of philosophical opinions, of the sciences, and of civilisation. Its author's desire to select and present what was likely to be instructive and improving is throughout conspicuous; and his constant preoccupation to discover and indicate the causes and effects of events is not less manifest. But the work has the fatal defect of being altogether wanting in research and criticism. The facts in it are in grains and the reflections in bushels. The course of historical causation is not shown to have been in the historical development by exhibition of the facts, but is only diffusely declared to have been so in the opinion of the author. Besides, the statements of fact are not only intolerably few in comparison with those of reflection, but they are obviously drawn from such works as were most accessible, not from such as had most claim to be consulted. The account given of Greek philosophy, for example, is not only derived from Brücker, but so derived from him as to leave the impression that Condillac had probably never taken the trouble to read either the fragments of a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher or a treatise of a post-Socratic one. If he had at any time thus occupied himself, he certainly did not employ the knowledge so acquired to control or supplement Brücker. He had the keenest interest in psychological analysis, but he had no taste for historical criticism. He adhered to historical tradition with a closeness very uncommon among the philosophers of the eighteenth century; almost alone among them, for instance, he accepted the Biblical accounts of antediluvian times and miraculous occurrences.

Condillac has treated of historical progress on various occasions with characteristic judiciousness; but in one respect only, perhaps, can his teaching on the subject claim to have been original or distinctive-namely, in that it represented intellectual progress as entirely dependent on the use made of language. This he believed was what no one before him had done. Notwithstanding his acquiescence in the Biblical account of the primitive condition of man, he assumed that condition to have been one merely animal. The cardinal doctrine of his whole philosophy was that the sole root of mind is sense, and that all the contents and even all the faculties of mind are merely transformed sensations; and hence he naturally

believed that all the mental acquisitions of the race had been attained in the course of a process of development which originated when human beings were more ignorant than the most ignorant savages are at present. He accordingly supposed that at first, and for long, men had no other means of making their impressions or desires known to one another than cries and gestures; that, like the beasts, like children, and, according to reports of travellers, like certain still existing savage peoples, they had no language in the strict sense of the term; and hence, that language does not constitute an absolute distinction between men and beasts, being merely a human invention, although the greatest of human inventions. Language, properly so called, he viewed as the result of a slow development from the instinctive and natural modes of communication; but it is scarcely necessary to say that he ignored the very serious difficulties which must be disposed of before the development of real words out of inarticulate cries can be reasonably regarded as proved, or even as intelligible. He represented the discovery of language as a decisive epoch in history, and argued that in its first stage it had been a chanted speech, composed of sounds variously and strongly inflected. From this stage of it sprang music and poetry, while gesticulation gave rise to dancing; whence the Greek term μovσin was inclusive of all the arts. To poetry succeeded prose and eloquence, which are indispensable to, and characteristic of, a still more advanced stage of culture. When a man of genius arises and so manipulates and moulds a language as to reveal its merits and capabilities, men of talent hasten to use it as their instrument; artistic taste and ambition of all kinds are evoked; and an age of rich and refined civilisation appears. The development of a people's language and that of its intellect are inseparable and always accordant.1

As in England, Italy, and Germany, so in France, many attempts were made in the eighteenth century to explain history, or at least large classes of historical phenomena, by means of hypotheses suggested by science. Nicholas Boulanger (1722-59),

1 Perhaps almost everything of value written by Condillac regarding history is contained in the 'Logique de Condillac, à l'usage des élèves des prytanées et lycées de la république française,' par Noel. 2 tom.: 1802.

when pursuing his avocations as an engineer, was greatly impressed by certain geological evidences of the action of water, which he felt constrained to refer to a tremendous flood; and, being a man of lively imagination and of confused erudition, he came to regard this flood as a key to the understanding of all ancient history. It was its terrors, he supposed, which had originated religion and despotism, and so caused ancient history to be what it was. The history, he represented, as having passed through four stages,-theocracy, aristocracy, democracy, and monarchy. He was probably the first Frenchman influenced to any considerable extent by Vico.1 Charles Dupuis (1742-1809), author of the once famous book 'L'Origine de tous les Cultes,' made an elaborate endeavour to give an astronomical solution of the mythologies and superstitions of the human race, and even went so far as to deny the historical existence of Christ, explaining the events of his life as corresponding to the course of the sun, and identifying the twelve apostles with the twelve signs of the zodiac. Court de Gebelin (1727-84), relied on linguistic hypotheses in his efforts to throw light on "the primitive world," and to resolve mythologies into their original elements. The attempts to combine science and history just referred to were far from successful, yet are worthy of being mentioned, as they were attempts in a right direction. More successful, because easier of accomplishment, were the endeavours made to combine the sciences and history in histories of the sciences. Among those who performed work of this kind Goguet and Bailly especially distinguished themselves. Without irrelevance I might proceed to show how, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, the conception of historical progress was supplemented by that of a universal development of nature, and to describe the forms in which this latter hypothesis displayed itself. Its origination was due to a variety of causes, and especially to the advances of physical science, the spread of theoretical materialism, and the increased freedom and boldness of speculation. To trace its history,

