural interference.

Probable origin of free-will and predestination .

Theological basis of predestination, and metaphysical basis of free-

will.

The actions of men are caused by their antecedents, which exist
either in the human mind or in the external world

Therefore history is the modification of man by nature, and of nature

by man

PAGE

1-3

3-5

6

9-11

.. 12-16

17-18

19

Statistics prove the regularity of actions in regard to murder and

Also respecting the number of marriages annually contracted

And respecting the number of letters sent undirected

The historian must ascertain whether mind or nature has most in-

fluenced human actions; and therefore there can be no history

without physical science

NOTE A. Passages from Kant on free-will and necessity.

31-32

. 33-35