the bitterness of disappointment not having yet been felt, difficulties are unheeded, obstacles are unseen, ambition is a pleasure instead of a pang, and the blood coursing swiftly through the veins, the pulse beats high, while the heart throbs at the prospect of the future. Those are glorious days; but they go from us, and nothing can compensate their absence. To me, they now seem more like the visions of a disordered fancy than the sober realities of things that were, and are not. It is painful to make this confession; but I owe it to the reader, because I would not have him to suppose that either in this or in the future volumes of my History I shall be able to redeem my pledge, and to perform all that I promised. Something I hope to achieve which will interest the thinkers of this age; and, something, perhaps, on which posterity may build. It will, however, only be a fragment of my original design.' In estimating the extent to which Mr. Buckle succeeded in consummating the labor which he undertook, we are not, therefore, to measure his results by the standard of the first, but by that of the second volume. It is not, then, the Science of History which he is striving to write; but only something 'which will interest the thinkers of this age, and something, perhaps, on which posterity may build.' His task, as thus abridged, was confined to the endeavor to establish the 'four leading propositions, which, according to my [his] view, are to be deemed the basis of the history of civilization;' that is, the basis of a Science of History. These propositions, given in a previous article, may be here repeated: '1st. That the progress of mankind depends on the success with which the laws of phenomena are investigated, and on the extent to which a knowledge of those laws is diffused. 2d. That before such investigation can begin, a spirit of scepticism must arise, which, at first aiding the investigation, is afterward aided by it. 3d. That the discoveries thus made, increase the influence of intellectual truths, and diminish, relatively, not absolutely, the influence of moral truths; moral truths being more stationary than intellectual truths, and receiving fewer additions. 4th. That the great enemy of this movement, and therefore the great enemy of civilization, is the protective spirit; by which I mean the notion that society cannot prosper unless the affairs of life are watched over and protected at nearly every turn by the state and the church; the state teaching men what to do, and the church teaching them what they are to believe.'