No More Learning

The work
of the mediæval Empire was self-destructive; and it fostered,
while seeming to oppose, the nationalities that were destined to
replace it. It tamed the barbarous races of the North and
forced them within the pale of civilization. It preserved the arts
and literature of antiquity. In times of violence and oppression, ,
it set before its subjects the duty of rational obedience to an
authority whose watchwords were peace and religion. It kept
alive, when national hatreds were most bitter, the notion of a
great European Commonwealth. And by doing all this, it was
in effect abolishing the need for a centralizing and despotic
power like itself; it was making men capable of using national
independence aright; it was teaching them to rise to that concep-
tion of spontaneous activity, and a freedom which is above law
but not against it, to which national independence itself, if it is
to be a blessing at all, must be only a means. Those who mark
what has been the tendency of events since A. D. 1789, and who
remember how many of the crimes and calamities of the past are
still but half redressed, need not be surprised to see the so-called
principle of nationalities advocated with honest devotion as the
final and perfect form of political development. But such undis-
tinguishing advocacy is after all only the old error in a new
shape. If all other history did not bid us beware the habit of
taking the problems and the conditions of our own age for those
of all time, the warning which the Empire gives might alone be
warning enough. From the days of Augustus down to those of
Charles V. , the whole civilized world believed in its existence as
a part of the eternal fitness of things, and Christian theologians
were not behind heathen poets in declaring that when it perished
the world would perish with it. Yet the Empire is gone, and
the world remains, and hardly notes the change.


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2661
FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND
(1826–1880)
ERTAINLY, among the most useful of writers are the popular-
izers of science; those who can describe in readable, pictur-
esque fashion those wonders and innumerable inhabitants of
the world which the Dryasdusts discover, but which are apt to
escape the attention of idlers or of the busy workers in other fields.
Sometimes — not often — the same man unites the capacities of a
patient and accurate investigator and of an accomplished narrator.
To such men the field of enjoyment is boundless, as is the oppor-
tunity to promote the enjoyment of others.
One of these two-sided men was Francis Trevelyan Buckland,
popularly known as “Frank Buckland, and so called in some of
his books. His father, William Buckland, — at the time of the son's
birth canon of Christ College, Oxford, and subsequently Dean of
Westminster, — was the well-known geologist. As the father's life
was devoted to the study of the inorganic, so that of the son was
absorbed in the investigation of the organic world. He never tired
of watching the habits of living creatures of all kinds; he lived as
it were in a menagerie and it is related that his numerous callers
were accustomed to the most familiar and impertinent demonstrations
on the part of his monkeys and various other pets. He was an
expert salmon-fisher, and his actual specialty was fishes; but he could
not have these about him so conveniently as some other forms of
life, and he extended his studies and specimens widely beyond ich-
thyology.
Buckland was born December 17th, 1826, and died December 19tir,
1880. Brought up in a scientific atmosphere, he was all his life
interested in the same subjects. Educated as a physician and sur-
geon and distinguished for his anatomical skill, his training fitted
him for the careful investigation which is necessary on the part of
the biologist. He was fortunate too in receiving in early middle
life the government appointment of Inspector of Salmon Fisheries, and
so being enabled to devote himself wholly to his favorite pursuits.
In this position he was unwearied in his efforts to develop piscicult-
ure, and to improve the apparatus used by the fishermen, interesting
himself also in the condition of themselves and their families.
He was always writing. He was a very frequent contributor to
The Field from its foundation in 1856, and subsequently to Land


