No More Learning

2672 (#234) ###########################################

2672
FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND
became his new abode. It was a movable home, and therein lay
the advantage; for when the strings of it were tied there was no
mode of escape. He could not get his hands through the aper-
ture at the end to unfasten them, the bag was too strong for
him to bite his way through, and his ineffectual efforts to get
out only had the effect of making the bag roll along the floor,
and occasionally make a jump up into the air; forming altogether
an exhibition which if advertised in the present day of wonders
as “le bag vivant,” would attract crowds of delighted and admir-
ing citizens.
In the bag aforesaid he traveled as far as Southampton on his
road to town. While taking the ticket at the railway station,
Jacko, who must needs see everything that was going on, sud-
denly poked his head out of the bag and gave a malicious grin
at the ticket-giver. This much frightened the poor man, but
with great presence of mind, — quite astonishing under the cir-
cumstances, — he retaliated the insult: “Sir, that's a dog; you
must pay for it accordingly. ” In vain was the monkey made to
come out of the bag and exhibit his whole person; in vain were
arguments in full accordance with the views of Cuvier and Owen
urged eagerly, vehemently, and without hesitation (for the train
was on the point of starting), to prove that the animal in ques-
tion was not a dog, but a monkey. A dog it was in the peculiar
views of the official, and three-and-sixpence was paid. Thinking
to carry the joke further (there were just a few minutes to
spare), I took out from my pocket a live tortoise I happened to
have with me, and showing it, said, “What must I pay for this,
as you charge for all animals ? ” The employé adjusted his specs,
withdrew from the desk to consult with his superior; then
returning, gave the verdict with a grave but determined manner,
«No charge for them, sir: them be insects. ”


## p. 2673 (#235) ###########################################

2673
HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE
(1821-1862)
ENRY THOMAS BUCKLE was born at Lee, in Kent, on November
24th, 1821, the son of a wealthy London merchant. A deli-
cate child, he participated in none of the ordinary sports of
children, but sat instead for hours listening to his mother's reading
of the Bible and the Arabian Nights. ' She had a great influence on
his early development. She was a Calvinist, deeply religious, and
Buckle himself in after years acknowledged that to her he owed his
faith in human progress through the dissemination and triumph of
truth, as well as his taste for philosophic speculations and his love
for poetry.
His devotion to her was lifelong. Owing to his feeble
health he passed but a few years at school, and did not enter col-
lege. Nor did he know much, in the scholar's sense, of books. Till
he was nearly eighteen the Arabian Nights,' the Pilgrim's Pro-
gress,' and Shakespeare constituted his chief reading.
But he was fond of games of mental skill, and curiously enough,
first gained distinction, not in letters but at the chessboard, and in
the course of his subsequent travels he challenged and defeated the
champions of Europe. He was concerned for a short time in busi-
ness; but being left with an independent income at the death of his
father, he resolved to devote himself to study. He traveled for a
year on the Continent, learning on the spot the languages of the
countries he passed through. In time he became an accomplished
linguist, reading nineteen languages and conversing fuently in seven.
By the time he was nineteen he had resolved to write a great
historic work, of a nature not yet attempted by any one.
To prepare
himself for this monumental labor, and to make up for past deficien-
cies, he settled in London; and, apparently single-handed and without
the advice or help of tutors or professional men, entered upon that
course of voluminous reading on which his erudition rests.
He is a singular instance of a self-taught man, without scientific
or academic training, producing a work that marks an epoch in
historical literature. With wonderful memory, he had, like
Macaulay, the gift of getting the meaning and value of a book by
simply glancing over the pages. On an average he could read with
intelligent comprehension three books in a working day of eight
hours, and in time mastered his library of twenty-two thousand
volumes, indexing every book on the back, and transcribing many
a
V-168


## p. 2674 (#236) ###########################################

2674
HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE
pages into his commonplace-books. In this way he spent fifteen
years of study in collecting his materials.
The first volume of his introduction to the History of Civilization
in England appeared in 1857, and aroused an extraordinary interest
because of the novelty and audacity of its statements. It was both
bitterly attacked and enthusiastically praised, as it antagonized or
attracted its readers. Buckle became the intellectual hero of the
hour. The second volume appeared in May, 1861. And now, worn
out by overwork, his delicate nerves completely unstrung by the
death of his mother, who had remained his first and only love, he
left England for the East, in company with the two young sons of
a friend. In Palestine he was stricken with typhoid fever, and died
at Damascus on May 29th, 1862. His grave is marked by a marble
tomb with the inscription from the Arabic:--
« The written word remains long after the writer;
The writer is resting under the earth, but his works endure. »
Three volumes of Miscellanies and Posthumous Works,' edited
by Helen Taylor, were published in 1872. Among these are a lecture
on “Woman,' delivered before the Royal Institution, — Buckle's single
and very successful attempt at public speaking,- and a Review of
Mill's Liberty, one of the finest contemporary appreciations of that
thinker. But he wrote little outside his History,' devoting himself
with entire singleness of purpose to his life-work.
The introduction to the History of Civilization in England' has
been aptly called the «fragment of a fragment. ” When as a mere
youth he outlined his work, he overestimated the extremest accom-
plishment of a single mind, and did not clearly comprehend the
vastness of the undertaking. He had planned a general history of
civilization; but as the material increased on his hands he was
forced to limit his project, and finally decided to confine his work to
a consideration of England from the middle of the sixteenth century.
In February, 1853, he wrote to a friend:-
cer-
“I have been long convinced that the progress of every people is regu-
lated by principles — or as they are called, laws - - as regular and as
tain as those which govern the physical world. To discover these laws is the
object of my work.
I propose to take a general survey of the moral,
intellectual, and legislative peculiarities of the great countries of Europe; and
I hope to point out the circumstances under which these peculiarities have
arisen. This will lead to a perception of certain relations between the various
stages through which each people have progressively passed. Of these general
relations I intend to make a particular application; and by a careful analysis
of the history of England, show how they have regulated our civilization, and


