HISTORY OF

CIVILIZATION IN

ENGLAND

BY

HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE

NEW AND REVISED EDITION

WITH ANNOTATIONS AND AN INTRODUCTION

BY

JOHN M. ROBERTSON

AUTHOR OF "BUCKLE AND HIS CRITICS," "MODERN HUMANISTS," ETC.

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LIMITED

NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO

1904

This One

24W8-05F-SFXS

EDITOR'S PREFACE

THE present is an absolutely complete reprint of Buckle's work, with a new index. The two volumes in which it originally appeared (1857-61) bore the title History of Civilization in England, their subject-matter, however, being simply the uncompleted "General Introduction " to the projected work so entitled. The old title-page (preserved in the three-volume edition) was thus something of a misnomer, and this has been corrected.

It was suggested to Buckle, before the issue of his second volume, that he himself should publish a popular edition of his book without the notes. It is now reprinted, with all the notes and many fresh annotations, at a lower price than would have been charged in Buckle's day for an abridgment. Even notes that might have been held. redundant are faithfully reproduced, so that the student can everywhere judge of Buckle's work for himself; and the editor's notes are scrupulously distinguished from his by brackets, and by the absence of reference numbers. Buckle's references in his second volume to the first are of course altered to apply to the present edition. A few small grammatical errors, evidently due to his weak health at the period of publication, have been corrected; but where correction would involve interference with the cadence or structure of a sentence, even grammatical laxities have been left untouched.

Some difference of opinion may arise on a point which has given the editor some perplexity-the question,

namely, as to the length to which he should carry annotation. To some he may seem to have carried it too far: others may count him remiss in omitting to question certain passages. His rule has been to avoid discussion of indeterminable issues, such as the proposition on page 13 that Homer and Shakspere have been the "most accurate investigators of the human mind” ; or that on page 222 as to the relative merits of Barrow and Taylor; or the opinion that Whitefield has been the most passion-moving orator since the apostles. But wherever he has noted a mis-statement of historical fact, a fallacy of argument, or an inconsistency of theory or phrase, he has sought to rectify it, even at the risk of seeming officious.

Realizing the difficulty of supervising so discursive a student as Buckle in all his various fields, he has taken competent counsel as to the sections which treat of physiological matters; and in regard to the political and intellectual history of Scotland, with which Buckle deals so fully, he has had welcome aid from a vigilant student. Finally he is much indebted to Mr. Ernest Newman for taking on himself the laborious task of revising the whole of the proofs. The result, he hopes, is a worthily correct text.

J. M. R.

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

I

It is said concerning Buckle, by one who talked with him, that "a book that would not descend to posterity was evidently one for which he had but scant respect." The test is at least one which every book must pass in order to be proved important; and Buckle himself has thus far passed it easily. His book now enters on its period of non-copyright sale; and all who have followed its fortunes know that there still awaits it a large welcome from a new generation.

Of the select list of serious works which have passed thus far down the stream of time since his day, few have weathered more opposition. Only Darwin and Strauss among his contemporaries, perhaps, gave a more serious shock to standing opinions: and in his case the vivacity of the attack elicited a proportional resentment. For a generation, most notices of his book in his own country were hostile. Latterly there has been a lull in the criticism; but all the while the treatise has been doing its work for thousands of readers-preparing their minds, that is, for the reception of a science of human history. Whatever may be thought of its merit, its place in culture-evolution is clear. Where Darwin definitely brought within the scope of scientific law the phenomena of biology, as previous pioneers had done those of geology and astronomy, Buckle began anew the most complicated and difficult task of all-the reduction to law of the phenomena of social evolution. The harder task might well be more imperfectly done; but the utility of his great effort is substantially proved by the persistent interest it evokes. Other scientific thinkers of his day, approaching the same problem on different sides, have had similar success; and it is not our business here to weigh his work against theirs. Suffice it to say that Buckle's plan of reaching social science inductively through a study of history, with the help of economics and statistics, has its special value as compared with Comte's method