## p. 2662 (#224) ###########################################

2662
FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND
and Water, a periodical which he started in 1866, and to other
periodicals. He published a number of volumes, made up in great
part from his contributions to periodicals, most of them of a popular
character and full of interesting information. Among those which
are best known are the Curiosities of Natural History) (1857–72);
the Log-Book of a Fisherman and Geologist' (1875); a Natural
History of British Fishes) (1881); and Notes and Jottings from Ani-
mal Life,' which was not issued until 1882, though the material was
selected by himself.
Buckland was of a jovial disposition, and always sure to see the
humorous side of the facts which were presented to him; and in his
social life he was extremely unconventional, and inclined to merry
pranks. His books are as delightful as was their writer. They are
records of accurate, useful, eye-opening details as to fauna, all the
world over. They are written with a brisk, sincere informality that
suggest the lively talker rather than the writer. He takes
a-walking in green lanes and woods, and a-wading in brooks and still
pools — not drawing us into a class-room or a study. He enters into
the heart and life of creatures, and shows us how we should do the
A lively humor is in all his popular pages. He instructs
while smiling; and he is a savant while a light-hearted friend. Few
English naturalists are as genial — not even White of Selborne - and
few as wide in didactics. To know him is a profit indeed; but just
as surely a pleasure.
us
same.
A HUNT IN A HORSE-POND
From (Curiosities of Natural History)
W*
ELL, let us have a look at the pond-world; choose a dry
place at the side, and fix our eyes steadily upon the dirty
water: what shall we see? Nothing at first; but wait a
minute or two: a little round black knob appears in the middle;
gradually it rises higher and higher, till at last you can make
out a frog's head, with his great eyes staring hard at you, like
the eyes of the frog in the woodcut facing Æsop's fable of the
frog and the bull. Not a bit of his body do you see: he is much
too cunning for that; he does not know who or what you are;
you may be a heron, his mortal enemy, for aught he knows.
You move your arm: he thinks it is the heron's bill coming;
down he goes again, and you see him not: a few seconds, he
regains courage and reappears, having probably communicated
the intelligence to the other frogs; for many big heads and many


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FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND
2663
big eyes appear, in all parts of the pond, looking like so many
hippopotami on a small scale. Soon a conversational "Wurk,
wurk, wurk,” begins: you don't understand it; luckily, perhaps,
as from the swelling in their throats it is evident that the colony
is outraged by the intrusion, and the remarks passing are not
complimentary to the intruder. These frogs are all respectable,
grown-up, well-to-do frogs, and they have in this pond duly de-
posited their spawn, and then, hard-hearted creatures! left it to
its fate; it has, however, taken care of itself, and is now hatched,
at least that part of it which has escaped the hands of the gip-
sies, who not unfrequently prescribe baths of this natural jelly
for rheumatism.
In some places, from their making this peculiar noise, frogs
have been called “Dutch nightingales. ” In Scotland, too, they
have a curionis name, Paddock or Puddick; but there is poetical
authority for it:-
«The water-snake whom fish and paddocks feed,
With staring scales lies poisoned. ” — DRYDEN.
Returning from the University of Giessen, I brought with me
about a dozen green tree-frogs, which I had caught in the woods
near the town. The Germans call them laub-frosch, or leaf-frog;
they are most difficult things to find, on account of their color
so much resembling the leaves on which they live. I have fre-
quently heard one singing in a small bush, and though I have
searched carefully, have not been able to find him: the only way
is to remain quite quiet till he again begins his song. After
much ambush-work, at length I collected a dozen frogs and put
them in a bottle. I started at night on my homeward journey
by the diligence, and I put the bottle containing the frogs into
the pocket inside the diligence. My fellow-passengers were sleepy
old smoke-dried Germans: very little conversation took place, and
after the first mile every one settled himself to sleep, and soon
all were snoring. I suddenly awoke with a start, and found all
the sleepers had been roused at the same moment. On their
sleepy faces were depicted fear and anger. What had woke us all
up so suddenly? The morning was just breaking, and my frogs,
though in the dark pocket of the coach, had found it out; and
with one accord, all twelve of them had begun their morning
song As if at a given signal, they one and all of them began
to croak as loud as ever they could. The noise their united