## p. 2675 (#237) ###########################################

HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE
2675
how the successive and apparently the arbitrary forms of our opinions, our
literature, our laws, and our manners, have naturally grown out of their
antecedents. ”
This general scheme was adhered to in the published history, and
he supported his views by a vast array of illustrations and proofs.
The main ideas advanced in the Introduction — for he did not live to
write the body of the work, the future volumes to which he often
pathetically refers — these ideas may be thus stated :— First: Nothing
had yet been done toward discovering the principles underlying the
character and destiny of nations, to establish a basis for a science of
history,-a task which Buckle proposed to himself. Second: Experi-
ence shows that nations are governed by laws as fixed and regular as
the laws of the physical world. Third: Climate, soil, food, and the
aspects of nature are the primary causes in forming the character of
a nation. Fourth: The civilization within and without Europe is
determined by the fact that in Europe man is stronger than nature,
and here alone has subdued her to his service; whereas on the other
continents nature is the stronger and man has been subdued by her.
Fifth: The continually increasing influence of mental laws and the
continually diminishing influence of physical laws characterize the
advance of European civilization. Sixth: The mental laws regulating
the progress of society can only be discovered by such a compre-
hensive survey of facts as will enable us to eliminate disturbances;
namely, by the method of averages.
Seventh: Human progress is
due to intellectual activity, which continually changes and expands,
rather than to moral agencies, which from the beginnings of society
have been more or less stationary. Eighth: In human affairs in
general, individual efforts are insignificant, and great men work for
evil rather than for good, and are moreover merely incidental to their
age. Ninth: Religion, literature, art, and government instead of being
causes of civilization, are merely its products. Tenth: The progress
of civilization varies directly as skepticism — the disposition to doubt,
or the protective spirit”- the disposition to maintain without exami-
nation established beliefs and practices, predominates.
The new scientific methods of Darwin and Mill were just then
being eagerly discussed in England; and Buckle, an alert student and
great admirer of Mill, in touch with the new movements of the day,
proposed, “by applying to the history of man those methods of in-
vestigation which have been found successful in other branches of
knowledge, and rejecting all preconceived notions which could not
bear the test of those methods, to remove history from the condem-
nation of being a mere series of arbitrary facts, or a biography of
famous men, or the small-beer chronicle of court gossip and intrigues,


## p. 2676 (#238) ###########################################

2676
HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE
and to raise it to the level of an exact science, subject to mental
laws as rigid and infallible as the laws of nature:-
“Instead of telling us of those things which alone have any value - in-
stead of giving us information respecting the progress of knowledge and the
way in which mankind has been affected by the diffusion of that knowledge
the vast majority of historians fill their works with the most trifling
and miserable details
. . . . In other great branches of knowledge, observa-
tion has preceded discovery; first the facts have been registered and then their
laws have been found. But in the study of the history of man, the important
facts have been neglected and the unimportant ones preserved. The conse-
quence is, that whoever now attempts to generalize historical phenomena
must collect the facts as well as conduct the generalization. ”
Buckle's ideal of the office and acquirements of the historian was
of the highest. He must indeed possess a synthesis of the whole
range of human knowledge to explain the progress of man. By con-
necting history with political economy and statistics, he strove to
make it exact. And he exemplified his theories by taking up branches
of scientific investigation hitherto considered entirely outside the
province of the historian. He first wrote history scientifically, pur-
suing the same methods and using the same kinds of proofs as the
scientific worker. The first volume excited as much angry discussion
as Darwin's "Origin of Species) had done in its day. The boldness
of its generalizations, its uncompromising and dogmatic tone, irritated
more than one class of readers. The chapters on Spain and on Scot-
land, with their strictures on the religions of those countries, con-
taining some of the most brilliant passages in the book, brought up
in arms against him both Catholics and Presbyterians. Trained
scientists blamed him for encroaching on their domains with an in-
sufficient knowledge of the phenomena of the natural world, whence
resulted a defective logic and vague generalizations.
It is true that Buckle was not trained in the methods of the
schools; that he labored under the disadvantage of a self-taught, soli-
tary worker, not receiving the friction of other vigorous minds; and
that his reading, if extensive, was not always wisely chosen, and
from its very amount often ill-digested. He had knowledge rather
than true learning, and taking this knowledge at second hand, often
relied on sources that proved either untrustworthy or antiquated, for
he lacked the true relator's fine discrimination, that weighs and sifts
authorities and rejects the inadequate. Malicious critics declared
that all was grist that came to his mill. Yet his popularity with
that class of readers whom he did not shock by his disquisitions on re-
ligions and morals, or make distrustful by his sweeping generalizations
and scientific inaccuracies, is due to the fact that his book appeared


## p. 2677 (#239) ###########################################

HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE
2677
at the right moment: for the time was really come to make history
something more than a chronicle of detached facts and anecdotes.
The scientific spirit was awake, and demanded that human action,
like the processes of nature, be made the subject of general law.
The mind of Buckle proved fruitful soil for those germs of thought
floating in the air, and he gave them visible form in his history. If
he was not a leader, he was a brilliant formulator of thought, and he
was the first to put before the reading world, then ready to receive
them, ideas and speculations till now belonging to the student. For
he wrote with the determination to be intelligible to the general
reader. It detracts nothing from the permanent value of his work
thus to state its genesis, for this is merely to apply to it his own
methods.
Moreover, a perpetual charm lies in his clear, limpid English, a
medium perfectly adapted to calm exposition or to impassioned rhet-
oric. Whatever the defects of Buckle's system: whatever the inaccur-
acies that the advance of thirty years of patient scientific labors can
easily point out; however sweeping his generalization; or however
dogmatic his assertions, the book must be allowed high rank among
the works that set men thinking, and must thus be conceded to pos-
sess enduring value.
MORAL VERSUS INTELLECTUAL PRINCIPLES IN HUMAN
PROGRESS
From the History of Civilization in England'
THE
HERE is unquestionably nothing to be found in the world
which has undergone so little change as those great dog-
mas of which moral systems are composed. To do good to
others; to sacrifice for their benefit your own wishes; to love
your neighbor as yourself; to forgive your enemies; to restrain
your passions; to honor your parents; to respect those who are
set over you,— these and a few others are the sole essentials of
morals: but they have been known for thousands of years, and
not one jot or tittle has been added to them by all the sermons,
homilies, and text-books which moralists and theologians have
been able to produce. But if we contrast this stationary aspect
of moral truths with the progressive aspect of intellectual truths,
the difference is indeed startling. All the great moral systems
which have exercised much influence have been fundamentally
the same; all the great intellectual systems have been funda-
mentally different. In reference to our moral conduct, there is