1 A collected edition of Boulanger's works (in 8 vols.) was published in 1792. 'L'Antiquité dévoilée' and 'Le Despotisme oriental' are the most important. Several of the irreligious writings ascribed to him are spurious. 'Le Chris tianisme dévoilé' was fabricated by a person called Damilaville.

however, even as it appears in the writings of Maillet, Diderot, Buffon, Robinet, Dom Deschamps, Lamarck, &c., would require much more space than is at my disposal.

The Abbé Raynal's Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of Europeans in the East and West Indies' was the most popular of all the historical writings which appeared in France during the reign of Louis XVI., and also one of the most representative of the taste and spirit of the period. Published in 1771, it rapidly passed through twenty editions, and was translated into the languages of almost all civilised peoples. It largely owed the extraordinary favour with which the contemporaries of Raynal received it to those declamations about liberty and justice, tyrants and priests, and those effusions of sentimentalism, which now only give offence. These purpurei panni interwoven into it, and composed, it would appear, for the most part by Diderot, although they greatly contributed to its immediate success, have led to its undue depreciation by posterity. It was the fruit of twenty years' diligent labour, and, intrinsically, a highly deserving work, containing a vast amount of new and valuable information, well arranged, and vividly, although too rhetorically, presented. It was the first book which effectively showed how important a factor commerce had been in modern history. The way in which this was done was what was truly philosophical in it, not the general and professedly philosophical reflections which it contains, and which are mostly superficial and pretentious.

During the progress of the Revolution two works were published which professed to delineate philosophically the course of history. Both were written by enthusiastic advocates of the principles of eighteenth-century "enlightenment," and ardent admirers of the Revolution as a grand effort to realise the true ideal of social life; by men closely akin in convictions, spirit, and aim. Yet they are of very unequal merit; and while the one may be very briefly dealt with, the other will require a comparatively lengthened treatment. The two works referred to are Volney's 'Ruins' and Condorcet's Sketch.'

Constantine Francis Chassebœuf, Count Volney, acquired fame as a traveller, an orientalist, and an historian. Although

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very hostile to religion, he was a sincere, magnanimous, virtuous man. His 'Ruins; or, A Survey of the Revolutions of Empires' (1791), is the work by which he is best known, although it is much inferior in real value to his Travels in Syria and Egypt,' his 'Description of the Character and Soil of the United States,' or even his Researches on Ancient History.' It is a sort of philosophy of history and of religion based on tenets of Locke, Condillac, Rousseau, and Dupuis. A general summary of its character and contents may be given as follows:

Contemplating the ruins of Palmyra, the author meditates on the disappearance of extinct empires, and foresees a similar fate for those which are now most flourishing and powerful. The genius of history appears to him, and explains that fatality is a meaningless word, and that the source of human calamities is in man himself, his passions and faults. Appearing on earth as an ignorant savage, man gradually emerges from this state under the attraction of pleasure and the repulsion of pain. His only motive of action, self-love, renders him at once social and industrious, but also, growing as it does with the growth of the arts and of civilisation, leads him to confound happiness with unregulated enjoyment, makes him avaricious and violent, and causes the strong to oppress the weak and the weak to conspire against the strong. Slavery and inequality, war and corruption, have consequently followed on the liberty and equality, peace and innocence, of primitive times. But as man is perfectible this condition of things cannot be permanent, and during the last three centuries there has been great progress: intellects have been brought into communication as never before; knowledge has, thanks especially to printing, been marvellously diffused; discoveries and inventions of all kinds multiplied and utilised. Humanity is now fairly started on a career of conquest; the emancipation of the mind is rapidly advancing. Soon morality itself will come to be rationally viewed; individuals and nations will recognise it to be the object of a physical science; it will be universally acknowledged that there is only one law, that of nature; only one code, that of reason; only one throne, that of justice; only one altar, that of concord. When men clearly see