## p. 2664 (#226) ###########################################

2664
FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND
concert made, seemed, in the closed compartment of the coach,
quite deafening. Well might the Germans look angry: they
wanted to throw the frogs, bottle and all, out of the window; but
I gave the bottle a good shaking, and made the frogs keep quiet.
The Germans all went to sleep again, but I was obliged to re-
main awake, to shake the frogs when they began to croak. It
was lucky that I did so, for they tried to begin their concert
again two or three times. These frogs came safely to Oxford;
and the day after their arrival, a stupid housemaid took off the top
of the bottle to see what was inside; one of the frogs croaked at
that instant, and so frightened her that she dared not put the
cover on again. They all got loose in the garden, where I be-
lieve the ducks ate them, for I never heard or saw them again.
ON RATS
From (Curiosities of Natural History)
O
ONE occasion, when a boy, I recollect secretly borrowing
an old-fashioned Aint gun from the bird-keeper of the farm
to which I had been invited. I ensconced myself behind
the door of the pig-sty, determined to make a victim of one of the
many rats that were accustomed to disport themselves among the
straw that formed the bed of the farmer's pet bacon-pigs. In a
few minutes out came an old patriarchal-looking rat, who, having
taken a careful survey, quietly began to feed. After a long aim,
bang went the gun-I fell backwards, knocked down by the
recoil of the rusty old piece of artillery. I did not remain prone
long, for I was soon roused by the most unearthly squeaks, and
a dreadful noise as of an infuriated animal madly rushing round
and round the sty. Ye gods! what had I done? I had not
surely, like the tailor in the old song of the Carrion Crow,'
« Shot and missed my mark,
And shot the old sow right bang through the heart. ”
But I had nearly performed a similar sportsman-like feat. There
was poor piggy, the blood flowing in streamlets from several
small punctures in that part of his body destined, at no very
distant period, to become ham; in vain attempting, by dismal
cries and by energetic waggings of his curly tail, to appease the
pain of the charge of small shot which had so unceremoniously


## p. 2665 (#227) ###########################################

FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND
2665
awaked him from his porcine dreams of oatmeal and boiled
potatoes. But where was the rat? He had disappeared unhurt;
the buttocks of the unfortunate pig, the rightful owner of the
premises, had received the charge of shot intended to destroy the
daring intruder.
To appease piggy's wrath I gave him a bucketful of food
from the hog-tub; and while he was thus consoling his inward
self, wiped off the blood from the wounded parts, and said
nothing about it to anybody. No doubt, before this time, some
frugal housewife has been puzzled and astonished at the
unwonted appearance of a charge of small shot in the centre of
the breakfast ham which she procured from Squire Morland, of
Sheepstead, Berks.
Rats are very fond of warmth, and will remain coiled up for
hours in any snug retreat where they can find this very neces-
sary element of their existence. The following anecdote well
illustrates this point:-
My late father, when fellow of Corpus College, Oxford, many
years ago, on arriving at his rooms late one night, found that
a rat was running about among the books and geological speci-
mens, behind the sofa, under the fender, and poking his nose
into every hiding-place he could find. Being studiously inclined,
and wishing to set to work at his books, he pursued him, armed
with the poker in one hand, and a large dictionary, big enough
to crush any rat, in the other; but in vain; Mr. Rat was not to
be caught, particularly when such "arma scholastica ” were used.
No sooner had the studies recommenced than the rat resumed
his gambols, squeaking and rushing about the room like a mad
creature. The battle was renewed, and continued at intervals, to
the destruction of all studies, till quite a late hour at night, when
the pursuer, angry and wearied, retired to his adjoining bed-
room; though he listened attentively he heard no more of the
enemy, and soon fell asleep. In the morning he was astonished
to find something warm lying on his chest; carefully lifting up
the bed-clothes, he discovered his tormentor of the preceding
night quietly and snugly ensconced in a fold in the blanket, and
taking advantage of the bodily warmth of his two-legged adver-
sary. These two lay looking daggers at each other for some
minutes, the one unwilling to leave his warm berth, the other
afraid to put his hand out from under the protection of the cov.
erlid, particularly as the stranger's aspect was anything but


