encompassing the world and bringing to pass whatever is done
by the agency of men _en masse_."

I confess I was not by any means clear at first as to what Buckle meant
by this "infinite and unalterable causation." If he meant the shapings
of heredity coming down through many generations to produce a man able
to lead in a certain event, then I followed him. I also sufficiently
understood him if he referred to national desires and necessities
assisting to produce competent manipulators of important events. But I
did not gather until later that this language might possibly be intended
to include what in common parlance is called "the will of God."

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 Caesar 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