too much truth in the observation. He never got out of the
fetters of his ecclesiastical education; the Jews were the centre
round which he supposed all other nations revolved. His mind was
polemical, not philosophic; a great theologian, he was but an
indifferent historian. In one particular, indeed, his observations are
admirable, and, at times, in the highest degree impressive. He never
loses sight of the divine superintendence of human affairs; he sees in
all the revolutions of empires the progress of a mighty plan for the
ultimate redemption of mankind; and he traces the workings of this
superintending power in all the transactions of man. But it may be
doubted whether he took the correct view of this sublime but
mysterious subject. He supposes the divine agency to influence
_directly_ the affairs of men--not through the medium of general laws,
or the adaptation of our active propensities to the varying
circumstances of our condition. Hence his views strike at the freedom
of human actions; he makes men and nations little more than the
puppets by which the Deity works out the great drama of human affairs.
Without disputing the reality of such immediate agency in some
particular cases, it may safely be affirmed, that by far the greater
part of the affairs of men are left entirely to their own guidance,
and that their actions are overruled, not directed, by Almighty power
to work out the purposes of Divine beneficence.

That which Bossuet left undone, Robertson did. The first volume of his
Charles V. may justly be regarded as the greatest step which the human
mind had yet made in the philosophy of history. Extending his views
beyond the admirable survey which Montesquieu had given of the rise
and decline of the Roman empire, he aimed at giving a view of the
_progress of society_ in modern times. This matter, of the progress of
society, was a favourite subject at that period with political
philosophers; and by combining the speculations of these ingenious men
with the solid basis of facts which his erudition and industry had
worked out, Robertson succeeded in producing the most luminous, and at
the same time just, view of the progress of nations that had yet been
exhibited among mankind. The philosophy of history here appeared in
its full lustre. Men and nations were exhibited in their just
proportions. Society was viewed, not only in its details, but its
masses; the _general causes_ which influence its progress, runnin