The English historian Henry Thomas Buckle (1821-1862) was a major figure in the positivist movement in historical scholarship. He applied the methods of natural science to history in an effort to discover scientific laws governing the historical process.

Henry Thomas Buckle was born in Lee, Kent, on Nov. 24, 1821. Owing to his delicate health, he did not attend school but educated himself through extensive reading and traveling. Before the age of 20 he had become one of the foremost chess players in England. After his father's death in 1840, he traveled on the Continent, and during this period he resolved to turn his energies to the preparation of a great historical work. He first decided to write a history of the Middle Ages, but by 1851 he had expanded his original plan and had begun work on a history of civilization. He published the first volume of the History of Civilization in...