Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1889 edition. Excerpt: ... XXI. HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND'. [Westminster Review, 1857.] THIS volume is certainly the most important work of the season; and it is perhaps the most comprehensive contribution to philosophical history that has ever been attempted in the English language. It is full of thought and original observation; but it is no speculative creation of a brilliant theorist. It is learned in the only true sense of the word. A mere glance at the matter accumulated in the notes will show the labour and reading which it has cost to quarry the materials. These are as judiciously selected as they have been widely sought, and make the volume, besides its proper merits, a most instructive repertory of facts. The style of the text is clear, and always easily followed. It is too diffuse, and a little cumbrous; but it is never tedious. This first volume carries us no further than the end of the first part of the General Introduction. It is an exposition of general principles, a survey of preliminary matters, and an investigation in outline of the nature of civilization in France. This is to be followed up in a second volume with a similar summary of the civilizations of Germany, America, Scotland, and Spain, each of which presents a different type of intellectual development. 1 History of Civilization in England. By Henry Thomas Buckle. Volume I. London: J. W. Parker. 1857. of a national history in this view depends, not upon the splendour of the exploits it has to show, but upon the degree to which its events are due to causes springing out of itself. In England we have been less affected than other nations by the two main sources of interference, viz. the authority of government and the influence of foreigners. We have borrowed from the French...