## p. 2678 (#240) ###########################################

2678
HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE
not a single principle now known to the most cultivated Euro-
peans which was not likewise known to the ancients. In refer-
ence to the conduct of our intellect, the moderns have not only
made the most important additions to every department of knowl-
edge that the ancients ever attempted to study, but besides this
they have upset and revolutionized the old methods of inquiry;
they have consolidated into one great scheme all those resources
of induction which Aristotle alone dimly perceived; and they
have created sciences, the faintest idea of which never entered
the mind of the boldest thinker antiquity produced.
These are, to every educated man, recognized and notorious
facts; and the inference to be drawn from them is immediately
obvious. Since civilization is the product of moral and intellec-
tual agencies, and since that product is constantly changing, it
evidently cannot be regulated by the stationary agent; because,
when surrounding circumstances are unchanged, a stationary agent
can only produce a stationary effect. The only other agent is
the intellectual one; and that this is the real mover may be
proved in two distinct ways: first because, being as we have
already seen either moral or intellectual, and being as we have
also seen not moral, it must be intellectual; and secondly, be-
cause the intellectual principle has an activity and a capacity for
adaptation which, as I undertake to show, is quite sufficient to
account for the extraordinary progress that during several cen-
turies Europe has continued to make.
Such are the main arguments by which my view is supported;
but there are also other and collateral circumstances which are
well worthy of consideration. The first is, that the intellectual
principle is not only far more progressive than the moral prin-
ciple, but is also far more permanent in its results. The
acquisitions made by the intellect are, in every civilized country,
carefully preserved, registered in certain well-understood formulas,
and protected by the use of technical and scientific language;
they are easily handed down from one generation to another, and
thus assuming an accessible, or as it were a tangible form, they
often influence the most distant posterity, they become the heir-
looms of mankind, the immortal bequest of the genius to which
they owe their birth. But the good deeds effected by our moral
faculties are less capable of transmission; they are of a more
private and retiring character: while as the motives to which
they owe their origin are generally the result of self-discipline


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HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE
2679
and of self-sacrifice, they have to be worked out by every man
for himself; and thus, begun by each anew, they derive little
benefit from the maxims of preceding experience, nor can they
well be stored up for the use of future moralists.
The conse-
quence is that although moral excellence is more amiable, and
to most persons more attractive, than intellectual excellence, still
it must be confessed that looking at ulterior results, it is far less
active, less permanent, and as I shall presently prove, less pro-
ductive of real good. Indeed, if we examine the effects of the
most active philanthropy and of the largest and most disinter-
ested kindness, we shall find that those effects are, comparatively
speaking, short-lived; that there is only a small number of indi-
viduals they come in contact with and benefit; that they rarely
survive the generation which witnessed their commencement; and
that when they take the more durable form of founding great
public charities, such institutions invariably fall, first into abuse,
then into decay, and after a time are either destroyed or per-
verted from their original intention, mocking the effort by which
it is vainly attempted to perpetuate the memory even of the
purest and most energetic benevolence.
These conclusions are no doubt very unpalatable; and what
makes them peculiarly offensive is, that it is impossible to refute
them. For the deeper we penetrate into this question, the more
clearly shall we see the superiority of intellectual acquisitions
over moral feeling. There is no instance on record of
ignorant man who, having good intentions and supreme power
to enforce them, has not done far more evil than good. And
whenever the intentions have been very eager, and the power
very extensive, the evil has been enormous. But if you can
diminish the sincerity of that man, if you can mix some alloy
with his motives, you will likewise diminish the evil which he
works. If he is selfish as well as ignorant, it will often happen
[that] you may play off his vice against his ignorance, and by
exciting his fears restrain his mischief. If, however, he has no
fear, if he is entirely unselfish, if his sole object is the good of
others, if he pursues that object with enthusiasm, upon a large
scale, and with disinterested zeal, then it is that you have no
check upon him, you have no means of preventing the calamities
which in an ignorant age an ignorant man will be sure to inflict.
How entirely this is verified by experience, we may see in
studying the history of religious persecution. To punish even a
an


## p. 2680 (#242) ###########################################

2680
HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE
an
single man for his religious tenets is assuredly a crime of the
deepest dye; but to punish a large body of men, to persecute an
entire sect, to attempt to extirpate opinions which, growing out
of the state of society in which they arise, are themselves a
manifestation of the marvelous and luxuriant fertility of the
human mind, — to do this is not only one of the most pernicious,
but one of the most foolish acts that can possibly be conceived.
Nevertheless it is undoubted fact that an overwhelming
majority of religious persecutors have been men of the purest
intentions, of the most admirable and unsullied morals. It is
impossible that this should be otherwise. For they are not bad-
intentioned men who seek to enforce opinions which they believe
to be good. Still less are they bad men who are so regardless
of temporal considerations as to employ all the resources of their
power, not for their own benefit, but for the purpose of propa-
gating a religion which they think necessary to the future
happiness of mankind. Such men as these are not bad, they are
only ignorant; ignorant of the nature of truth, ignorant of the
consequences of their own acts. But in a moral point of view
their motives are unimpeachable. Indeed, it is the very ardor of
their sincerity which warms them into persecution. It is the
holy zeal by which they are fired that quickens their fanaticism
into a deadly activity. If you can impress any man with an
absorbing conviction of the supreme importance of some moral
or religious doctrine; if you can make him believe that those
who reject that doctrine are doomed to eternal perdition; if you
then give that man power, and by means of his ignorance blind
him to the ulterior consequences of his own act, -- he will
infallibly persecute those who deny his doctrine; and the extent
of his persecution will be regulated by the extent of his sin-
cerity. Diminish the sincerity, and you will diminish the perse-
cution; in other words, by weakening the virtue you may check
the evil. This is a truth of which history furnishes such innu-
merable examples, that to deny it would be not only to reject
the plainest and most conclusive arguments, but to refuse the
concurrent testimony of every age. I will merely select two
cases, which, from the entire difference in their circumstances,
are very apposite as illustrations: the first being from the history
of Paganism, the other from the history of Christianity; and
both proving the inability of moral feelings to control religious
persecution.


## p. 2681 (#243) ###########################################

HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE
2681
I. The Roman emperors, as is well known, subjected the
early Christians to persecutions which, though they have been
exaggerated, were frequent and very grievous. But what to some
persons must appear extremely strange, is, that among the active
authors of these cruelties we find the names of the best men
who ever sat on the throne; while the worst and most infamous
princes were precisely those who spared the Christians, and took
no heed of their increase. The two most thoroughly depraved
of all the emperors were certainly Commodus and Elagabalus;
neither of whom persecuted the new religion, or indeed adopted
any measures against it. They were too reckless of the future,
too selfish, too absorbed in their own infamous pleasures, to mind
whether truth or error prevailed; and being thus indifferent to
the welfare of their subjects, they cared nothing about the
progress of a creed which they, as Pagan emperors, were bound
to regard as a fatal and impious delusion. They therefore
allowed Christianity to run its course, unchecked by those penal
laws which more honest but more mistaken rulers would assuredly
have enacted. We find, accordingly, that the great enemy of
Christianity was Marcus Aurelius; a man of kindly temper, and
of fearless, unflinching honesty, but whose reign was characterized
by a persecution from which he would have refrained had he
been less in earnest about the religion of his fathers. And to
complete the argument, it may be added that the last and one
of the most strenuous opponents of Christianity who occupied the
throne of the Cæsars was Julian; a prince of eminent probity,
whose opinions are often attacked, but against whose moral con-
duct even calumny itself has hardly breathed a suspicion.
II. The second illustration is supplied by Spain; a country
of which it must be confessed, that in no other have religiuos
feelings exercised such sway over the affairs of men. No other
European nation has produced so many ardent and disinterested
missionaries, zealous self-denying martyrs, who have cheerfully
sacrificed their lives in order to propagate truths which they
thought necessary to be known. Nowhere else have the spiritual
classes been so long in the ascendant; nowhere else are the
people so devout, the churches so crowded, the clergy so numer-
But the sincerity and honesty of purpose by which the
Spanish people, taken as a whole, have always been marked,
have not only been unable to prevent religious persecution, but
have proved the means of encouraging it. If the nation had
ous.


