OF

CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.

BY

HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE.

VOLUME I.

THE THIRD EDITION.

LONDON:

PARKER, SON, AND BOURN, WEST STRAND.
1861.

226. i 10.

The Author reserves to himself the right of Translation.

ΤΟ

MY MOTHER

I DEDICATE

THIS

THE FIRST VOLUME

OF

MY FIRST WORK.

ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

STATEMENT OF THE RESOURCES FOR INVESTIGATING HISTORY, AND PROOFS OF

THE REGULARITY OF HUMAN ACTIONS. THESE ACTIONS ARE GOVERNED BY

MENTAL AND PHYSICAL LAWS: THEREFORE BOTH SETS OF LAWS MUST BE

STUDIED, AND THERE CAN BE NO HISTORY WITHOUT THE NATURAL SCIENCES.

Narrow range of knowledge possessed by historians

Object of the present work

Human actions, if not the result of fixed laws, must be due to chance

or to supernatural interference

8

Probable origin of free-will and predestination

Theological basis of predestination, and metaphysical basis of free-

9-11

The actions of men are caused by their antecedents, which exist
either in the human mind or in the external world
Therefore history is the modification of man by nature, and of nature
by man

17-18

19

Statistics prove the regularity of actions in regard to murder and
other crimes

20-24

Similar proof respecting suicides

25-27

Also respecting the number of marriages annually contracted

And respecting the number of letters sent undirected

The historian must ascertain whether mind or nature has most in-

fluenced human actions; and therefore there can be no history

without physical science

NOTE A. Passages from Kant on free-will and necessity.