There is an incurable defect in the method of this work. On the one hand, the dogmatic purpose is constantly breaking into the interest of the narration; on the other, the interest of the narration is continually enticing the writer from his argument into endless episodes and details of biography. The argument is deprived of its force by the story; the story is interrupted continually on account of the argument. Mr. Buckle has mistaken the philosophy of history for history itself. A history of civilization is not a piece of metaphysical argument, but a consecutive account of the social progress either of an age or of a nation. This irreconcilable conflict of purpose, while it leaves to the parts of the work their value, destroys its worth as a whole. Mr. Buckle might probably inquire whether we would eliminate wholly from history all philosophic aim, all teleologic purpose. He objects, and very properly, to degrading history into mere annals, without any instructive purpose. We agree with him. We do not admire the style of history which feels neither passion nor sympathy, which narrates crimes without indignation, and which has no aim in its narration except to entertain a passing hour. But it is one thing deliberately to announce a thesis and bring detached passages of history to prove it, and another to write a history which, by its incidents, spirit, and characters shall convey impulse and instruction. The historian may dwell upon the events which illustrate his convictions, and may develop the argument during the progress of his moving panorama; but the history itself, as it moves, should impress the lesson. The history of Mr. Motley, for example, illustrates and impresses the evils of bigotry, superstition, and persecution on the life of nations, quite as powerfully as does that of Mr. Buckle; but Mr. Motley never suspends his narrative in order to prove to us logically that persecution is an evil. Mr. Buckle, in his style of writing, belongs to a modern class of authors whom we may call the bullying school. It is true that he is far less extravagant than some of them, and indeed is not deeply tinged with their peculiar manner. The first great master of this class of writers is Thomas Carlyle; but their peculiarity has been carried to its greatest extent by Ruskin. Its characteristic feature is treating with supreme contempt, as though they were hopeless imbeciles, all who venture to question the _dicta_ of the writer. This superb arrogance makes these writers rather popular with the English, who, as a nation, like equally well to bully and to be bullied. Buckle professes to have at last found the only true key to history, and to have discovered some of its important laws, especially those which regard the progress of civilization.