ntemporary appreciations of that thinker.
But he wrote little outside his 'History,' devoting himself with entire
singleness of purpose to his life-work.

The introduction to the 'History of Civilization in England' has been
aptly called the "fragment of a fragment." When as a mere youth he
outlined his work, he overestimated the extremest accomplishment of a
single mind, and did not clearly comprehend the vastness of the
undertaking. He had planned a general history of civilization; but as
the material increased on his hands he was forced to limit his project,
and finally decided to confine his work to a consideration of England
from the middle of the sixteenth century. In February, 1853, he wrote to
a friend:--

"I have been long convinced that the progress of every people
is regulated by principles--or as they are called, laws--as
regular and as certain as those which govern the physical
world. To discover these laws is the object of my work.... I
propose to take a general survey of the moral, intellectual,
and legislative peculiarities of the great countries of
Europe; and I hope to point out the circumstances under which
these peculiarities have arisen. This will lead to a
perception of certain relations between the various stages
through which each people have progressively passed. Of these
_general_ relations I intend to make a _particular_
application; and by a careful analysis of the history of
England, show how they have regulated our civilization, and
how the successive and apparently the arbitrary forms of our
opinions, our literature, our laws, and our manners, have
naturally grown out of their antecedents."

This general scheme was adhered to in the published history, and he
supported his views by a vast array of illustrations and proofs. The
main ideas advanced in the Introduction--for he did not live to write
the body of the work, the future volumes to which he often pathetically
refers--these ideas may be thus stated:--First: Nothing had yet been
done toward discovering the principles underlying the character and
destiny of nations, to establish a basis for a science of history,--a
task which Buckle proposed to himself. Second: Experience shows that
nations are governed by laws as fixed and regular as the laws of the
physical world. Third: Climate, soil, food, and the aspects of nature
are the primary causes in forming t