## p. 2682 (#244) ###########################################

2682
HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE
been more lukewarm, it would have been more tolerant. As it
was, the preservation of the faith became the first consideration;
and everything being sacrificed to this one object, it naturally
happened that zeal begat cruelty, and the soil was prepared in
which the Inquisition took root and flourished. The supporters
of that barbarous institution were not hypocrites, but enthusiasts.
Hypocrites are for the most part too supple to be cruel. For
cruelty is a stern and unbending passion; while hypocrisy is a
fawning and flexible art, which accommodates itself to human
feelings, and flatters the weakness of men in order that it may
gain its own ends. In Spain, the earnestness of the nation,
being concentrated on a single topic, carried everything before
it; and hatred of heresy becoming a habit, persecution of heresy
was thought a duty. The conscientious energy with which that
duty was fulfilled is seen in the history of the Spanish Church.
Indeed, that the inquisitors were remarkable for an undeviating
and uncorruptible integrity may be proved in a variety of ways,
and from different and independent sources of evidence. This is
a question to which I shall hereafter return; but there are two
testimonies which I cannot omit, because, from the circumstances
attending them, they are peculiarly unimpeachable. Llorente,
the great historian of the Inquisition, and its bitter enemy, had
access to its private papers: and yet, with the fullest means of
information, he does not even insinuate a charge against the
moral character of the inquisitors; but while execrating the
cruelty of their conduct, he cannot deny the purity of their
intentions. Thirty years earlier, Townsend, a clergyman of the
Church of England, published his valuable work on Spain: and
though, as a Protestant and an Englishman, he had every reason
to be prejudiced against the infamous system which he describes,
he also can bring no charge against those who upheld it; but
having occasion to mention its establishment at Barcelona, one
of its most important branches, he makes the remarkable admis-
sion that all its members are men of worth, and that most of
them are of distinguished humanity.
These facts, startling as they are, form a very small part of
that vast mass of evidence which history contains, and which
decisively proves the utter inability of moral feelings to diminish
religious persecution. The way in which the diminution has been
really effected by the mere progress of intellectual acquirements
will be pointed out in another part of this volume; when we


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HENRY THOMAS PUCKLE
2683
shall see that the great antagonist of intolerance is not humanity,
but knowledge. It is to the diffusion of knowledge, and to that
alone, that we owe the comparative cessation of what is unques-
tionably the greatest evil men have ever inflicted on their own
species. For that religious persecution is a greater evil than any
other, is apparent, not so much from the enormous and almost
incredible number of its known victims, as from the fact that the
unknown must be far more numerous, and that history gives no
account of those who have been spared in the body in order that
they might suffer in the mind. We hear much of martyrs and
confessors — of those who were slain by the sword, or consumed
in the fire: but we know little of that still larger number who by
the mere threat of persecution have been driven into an out-
ward abandonment of their real opinions; and who, thus forced
into an apostasy the heart abhors, have passed the remainder of
their lives in the practice of a constant and humiliating hypoc-
risy. It is this which is the real curse of religious persecution.
For in this way, men being constrained to mask their thoughts,
there arises a habit of securing safety by falsehood, and of pur-
chasing impunity with deceit. In this way fraud becomes
necessary of life; insincerity is made a daily custom; the whole
tone of public feeling is vitiated, and the gross amount of vice
and of error fearfully increased. Surely, then, we have reason to
say that, compared to this, all other crimes are of small account;
and we may well be grateful for that increase of intellectual pur-
suits which has destroyed an evil that some among us would
even now willingly restore.
a
THE MYTHICAL ORIGIN OF HISTORY
From the History of Civilization in England)
A
T A very early period in the progress of a people, and long
before they are acquainted with the use of letters, they
feel the want of some resource which in peace may amuse
their leisure, and in war may stimulate their courage. This is
supplied to them by the invention of ballads; which form the
groundwork of all historical knowledge, and which, in one shape
or another, are found among some of the rudest tribes of the
earth. They are for the most part sung by a class of men whose


## p. 2684 (#246) ###########################################

2684
HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE
particular business it is thus to preserve the stock of traditions.
Indeed, so natural is this curiosity as to past events that there
are few nations to whom these bards or minstrels are unknown.
Thus, to select a few instances, it is they who have preserved
the popular traditions, not only of Europe, but also of China,
Tibet, and Tartary; likewise of India, of Scinde, of Beloochistan,
of Western Asia, of the islands of the Black Sea, of Egypt, of
Western Africa, of North America, of South America, and of
the islands in the Pacific.
In all these countries, letters were long unknown, and as a
people in that state have no means of perpetuating their history
except by oral tradition, they select the form best calculated to
assist their memory; and it will, I believe, be found that the
first rudiments of knowledge consist always of poetry, and often
of rhyme. The jingle pleases the ear of the barbarian, and
affords a security that he will hand it down to his children in
the unimpaired state in which he received it. This guarantee
against error increases still further the value of these ballads;
and instead of being considered as a mere amusement, they rise
to the dignity of judicial authorities. The allusions contained in
them are satisfactory proofs to decide the merits of rival fami-
lies, or even to fix the limits of those rude estates which such a
society can possess. We therefore find that the professed reciters
and composers of these songs are the recognized judges in all
disputed matters; and as they are often priests, and believed to
be inspired, it is probably in this way that the notion of the
divine origin of poetry first arose. These ballads will of course
vary according to the customs and temperaments of the different
nations, and according to the climate to which they are accus-
tomed. In the south they assume a passionate and voluptuous
form; in the north they are rather remarkable for their tragic
and warlike character. But notwithstanding these diversities, all
such productions have one feature in common: they are not
only founded on truth, but making allowance for the colorings
of poetry, they are all strictly true. Men who are constantly
repeating songs which they constantly hear, and who appeal to
the authorized singers of them as final umpires in disputed ques-
tions, are not likely to be mistaken on matters in the accuracy
of which they have so lively an interest.
This is the earliest and most simple of the various stages
through which history is obliged to pass. But in the course of


