leave it alone by the law of his nature. His virtues are the result
of knowledge; his faults, the necessary consequence of the want of it. A
boy desires to draw. He knows nothing about it: he draws men like trees
or houses, with their centre of gravity anywhere. He makes mistakes
because he knows no better. We do not blame him. Till he is better
taught, he cannot help it. But his instruction begins. He arrives at
straight lines; then at solids; then at curves. He learns perspective,
and light and shade. He observes more accurately the forms which he
wishes to represent. He perceives effects, and he perceives the means by
which they are produced. He has learned what to do; and, in part, he has
learned how to do it. His after-progress will depend on the amount of
force which his nature possesses; but all this is as natural as the
growth of an acorn. You do not preach to the acorn that it is its duty
to become a large tree; you do not preach to the art-pupil that it is
his duty to become a Holbein. You plant your acorn in favorable soil,
where it can have light and air, and be sheltered from the wind; you
remove the superfluous branches, you train the strength into the leading
shoots. The acorn will then become as fine a tree as it has vital force
to become. The difference between men and other things is only in the
largeness and variety of man's capacities; and in this special capacity,
that he alone has the power of observing the circumstances favorable to
his own growth, and can apply them for himself, yet, again, with this
condition,--that he is not, as is commonly supposed, free to choose
whether he will make use of these appliances or not. When he knows what
is good for him, he will choose it; and he will judge what is good for
him by the circumstances which have made him what he is.

And what he would do, Mr. Buckle supposed that he always had done. His
history had been a natural growth as much as the growth of the acorn.
His improvement had followed the progress of his knowledge; and, by a
comparison of his outward circumstances with the condition of his mind,
his whole proceedings on this planet, his creeds and constitutions, his
good deeds and his bad, his arts and his sciences, his empires and his
revolutions, would be found all to arrange themselves into clear
relations of cause and effect.

If, when Mr. Buckle pressed his conclusions we objected the difficulty
of finding what the truth about past times really