He is
singularly exempt from most of the twists and exaggerations which we are
used to find in almost all thinkers who meddle with speculations of this
character. Scarcely any of them is so free (for example) from the
opposite errors of ascribing too much or too little influence to
accident, and to the qualities of individuals. The vulgar mistake of
supposing that the course of history has no tendencies of its own, and
that great events usually proceed from small causes, or that kings, or
conquerors, or the founders of philosophies and religions, can do with
society what they please, no one has more completely avoided or more
tellingly exposed. But he is equally free from the error of those who
ascribe all to general causes, and imagine that neither casual
circumstances, nor governments by their acts, nor individuals of genius
by their thoughts, materially accelerate or retard human progress. This
is the mistake which pervades the instructive writings of the thinker
who in England and in our own times bore the nearest, though a very
remote, resemblance to M. Comte--the lamented Mr Buckle; who, had he not
been unhappily cut off in an early stage of his labours, and before the
complete maturity of his powers, would probably have thrown off an
error, the more to be regretted as it gives a colour to the prejudice
which regards the doctrine of the invariability of natural laws as
identical with fatalism.
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