## p. 2685 (#247) ###########################################

HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE
2685
time, unless unfavorable circumstances intervene, society ad-
vances; and among other changes, there is one in particular of
the greatest importance. I mean the introduction of the art of
writing, which, before many generations are passed, must effect
a complete alteration in the character of the national traditions.
The manner in which this occurs has, so far as I am aware,
never been pointed out; and it will therefore be interesting to
attempt to trace some of its details.
The first and perhaps the most obvious consideration is, that
the introduction of the art of writing gives permanence to the
national knowledge, and thus lessens the utility of that oral in-
formation in which all the acquirements of an unlettered people
must be contained. Hence it is that as a country advances the
influence of tradition diminishes, and traditions themselves be-
come less trustworthy. Besides this, the preservers of these
traditions lose in this stage of society much of their former rep-
utation. Among a perfectly unlettered people, the singers of
ballads are, as we have already seen, the sole depositaries of
those historical facts on which the fame, and often the property,
of their chieftains principally depend. But when this same
nation becomes acquainted with the art of writing, it grows
unwilling to intrust these matters to the memory of itinerant
singers, and avails itself of its new art to preserve them in a
fixed and material form. As soon as this is effected, the import-
ance of those who repeat the national traditions is sensibly dimin-
ished. They gradually sink into an inferior class, which, having
lost its old reputation, no longer consists of those superior men
to whose abilities it owed its former fame. Thus we see that
although without letters there can be no knowledge of much im-
portance, it is nevertheless true that their introduction is injurious
to historical traditions in two distinct ways: first by weakening
the traditions, and secondly by weakening the class of men
whose occupation it is to preserve them.
But this is not all. Not only does the art of writing lessen
the number of traditionary truths, but it directly encourages the
propagation of falsehoods. This is effected by what may be
termed a principle of accumulation, to which all systems of belief
have been deeply indebted. In ancient times, for example, the
name of Hercules was given to several of those great public
robbers who scourged mankind, and who, if their crimes were
successful as well as enormous, were sure after their death to be


## p. 2686 (#248) ###########################################

2686
HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE
worshiped as heroes. How this appellation originated is uncer-
tain; but it was probably bestowed at first on a single man, and
afterwards on those who resembled him in the character of their
achievements. This mode of extending the use of a single name
is natural to a barbarous people, and would cause little or no
confusion, as long as the tradition of the country remained local
and unconnected. But as soon as these traditions became fixed
by a written language, the collectors of them, deceived by the
similarity of name, assembled the scattered facts, and ascribing to
a single man these accumulated exploits, degraded history to the
level of a miraculous mythology.
In the same way, soon after
the use of letters was known in the North of Europe, there was
drawn up by Saxo Grammaticus the life of the celebrated Ragnar
Lodbrok. Either from accident or design, this great warrior of
Scandinavia, who had taught England to tremble, had received
the same name as another Ragnar, who was prince of Jutland
about a hundred years earlier. This coincidence would have
caused no confusion as long as each district preserved a distinct
and independent account of its own Ragnar. But by possessing
the resource of writing, men became able to consolidate the sep-
arate trains of events, and as it were, fuse two truths into one
And this was what actually happened. The credulous Saxo
put together the different exploits of both Ragnars, and ascribing
the whole of them to his favorite hero, has involved in obscurity
one of the most interesting parts of the early history of Europe.
The annals of the North afford another curious instance of
this source of error. A tribe of Finns called Quæns occupied a
considerable part of the eastern coast of the Gulf of Bothnia.
Their country was known as Quænland; and this name gave rise
to a belief that to the north of the Baltic there was a nation
of Amazons. This would easily have been corrected by local
knowledge: but by the use of writing, the flying rumor was at
once fixed; and the existence of such a people is positively
affirmed in some of the earliest European histories. Thus too
Åbo, the ancient capital of Finland, was called Turku, which in
the Swedish language means a market-place. Adam of Bremen,
having occasion to treat of the countries adjoining the Baltic,
was so misled by the word Turku that this celebrated historian
assures his readers that there were Turks in Finland.
To these illustrations many others might be added, showing
how mere names deceived the early historians, and gave rise to
error.


## p. 2687 (#249) ###########################################

HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE
2687
relations which were entirely false, and might have been rectified
on the spot; but which, owing to the art of writing, were carried
into distant countries and thus placed beyond the reach of con-
tradiction. Of such cases, one more may be mentioned, as it
concerns the history of England. Richard I. , the most barbarous
of our princes, was known to his contemporaries as the Lion; an
appellation conferred upon him on account of his fearlessness
and the ferocity of his temper. Hence it was said that he had
the heart of a lion; and the title Cæur de Lion not only became
indissolubly connected with his name, but actually gave rise to a
story, repeated by innumerable writers, according to which he
slew a lion in a single combat. The name gave rise to the story;
the story confirmed the name: and another fiction was added to
that long series of falsehoods of which history mainly consisted
during the Middle Ages.
The corruptions of history, thus naturally brought about by
the mere introduction of letters, were in Europe aided by an
additional cause. With the art of writing, there was in most
cases also communicated a knowledge of Christianity; and the
new religion not only destroyed many of the Pagan traditions,
but falsified the remainder by amalgamating them with monas-
tic legends. The extent to which this was carried would form
a curious subject for inquiry; but one or two instances of it will
perhaps be sufficient to satisfy the generality of readers.
Of the earliest state of the great Northern nations we have
little positive evidence; but several of the lays in which the
Scandinavian poets related the feats of their ancestors or of
their contemporaries are still preserved; and notwithstanding
their subsequent corruption, it is admitted by the most compe-
tent judges that they embody real and historical events. But in
the ninth and tenth centuries, Christian missionaries found their
way across the Baltic, and introduced a knowledge of their reli-
gion among the inhabitants of Northern Europe. Scarcely was
this effected when the sources of history began to be poisoned.
At the end of the eleventh century Sæmund Sigfusson, a Christ-
ian priest, gathered the popular and hitherto unwritten histories
of the North into what is called the Elder Edda'; and he was
satisfied with adding to his compilation the corrective of a Christ-
ian hymn.
A hundred years later there was made another
collection of the native histories; but the principle which I have
mentioned, having had a longer time to operate, now displayed