## p. 2666 (#228) ###########################################

2666
FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND
or
friendly, his little sharp teeth and fierce little black eyes seeming
to say, “Paws off from me, if you please! ”
At length, remembering the maxim that “discretion is the
better part of valor” — the truth of which, I imagine, rats under-
stand as well as most creatures, — he made a sudden jump off the
bed, scuttled away into the next room, and was never seen
heard of afterwards.
Rats are not selfish animals: having found out where the
feast is stored, they will kindly communicate the intelligence to
their friends and neighbors. The following anecdote will con-
firm this fact. A certain worthy old lady named Mrs. Oke,
who resided at Axminster several years ago, made a cask of
sweet wine, for which she was celebrated, and carefully placed
it on a shelf in the cellar. The second night after this event
she was frightened almost to death by a strange unaccountable
noise in the said cellar. The household was called up and a
search made, but nothing was found to clear up the mystery.
The next night, as soon as the lights were extinguished and the
house quiet, this dreadful noise was heard again. This time it
was most alarming: a sound of squeaking, crying, knocking, pat-
tering feet; then a dull scratching sound, with many other such
ghostly noises, which continued throughout the livelong night.
The old lady lay in bed with the candle alight, pale and sleep-
less with fright, anon muttering her prayers, anon determined to
fire off the rusty old blunderbuss that hung over the chimney-
piece. At last the morning broke, and the cock began to crow.
“Now,” thought she, “the ghosts must disappear. ” To her
infinite relief, the noise really did cease, and the poor frightened
dame adjusted her nightcap and fell asleep. Great preparations
had she made for the next night; farm servants armed with
pitchforks slept in the house; the maids took the family dinner-
bell and the tinder-box into their rooms; the big dog was tied to
the hall-table. Then the dame retired to her room, not to sleep,
but to sit up in the arm-chair by the fire, keeping a drowsy
guard over the neighbor's loaded horse-pistols, of which she was
almost as much afraid as she was of the ghost in the cellar.
Sure enough, her warlike preparations had succeeded; the ghost
was certainly frightened; not a noise, not a sound, except the
heavy snoring of the bumpkins and the rattling of the dog's
chain in the hall, could be heard. She had gained a complete
victory; the ghost was never heard again on the premises, and


## p. 2667 (#229) ###########################################

FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND
2667
the whole affair was soon forgotten. Some weeks afterward
some friends dropped in to take a cup of tea and talk over the
last piece of gossip. Among other things the wine was men-
tioned, and the maid sent to get some from the cellar. She
soon returned, and gasping for breath, rushed into the room,
exclaiming, « 'Tis all gone, ma'am;" and sure enough it was all
gone. «The ghost has taken it” - not a drop was left, only the
empty cask remained; the side was half eaten away, and marks
of sharp teeth were visible round the ragged margins of the
newly made bungholes.
This discovery fully accounted for the noise the ghost had
made, which caused so much alarm. The aboriginal rats in the
dame's cellar had found out the wine, and communicated the
joyful news to all the other rats in the parish; they had assem-
bled there to enjoy the fun, and get very tipsy (which, judging
from the noise they made, they certainly did) on this treasured
cask of wine. Being quite a family party, they had finished it
in two nights; and having got all they could, like wise rats they
returned to their respective homes, perfectly unconscious that
their merry-making had nearly been the death of the rightful
owner and founder of the feast. ” They had first gnawed out
the cork, and got as much as they could: they soon found that
the more they drank the lower the wine became. Perseverance
is the motto of the rat; so they set to work and ate away the
wood to the level of the wine again. This they continued till
they had emptied the cask; they must then have got into it and
licked up the last drains, for another and less agreeable smell
was substituted for that of wine. I may add that this cask, with
the side gone, and the marks of the rats' teeth, is still in my
possession.
SNAKES AND THEIR POISON
From "Curiosities of Natural History)
B®
E it known to any person to whose lot it should fall to rescue
a person from the crushing folds of a boa-constrictor, that
it is no use pulling and hauling at the centre of the brute's
body; catch hold of the tip of his tail, - he can then be easily
unwound, he cannot help himself;— he “must ” come off.
Again, if you wish to kill a snake, it is no use hitting and trying


