In the alternation of contention which Dr. Ridpath lays before us with so much skill, we are all more or less familiar with the Carlyle side of the argument, so let us consider a part of what is said on the Buckle side. In sentences collected from different portions, the "believer in the predominance of universal causation" is represented as speaking in this way: Men produce nothing. They control nothing. On the contrary, they are themselves like bubbles thrown up with the heavings of an infinite sea. They do not direct the course of history. Nations go to battle as the clouds enter a storm. Do clouds really fight, or are they not rather driven into concussion? Are not unseen forces behind both the nations and the clouds? What was Rome but a catapult, and Cæsar but the stone? He was flung from it beyond the Alps to fall upon the barbarians of Gaul and Britain. What was Alfred but the bared right arm of England? What was Dante but a wail of the middle ages?--and what was Luther but a tocsin? What was Napoleon but a thunderbolt rattling among the thrones of Europe? He did not fling himself, but _was flung_! The whole tendency of inquiry respecting the place of man in history has been to reduce the agency of the individual. Every advance in our scientific knowledge has confirmed what was aforetime only a suspicion, that the influence of man, as man, on the world's course of events is insignificant. Over all there is a controlling Force and Tendency, without which events and facts and institutions are nothing.... History may be defined as the aggregate of human forces acting under law, moving invisibly--but with visible phenomena.... The individuals who contribute to the vast volume do not understand their contributions thereto, or the general scheme of which they are little more than the atomic parts. Over this aggregate of human forces there presides somehow and somewhere a Will, a Purpose, a Principle, the nature of which no man knoweth to this day. To this Will and Purpose, to this universal Plan, which we are able to see dimly manifested in the general results and course of things, men give various names according to their age and race; according to their biases of nature and education. Some call it ... Fate; some, the First Cause; some, the Logos; some, Providence; some of the greatest races have called it God. We come then to the admission on the Buckle side of the argument that the forces referred to as "universal causation" may possibly include the will of God. And from the time this admission is made there seems to be little of material difference between the contestants. Practically, both refer, or may refer, back to the will of God; and the discussion here brings me to the point at which some pertinent questions may be asked.