## p. 2688 (#250) ###########################################

2688
HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE
its effects still more clearly. In this second collection, which is
known by the name of the Younger Edda,' there is an agree-
able mixture of Greek, Jewish, and Christian fables; and for the
first time in the Scandinavian annals, we meet with the widely
diffused fiction of a Trojan descent.
If by way of further illustration we turn to other parts of the
world, we shall find a series of facts confirming this view.
shall find that in those countries where there has been no change
of religion, history is more trustworthy and connected than in
those countries where such a change has taken place. In India,
Brahmanism, which is still supreme, was established at so early
a period that its origin is lost in the remotest antiquity. The
consequence is that the native annals have never been corrupted
by any new superstition, and the Hindus are possessed of his-
toric traditions more ancient than can be found among any other
Asiatic people. In the same way, the Chinese have for upwards
of two thousand years preserved the religion of Fo, which is a
form of Buddhism. In China, therefore, though the civilization
has never been equal to that of India, there is a history, not
indeed as old as the natives would wish us to believe, but still
stretching back to several centuries before the Christian era, from
whence it has been brought down to our own times in an unin-
terrupted succession. On the other hand, the Persians, whose
intellectual development was certainly superior to that of the
Chinese, are nevertheless without any authentic information
respecting the early transactions of their ancient monarchy. For
this I can no possible reason except the fact that Persia,
soon after the promulgation of the Koran, was conquered by the
Mohammedans, who completely subverted the Parsee religion
and thus interrupted the stream of the national traditions, Hence
it is that, putting aside the myths of the Zendavesta, we have
no native authorities for Persian history of any value, until
the appearance in the eleventh century of the Shah Nameh; in
which, however, Firdusi has mingled the miraculous relations of
those two religions by which his country had been successively
subjected. The result is, that if it were not for the various dis-
coveries which have been made, of monuments, inscriptions, and
coins, we should be compelled to rely on the scanty and inaccu-
rate details in the Greek writers for our knowledge of the history
of one of the most important of the Asiatic monarchies.
see


## p. 2689 (#251) ###########################################

2689
GEORGE LOUIS LE CLERC BUFFON
(1707-1788)
BY SPENCER TROTTER
SCIENCE becomes part of the general stock of knowledge only
after it has entered into the literature of a people. The
bare skeleton of facts must be clothed with the flesh and
blood of imagination, through the humanizing influence of literary
expression, before it can be assimilated by the average intellectual
being. The scientific investigator is rarely endowed with the gift of
weaving the facts into a story that will charm, and the man of let-
ters is too often devoid of that patience which is the chief virtue of
the scientist. These gifts of the gods are
bestowed upon mankind under the guiding
genius of the division of labor.
The name
of Buffon will always be associated with
natural history, though in the man himself
the spirit of science was conspicuously ab-
sent. In this respect he was in marked
contrast with his contemporary Linnæus,
whose intellect and labor laid the founda-
tions of much of the scientific knowledge
of to-day.
George Louis le Clerc Buffon was born
on the 7th of September, 1707, at Montbar,
BUFFON
in Burgundy. His father, Benjamin le Clerc,
who was possessed of a fortune, appears to have bestowed great
care and liberality on the education of his son. While a youth Buf-
fon made the acquaintance of a young English nobleman, the Duke
of Kingston, whose tutor, a man well versed in the knowledge of
physical science, exerted a profound influence on the future career
of the young Frenchman. At twenty-one Buffon came into his
mother's estate, a fortune yielding an annual income of £12,000.
But this wealth did not change his purpose to gain knowledge. He
traveled through Italy, and after living for a short period in England
returned to France and devoted his time to literary work. His first
efforts were translations of two English works of science — Hale's
(Vegetable Statics) and Newton's (Fluxions'; and he followed these
with various studies in the different branches of physical science.
The determining event in his life, which led him to devote the
rest of his years to the study of natural history, was the death of his

V-169


## p. 2690 (#252) ###########################################

2690
GEORGE LOUIS LE CLERC BUFFON
cessor.
friend Du Fay, the Intendant of the Jardin du Roi (now the Jardin
des Plantes), who on his death-bed recommended Buffon as his suc-
A man of letters, Buffon saw before him the opportunity to
write a natural history of the earth and its inhabitants; and he set
to work with a zeal that lasted until his death in 1788, at the age of
eighty-one. His great work, L'Histoire Naturelle,' was the outcome
of these years of labor, the first edition being complete in thirty-six
quarto volumes.
The first fifteen volumes of this great work, published between
the years 1749 and 1767, treated of the theory of the earth, the
nature of animals, and the history of man and viviparous quadru-
peds; and was the joint work of Buffon and Daubenton, a physician
of Buffon's native village. The scientific portion of the work was
done by Daubenton, who possessed considerable anatomical knowl-
edge, and who wrote accurate descriptions of the various animals
mentioned. Buffon, however, affected to ignore the work of his co-
laborer and reaped the entire glory, so that Daubenton withdrew
his services. Later appeared the nine volumes on birds, in which
Buffon was aided by the Abbé Sexon. Then followed the 'History of
Minerals) in five volumes, and seven volumes of Supplements,' the
last one of which was published the year after Buffon's death.
One can hardly admire the personal character of Buffon.
He was
vain and superficial, and given to extravagant speculations. He is
reported to have said, “I know but five great geniuses - Newton,
Bacon, Leibnitz, Montesquieu, and myself. His natural vanity was
undoubtedly fostered by the adulation which he received from those
in authority. He saw his own statue placed in the cabinet of Louis
XVI. , with the inscription Majestati Naturæ par ingenium. ” Louis
XV. bestowed upon him a title of nobility, and crowned heads
« addressed him in language of the most exaggerated compliment. ”
Buffon's conduct and conversation were marked throughout by a cer-
tain coarseness and vulgarity that constantly appear in his writings.
He was foppish and trifling, and affected religion though at heart a
disbeliever.
The chief value of Buffon's work lies in the fact that it first
brought the subject of natural history into popular literature. Prob-
ably no writer of the time, with the exception of Voltaire and Rous-
seau, so widely read and quoted as Buffon. But the gross
"inaccuracy which pervaded his writings, and the visionary theories in
which he constantly indulged, gave the work a less permanent value
than it might otherwise have attained. Buffon detested the scientific
method, preferring literary finish to accuracy of statement. Although
the work was widely translated, and was the only popular natural
history of the time, there is little of it that is worthy of a place in
was