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2668
FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND
to crush his head. The bones of the head are composed of the
densest material, affording effectual protection to the brain under-
neath: a wise provision for the animal's preservation; for were
his skull brittle, his habit of crawling on the ground would ren-
der it very liable to be fractured. The spinal cord runs down
the entire length of the body; this being wounded, the animal is
disabled or killed instanter. Strike therefore his tail, and not
his head; for at his tail the spinal cord is but thinly covered
with bone, and suffers readily from injury. This practice is
applicable to eels. If you want to kill an eel, it is not much
use belaboring his head: strike, however, his tail two or three
times against any hard substance, and he is quickly dead.
About four years ago I myself, in person, had painful expe-
rience of the awful effects of snake's poison. I have received
a dose of the cobra's poison into my system; luckily a minute
dose, or I should not have survived it. The accident happened
in a very curious way. I was poisoned by the snake but not
bitten by him. I got the poison second-hand. Anxious to wit-
ness the effects of the poison of the cobra upon a rat, I took up
a couple in a bag alive to a certain cobra. I took one rat out
of the bag and put him into the cage with the snake. The
cobra was coiled up among the stones in the centre of the cage,
apparently asleep. When he heard the noise of the rat falling
into the cage, he just looked up and put out his tongue, hissing
at the same time. The rat got in a corner and began washing
himself, keeping one eye on the snake, whose appearance he
evidently did not half like.
Presently the rat ran across the
snake's body, and in an instant the latter assumed his fighting
attitude. As the rat passed the snake, he made a dart, but
missing his aim, hit his nose a pretty hard blow against the side
of the cage. This accident seemed to anger him, for he spread
out his crest and waved it to and fro in the beautiful manner
peculiar to his kind. The rat became alarmed and ran near him
again. Again cobra made a dart, and bit him, but did not, I
think, inject any poison into him, the rat being so very active;
at least, no symptoms of poisoning were shown. The bite
nevertheless aroused the ire of the rat, for he gathered himself
for a spring, and measuring his distance, sprang right on to the
neck of the cobra, who was waving about in front of him. This
plucky rat, determined to die hard, gave the cobra two or three
severe bites in the neck, the snake keeping his body erect all


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FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND
2669
this time, and endeavoring to turn his head round so as to bite
the rat, who was clinging on like the old man in (Sindbad the
Sailor. Soon, however, cobra changed his tactics. Tired, possi-
bly, with sustaining the weight of the rat, he lowered his head,
and the rat, finding himself again on terra firma, tried to run
away: not so; for the snake, collecting all his force, brought
down his erected poison-fangs, making his head tell by its
weight in giving vigor to the blow, right on to the body of the
rat.
This poor beast now seemed to know that the fight was over
and that he was conquered. He retired to a corner of the cage
and began panting violently, endeavoring at the same time to
steady his failing strength with his feet. His eyes were widely
dilated, and his mouth open as if gasping for breath. The cobra
stood erect over him, hissing and putting out his tongue as if
conscious of victory. In about three minutes the rat fell quietly
on his side and expired; the cobra then moved off and took no
further notice of his defunct enemy. About ten minutes after-
ward the rat was hooked out of the cage for me to examine. No
external wound could I see anywhere, so I took out my knife
and began taking the skin off the rat. I soon discovered two
very minute punctures, like small needle-holes, in the side of the
rat, where the fangs of the snake had entered.
between the skin and the flesh, and the flesh itself, appeared as
though affected with mortification, even though the wound had
not been inflicted above a quarter of an hour, if so much.
Anxious to see if the skin itself was affected, I scraped away
the parts on it with my finger-nail. Finding nothing but the
punctures, I threw the rat away and put the knife and skin in
my pocket, and started to go away. I had not walked a hundred
yards before all of a sudden I felt just as if somebody had come
behind me and struck me a severe blow on the head and neck,
and at the same time I experienced a most acute pain and sense
of oppression at the chest, as though a hot iron had been run in
and a hundred-weight put on the top of it. I knew instantly,
from what I had read, that I was poisoned; I said as much to
my friend, a most intelligent gentleman, who happened to be
with me, and told him if I fell to give me brandy and "eau de
luce,” words which he kept repeating in case he might forget
them. At the same time I enjoined him to keep me going, and
not on any account to allow me to lie down.
The parts


