The author then proceeds to consider the philosophical and scientific reaction against this ecclesiastical despotism, which occurred in the eighteenth century.  Why did it not emancipate the Scottish intellect?

Because, says Mr. Buckle, the method of the philosophers, like the method of the theologians, was deductive, and not inductive; and this, he thinks, characterizes the operation of the intellect of Scotland in all departments.  Now the deductive method, or reasoning from principles to facts, does not strike the senses with the force of the inductive, or reasoning from facts to principles, and it is accordingly less accessible to the average understanding.  The result was, that the writings of Hutcheson, Adam Smith, and Hume had little effect on the popular intellect of Scotland, and its people are now the most bigoted and intolerant of those of any country in Europe, except Spain.  This portion of Mr. Buckle’s volume, containing an analytical estimate, not only of Hutcheson, Hume, and Adam Smith, but of Black, Leslie, Hutton, Cullen, and John Hunter, is full of original thought and valuable information, however questionable may be some of its statements.

Whatever may be thought of the general ideas which Mr. Buckle enforces, few will be inclined to dispute the extent of his learning, the breadth of his understanding, the suggestiveness of his generalizations, the earnestness of his purpose, the mental honesty with which he seeks truth, the mental hardihood with which he assails what he considers error.  He has not only no intellectual timidity, but no intellectual reserve, and is indifferent to the opprobrium which may proceed from the collision of his speculations with the strongest of prejudices and the most immovable of convictions.  But this intrepid sincerity is not without the alloy of arrogance.  He belongs to that school of able, but dogmatic positivists, who are apt to consider their minds the measure of the human mind, who are intolerant of those human sentiments and qualities in which they are deficient, and who, occupying the serene heights of a purely scientific wisdom, look down with pitying contempt on all intellects, however powerful, which are not emancipated from the dominion of theological ideas.  Individually, he lacks both the sympathy and the imaginative insight by which a man pierces to the heart of a nation, and appreciates its life as distinguished from its opinions.  All readers of those portions of the literature of Spain and Scotland in which genius exhibits the vital manners and representative character of those nations will feel how partial and inadequate is Mr. Buckle’s historic sketch.  The fundamental idea of his system, that human progress depends on the success with which the laws of phenomena are investigated and the extent to which a knowledge of them is diffused, overlooks the essential element of movement, which is not abstract knowledge, but vital force.  Men and nations move in virtue of their passionate, moral,