## p. 2691 (#253) ###########################################

GEORGE LOUIS LE CLERC BUFFON
2691
the world's best literature. It is chiefly as a relic of a past literary
epoch, and as the pioneer work in a new literary field, that Buffon's
writings appeal to us. They awakened for the first time a wide
interest in natural history, though their author was distinctly not a
naturalist.
Arabella Buckley has said of Buffon and his writings that though
<he often made great mistakes and arrived at false conclusions, still
he had so much genius and knowledge that a great part of his work
will always remain true. Cuvier has left us a good memoir of Buf-
fon in the Biographie Universelle. '
Arenei Sorteo,
NATURE
From the Natural History)
S°
O with what magnificence Nature shines upon the earth! A
pure light extending from east to west gilds successively
the hemispheres of the globe. An airy transparent element
surrounds it; a warm and fruitful heat animates and develops all
its germs of life; living and salutary waters tend to their support
and increase; high points scattered over the lands, by arresting
the airy vapors, render these sources inexhaustible and always
fresh; gathered into immense hollows, they divide the continents.
The extent of the sea is as great as that of the land. It
is not a cold and sterile element, but another empire as rich
and populated as the first. The finger of God has marked the
boundaries. When the waters encroach upon the beaches of the
west, they leave bare those of the east. This enormous mass of
water, itself inert, follows the guidance of heavenly movements.
Balanced by the regular oscillations of ebb and flow, it rises and
falls with the planet of night; rising still higher when concur-
rent with the planet of day, the two uniting their forces during
the equinoxes cause the great tides. Our connection with the
heavens is nowhere more clearly indicated. From these constant
and general movements result others variable and particular:
removals of earth, deposits at the bottom of water forming ele-
vations like those upon the earth's surface, currents which, fol-
lowing the direction of these mountain ranges, shape them to


## p. 2692 (#254) ###########################################

2692
GEORGE LOUIS LE CLERC BUFFON
corresponding angles; and rolling in the midst of the waves, as
waters upon the earth, are in truth the rivers of the sea.
The air, too, lighter and more fluid than water, obeys many
forces: the distant action of sun and moon, the immediate action
of the sea, that of rarefying heat and of condensing cold, pro-
duce in it continual agitations. The winds are its currents,
driving before them and collecting the clouds. They produce
meteors; transport the humid vapors of maritime beaches to the
land surfaces of the continents; determine the storms; distrib-
ute the fruitful rains and kindly dews; stir the sea; agitate the
mobile waters, arrest or hasten the currents; raise floods; excite
tempests. The angry sea rises toward heaven and breaks roar-
ing against immovable dikes, which it can neither destroy nor
surmount.
The land elevated above sea-level is safe from these irrup-
tions. Its surface, enameled with flowers, adorned with ever
fresh verdure, peopled with thousands and thousands of differing
species of animals, is a place of repose; an abode of delights,
where man, placed to aid nature, dominates all other things, the
only one who can know and admire. God has made him specta-
tor of the universe and witness of his marvels. He is animated
by a divine spark which renders him a participant in the divine
mysteries; and by whose light he thinks and reflects, sees and
reads in the book of the world as in a copy of divinity.
Nature is the exterior throne of God's glory. The man who
studies and contemplates it rises gradually towards the interior
throne of omniscience. Made to adore the Creator, he com-
mands all the creatures. Vassal of heaven, king of earth, which
he ennobles and enriches, he establishes order, harmony, and
subordination among living beings. He embellishes Nature
itself; cultivates, extends, and refines it; suppresses its thistles
and brambles, and multiplies its grapes and roses.
Look upon the solitary beaches and sad lands where man has
never dwelt: covered rather bristling — with thick black
woods on all their rising ground, stunted barkless trees, bent,
twisted, falling from age; near by, others even more numerous,
rotting upon heaps already rotten,- stifling, burying the germs
ready to burst forth. Nature, young everywhere else, is here
decrepit. The land surmounted by the ruins of these produc-
tions offers, instead of flourishing verdure, only an incumbered
space pierced by aged trees, loaded with parasitic plants, lichens,
- or


## p. 2693 (#255) ###########################################

GEORGE LOUIS LE CLERC BUFFON
2693
agarics — impure fruits of corruption. In the low parts is water,
dead and stagnant because undirected; or swampy soil neither
solid nor liquid, hence unapproachable and useless to the habit-
ants both of land and of water. Here are swamps covered with
rank aquatic plants nourishing only venomous insects and haunted
by unclean animals. Between these low infectious marshes and
these higher ancient forests extend plains having nothing in com-
mon with our meadows, upon which weeds smother useful plants.
There is none of that fine turf which seems like down upon the
earth, or of that enameled lawn which announces a brilliant fer-
tility; but instead an interlacement of hard and thorny herbs
which seem to cling to each other rather than to the soil, and
which, successively withering and impeding each other, form a
coarse mat several feet thick. There are no roads, no communi-
cations, no vestiges of intelligence in these wild places. Man,
obliged to follow the paths of savage beasts and to watch con-
stantly lest he become their prey, terrified by their roars, thrilled
by the very silence of these profound solitudes, turns back and
says:
Primitive nature is hideous and dying; I, I alone, can make
it living and agreeable. Let us dry these swamps; converting
into streams and canals, animate these dead waters by setting
them in motion. Let us use the active and devouring element
once hidden from us, and which we ourselves have discovered;
and set fire to this superfluous mat, to these aged forests already
half consumed, and finish with iron what fire cannot destroy!
Soon, instead of rush and water-lily from which the toad com-
pounds his venom, we shall see buttercups and clover, sweet and
salutary herbs. Herds of bounding animals will tread this once
impracticable soil and find abundant, constantly renewed pasture.
They will multiply, to multiply again. Let us employ the new
aid to complete our work; and let the ox, submissive to the yoke,
exercise his strength in furrowing the land. Then it will grow
young again with cultivation, and a new nature shall spring up
under our hands.
How beautiful is cultivated Nature when by the cares of man
she is brilliantly and pompously adorned! He himself is the
chief ornament, the most noble production; in multiplying him-
self he multiplies her most precious gem. She seems to multiply
herself with him, for his art brings to light all that her bosom
conceals. What treasures hitherto ignored! What new riches!