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2670
FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND
I then forgot everything for several minutes, and my friend
tells me I rolled about as if very faint and weak. He also
informs me that the first thing I did was to fall against him,
asking if I looked seedy. He most wisely answered, “No, you
look very well. " I don't think he thought so, for his own face
was as white as a ghost; I recollect this much.
He tells me my
face was of a greenish-yellow color. After walking or rather
staggering along for some minutes, I gradually recovered my
senses and steered for the nearest chemist's shop. Rushing in,
I asked for eau de luce. Of course he had none, but my eye
caught the words “Spirit. ammon. co. ," or hartshorn, on a bottle.
I reached it down myself, and pouring a large quantity into a
tumbler with a little water, both of which articles I found on a
soda-water stand in the shop, drank it off, though it burnt my
mouth and lips very much. Instantly I felt relief from the pain
at the chest and head. The chemist stood aghast, and on my
telling him what was the matter, recommended a warm bath. If
I had then followed his advice these words would never have
been placed on record. After a second draught at the hartshorn
bottle, I proceeded on my way, feeling very stupid and confused.
On arriving at my friend's residence close by, he kindly pro-
cured me a bottle of brandy, of which I drank four large wine-
glasses one after the other, but did not feel the least tipsy after
the operation. Feeling nearly well, I started on my way home,
and then for the first time perceived a most acute pain under
the nail of the left thumb: this pain also ran up the arm.
to work to suck the wound, and then found out how the poison
had got into the system. About an hour before I examined the
dead rat I had been cleaning the nail with a penknife, and had
slightly separated the nail from the skin beneath. Into this little
crack the poison had got when I was scraping the rat's skin to
examine the wound. How virulent, therefore, must: the poison
of the cobra be! It had already been circulated in the body of
the rat, from which I had imbibed it second-hand!
I set


## p. 2671 (#233) ###########################################

FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND
2671
MY MONKEY JACKO
From "Curiosities of Natural History)
FTER
A
some considerable amount of bargaining (in which
amusing, sometimes animated, not to say exciting exhi-
bition of talent, Englishmen generally get worsted by the
Frenchmen, as was the case in the present instance), Jacko be-
came transferred, chain, tail and all, to his new English master.
Having arrived at the hotel, it became a question as to what
was to become of Jacko while his master was absent from home.
A little closet, opening into the wall of the bedroom, offered
itself as a temporary prison. Jacko was tied up securely - alas!
how vain are the thoughts of man! - to one of the row of pegs
that were fastened against the wall. As the door closed on him
his wicked eyes seemed to say, “I'll do some mischief now;
and sure enough he did, for when I came back to release him,
like Æneas,
“Obstupui, steteruntque comæ et vox faucibus hæsit. » *
The walls, that but half an hour previously were covered with a
finely ornamented paper, now stood out in the bold nakedness of
lath and plaster; the relics on the floor showed that the little
wretch's fingers had by no means been idle.
The pegs were all
loosened, the individual peg to which his chain had been fast-
ened, torn completely from its socket, that the destroyer's move-
ments might not be impeded, and an unfortunate garment that
happened to be hung up in the closet was torn to a thousand
shreds. If ever Jack Sheppard had a successor, it was this
monkey. If he had tied the torn bits of petticoat together and
tried to make his escape from the window, I don't think I should
have been much surprised.
It was, after Jacko's misdeeds, quite evident that he must no
longer be allowed full liberty; and a lawyer's blue bag, such as
may be frequently seen in the dreaded neighborhood of the
Court of Chancery,-filled, however, more frequently with papers
and parchment than with monkeys, - was provided for him; and
this receptacle, with some hay placed at the bottom for a bed,
*«Aghast, astonished, and struck dumb with fear,
I stood; like bristles rose my stiffened hair. ) — DRYDEN.


## p. 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


## p. 2679 (#241) ###########################################

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


## p. 2683 (#245) ###########################################

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.