“Deep in the man sits fast his fate, To mold his fortune, mean or great: Unknown to Cromwell as to me Was Cromwell’s measure or degree; Unknown to him as to his horse, If he than his groom be better or worse, He works, plots, fights in rude affairs, With Squires, Lords, Kings, his craft compares, Till late he learned, through doubt and fear, Broad England harbored not his peer. Obeying time, the last to own The genius from its cloudy throne, _For the prevision is allied_ Unto the thing so signified; _Or say, the foresight that awaits, Is the same genius that creates_.” In human history, as in physical nature, therefore, every event is linked to its antecedent by an unavoidable connection, and such precedent is connected with an anterior effect; and thus the whole would form a necessary chain, in which, indeed, each man may play his part, but can by no means determine what the part shall be. The moral actions of men, said Buckle, are the product of their antecedents. In other words, when an action is performed, it is performed in consequence of certain motives; those motives are the results of some antecedents; “therefore, if we were acquainted with the whole of the antecedents and with all the laws of their movements we could with certainty foretell the whole of their immediate results. This great social law is liable to disturbances which trouble its operation, without affecting its truth.” Ergo, given any set of circumstances, and nothing could have happened, save that which did happen; and under exactly the same conditions, the conduct of men must ever issue in the same results. The past should be dismissed without regrets. Our position, at any time, should be judged as it really is, and not for what we vainly suppose it might have been; “for nothing is more certain than that we could not have acted differently in any act of our lives, with the state of mind and circumstances then existing.” Statistics, likewise, are daily making it evident that the same fixed calculable laws exist in the departments of life and mind as in physics. “In individual cases, or in a limited circle, apparent uncertainty may exist. Within a given number of cases, however, and a large field, invariable results may be looked for.”