## p. 2694 (#256) ###########################################

2694
GEORGE LOUIS LE CLERC BUFFON
Flowers, fruits, perfected grains infinitely multiplied; useful
species of animals transported, propagated, endlessly increased;
harmful species destroyed, confined, banished; gold, and iron
more necessary than gold, drawn from the bowels of the earth;
torrents confined; rivers directed and restrained; the sea, submis-
sive and comprehended, crossed from one hemisphere to the other;
the earth everywhere accessible, everywhere living and fertile; in
the valleys, laughing prairies; in the plains, rich pastures or
richer harvests; the hills loaded with vines and fruits, their sum-
mits crowned by useful trees and young forests; deserts changed
to cities inhabited by a great people, who, ceaselessly circulating,
scatter themselves from centres to extremities; frequent open
roads and communications established everywhere like so many
witnesses of the force and union of society; a thousand other
monuments of power and glory: proving that man, master of the
world, has transformed it, renewed its whole surface, and that
he shares his empire with Nature.
However, he rules only by right of conquest, and enjoys
rather than possesses. He can only retain by ever-renewed efforts.
If these cease, everything languishes, changes, grows disordered,
enters again into the hands of Nature. She retakes her rights;
effaces man's work; covers his most sumptuous monuments with
dust and moss; destroys them in time, leaving him only the
regret that he has lost by his own fault the conquests of his
ancestors. These periods during which man loses his domain, ages
of barbarism when everything perishes, are always prepared by
wars and arrive with famine and depopulation. Man, who can do
nothing except in numbers, and is only strong in union, only
happy in peace, has the madness to arm himself for his unhap-
piness and to fight for his own ruin. Incited by insatiable greed,
blinded by still more insatiable ambition, he renounces the senti-
ments of humanity, turns all his forces against himself, and seek-
ing to destroy his fellow, does indeed destroy himself. And after
these days of blood and carnage, when the smoke of glory has
passed away, he sees with sadness that the earth is devastated,
the arts buried, the nations dispersed, the races enfeebled, his
own happiness ruined, and his power annihilated.


## p. 2695 (#257) ###########################################

GEORGE LOUIS LE CLERC BUFFON
2695
THE HUMMING-BIRD
From the Natural History)
O"
F All animated beings this is the most elegant in form and
the most brilliant in colors. The stones and metals pol-
ished by our arts are not comparable to this jewel of
Nature. She has placed it least in size of the order of birds,
marime miranda in minimis. Her masterpiece is the little
humming-bird, and upon it she has heaped all the gifts which
the other birds may only share. Lightness, rapidity, nimbleness,
grace, and rich apparel all belong to this little favorite. The
emerald, the ruby, and the topaz gleam upon its dress.
It never
soils them with the dust of earth, and in its aërial life scarcely
touches the turf an instant. Always in the air, flying from
flower to flower, it has their freshness as well as their brightness.
It lives upon their nectar, and dwells only in the climates where
they perennially bloom.
All kinds of humming-birds are found in the hottest coun-
tries of the New World. They are quite numerous and seem to be
confined between the two tropics, for those which penetrate the
temperate zones in summer only stay there a short time. They
seem to follow the sun in its advance and retreat; and to fly on
the wing of zephyrs after an eternal spring.
The smaller species of the humming-birds are less in size
than the great fly wasp, and more slender than the drone. Their
beak is a fine needle and their tongue a slender thread. Their
little black eyes are like two shining points, and the feathers of
their wings so delicate that they seem transparent. Their short
feet, which they use very little, are so tiny one can scarcely see
them. They alight only at night, resting in the air during the
day. They have a swift continual humming flight. The move-
ment of their wings is so rapid that when pausing in the air, the
bird seems quite motionless. One sees him stop before a blossom,
then dart like a flash to another, visiting all, plunging his tongue
into their hearts, flattening them with his wings, never settling
anywhere, but neglecting none. He hastens his inconstancies only
to pursue his loves more eagerly and to multiply his innocent
joys. For this light lover of flowers lives at their expense without
ever blighting them. He only pumps their honey, and to this
alone his tongue seems destined.


## p. 2696 (#258) ###########################################

2696
GEORGE LOUIS LE CLERC BUFFON
The vivacity of these small birds is only equaled by their
courage, or rather their audacity. Sometimes they may be seen
chasing furiously birds twenty times their size, fastening upon
their bodies, letting themselves be carried along in their flight,
while they peck them fiercely until their tiny rage is satisfied.
Sometimes they fight each other vigorously. Impatience seems
their very essence.
If they approach a blossom and find it faded,
they mark their spite by hasty rending of the petals. Their only
voice is a weak cry,"scrop, screp,” frequent and repeated, which
they utter in the woods from dawn, until at the first rays of the
sun they all take flight and scatter over the country.


## p. 2696 (#259) ###########################################



## p. 2696 (#260) ###########################################


o cresch
៨
BULWER-LYTTON.


## p. 2697 (#261) ###########################################

2697
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
(1803-1873)
BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE
He patrician in literature is always an interesting spectacle.
We are prone to regard his performance as a test of the
worth of long descent and high breeding. If he does well,
he vindicates the claims of his caste; if ill, we infer that inherited
estates and blue blood but surface advantages, leaving the
effective brain unimproved, or even causing deterioration. But the
argument is still open; and whether genius be the creature of cir-
cumstance or divinely independent, is a question which prejudice
rather than evidence commonly decides.
Certainly literature tries men's souls. The charlatan must betray
himself. Genius shines through all cerements. On the other hand,
genius may be nourished, and the charlatan permeates all classes.
The truth probably is that an aristocrat is quite as apt as a plebeian
to be a good writer. Only since there are fewer of the former than
of the latter, and since, unlike the last, the first are seldom forced to
live by their brains, there are more plebeian than aristocratic names
on the literary roll of honor. Admitting this, the instance of the
writer known as “Bulwer) proves nothing one way or the other.
At all events, not, Was he a genius because he was a patrician ?
but, Was he a genius at all? is the inquiry most germane to our
present purpose.
An aristocrat of aristocrats undoubtedly he was, though it con-
cerns us not to determine whether the blood of Plantagenet kings
and Norman conquerors really flowed in his veins. On both father's
and mother's side he was thoroughly well connected. Heydon Hall
in Norfolk was the hereditary home of the Norman Bulwers; the
Saxon Lyttons had since the Conquest lived at Knebworth in Derby,
shire. The historic background of each family was honorable, and
when the marriage of William Earle Bulwer with Elizabeth Barbara
Lytton united them, it might be said that in their offspring England
found her type.
Edward, being the youngest son, had little money, but he hap-
pened to have brains. He began existence delicate and precocious.
Culture, with him, set in almost with what he would have termed
the "consciousness of his own identity, and the process never inter-
mitted: in fact, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, his


## p. 2698 (#262) ###########################################

2698
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
spiritual and intellectual emancipation was hindered by many ob-
stacles; for, an ailing child, he was petted by his mother, and such
germs of intelligence (verses at seven years old, and the like) as he
betrayed were trumpeted as prodigies. He was spoilt so long before
he was ripe that it is a marvel he ever ripened at all. Many years
must pass before vanity could be replaced in him by manly ambi-
tion; a vein of silliness is traceable through his career almost to the
end. He expatiated in the falsetto key; almost never do we hear in
his voice that hearty bass note so dear to plain humanity. In his pil-
grimage toward freedom he had to wrestle not only with flesh-and-
blood mothers, uncles, and wives, et id genus omne, but with the more
subtle and vital ideas, superstitions, and prejudices appertaining to
his social station. His worst foes were not those of his household
merely, but of his heart. The more arduous achievement of such a
man is to see his real self and believe in it.