y the study of statistics, in
which the Belgian Quetelet, whose book "Sur l'homme" appeared in 1835,
discerned endless possibilities. The astonishing uniformities which
statistical inquiry disclosed led to the belief that it was only a
question of collecting a sufficient amount of statistical material, to
enable us to predict how a given social group will act in a particular
case. Bourdeau, a disciple of this school, looks forward to the time
when historical science will become entirely quantitative. The actions
of prominent individuals, which are generally considered to have altered
or determined the course of things, are obviously not amenable to
statistical computation or explicable by general laws. Thinkers like
Buckle sought to minimise their importance or explain them away.

11. These indications may suffice to show that the new efforts to
interpret history which marked the first half of the nineteenth century
were governed by conceptions closely related to those which were current
in the field of natural science and which resulted in the doctrine of
evolution. The genetic principle, progressive development, general
laws, the significance of time, the conception of society as an organic
aggregate, the metaphysical theory of history as the self-evolution of
spirit,--all these ideas show that historical inquiry had been advancing
independently on somewhat parallel lines to the sciences of nature. It
was necessary to bring this out in order to appreciate the influence of
Darwinism.

12. In the course of the dozen years which elapsed between the
appearances of "The Origin of Species" (observe that the first volume of
Buckle's work was published just two years before) and of "The Descent
of Man" (1871), the hypothesis of Lamarck that man is the co-descendant
with other species of some lower extinct form was admitted to have been
raised to the rank of an established fact by most thinkers whose brains
were not working under the constraint of theological authority.

One important effect of the discovery of this fact (I am not speaking
now of the Darwinian explanation) was to assign to history a definite
place in the coordinated whole of knowledge, and relate it more closely
to other sciences. It had indeed a defined logical place in systems
such as Hegel's and Comte's; but Darwinism certified its standing
convincingly and without more ado. The prevailing doctrine that man
was created ex abrupto had placed history in an