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esteemed at the time of Kant's supremacy in the schools. The progress of learning has long since displaced his works, as well as those which immediately succeeded him. Sometimes we find reference to Ritter's Ancient Philosophy, the most antiquated portion of his highly unsatisfactory work. The vast literature on this subject which has arisen within the last few years is never noticed. So, for the history of medicine we have Sprengel and Renouard, whose books were long since superseded by the works of Hecker, Häser, and others. On India, again, we are referred to a number of obsolete publications, and the great work of lhien is never mentioned. the same ignorance prevails upon almost every branch of learning that is ostentatiously brought forward; but we should be following Mr. Buckle's very bad example if we were to go on giving lists of books which he ought to have consulted. The title of the sixth chapter, "Origin of History, and State of Historical Literature during the Middle Ages," excited our expectations. To a man of Mr. Buckle's industry, the hundreds of folios in which the historical works of the Middle Ages are contained offer a splendid and inexhaustible field for the exhibition of his powers of research. Here was to be found, in the history of European civilisation for a thousand years, the secret of its subsequent progress. But Mr. Buckle's method is the same here as elsewhere. He shows himself acquainted with just half a dozen of the commonest mediæval historians; and these, if we remember rightly, with only one exception, all English. On the other hand, whatever [334] is to be found about them in the most ordinary books—Hallam, Warton, Turner, Palgrave, Wright, etc.—is diligently repeated. The vulgar practice of reading the books one is to write about was beneath so great a philosopher. He hasreadabout them, but very little in them. They could not greatly attract him; for the Middle Ages must be a mere blank to one who writes the history of modern civilisation without taking into account the two elements of which it is chiefly composed—the civilisation of antiquity, andthe Christian religion. Having to utter afew generalities upon the subject, it was obviously more convenient to know nothing about it, and to take counsel of a few writers who knew very little about it, than to run the risk of finding an imprudent curiosity rewarded by the unexpected discovery of unpalatable and inflexible facts. This safe and timely ignorance, which he has discreetly cherished and preserved, has made him fully competent to declare "that not only was no history written before the end of the sixteenth century, but that the state of society was such as to make it impossible for one to be written" (p. 299). Agreeably to the materialistic character of his philosophy, Mr. Buckle examines with special predilection the physical causes which influence mankind. His second chapter, which is devoted to this inquiry, is the most interesting and elaborate part of the volume. In these regions he is somewhat more at home. It is but an act of justice, therefore, to give some attention to this chapter. Nowhere do the ignorance and incapacity of the author more visibly appear. The subject here treated has very recently been raised to the dignity of a separate and distinct science; and it has been cultivated on the Continent with extraordinary zeal and success. In no department was so much hiistance to be derived from contemporary writers. ritter, the founder of the science of comparative geography, began forty years ago the great work .