But however it may be with others, certainly he who has undertaken the duties of a scholar must not yield too readily to these amiable wishes.  He, as a sworn soldier of Truth, stands sacredly bound to be as free from favor as from fear, and to follow steadily wherever the standards of his imperial mistress lead him on.  And so performing his lawful service, he may bear in mind that at last the interests of Truth are those of every soul, be it of them that we number with the dead, or that are still reckoned among these that we greet as living.  Let us not be petty in our kindness.  Over the fresh grave of a scholar let us rise to that high and large friendliness which respects more the scope of every man’s nature than the limited measure of any man’s performance, and sides bravely with the soul of the departed, even though it be against his fame.  Who would not choose this for himself?  Who would not whisper from his grave, “My personal weaknesses let those spare who can; my work do not praise, but judge; and never think in behalf of my mortal fame to lower those stars that my spirit would look up to yet and forever”?

As a man and scholar, Mr. Buckle needs no forbearance; and men must commend him, were it only in justice to themselves.  Such intellectual courage, such personal purity, such devotion to ideal aims, such a clean separation of boldness from bitterness,—­in thought, no blade more trenchant, in feeling, no heart more human;—­when these miss their honor and their praise, then will men have forgotten how to estimate fine qualities.

Meanwhile, as a thinker, he must be judged according to the laws of thought.  Here we are to forget whether he be living or dead, and whether his personal traits were delightful or disagreeable.  Here there is but one question, and that is the question of truth.

And as a thinker, I can say nothing less than that Mr. Buckle signally failed.  His fundamental conceptions, upon which reposes the whole edifice of his labor, are sciolistic assumptions caught up in his youth from Auguste Comte and other one-eyed seers of modern France; his generalization, multitudinous and imposing, is often of the card-castle description, and tumbles at the touch of an inquisitive finger; and his cobweb logic, spun chiefly out of his wishes rather than his understanding, is indeed facile and ingenious, but of a strength to hold only flies.  Such, at any rate, is the judgment passed upon him in the present paper; and if it is stated roundly, the critic can be held all the better to its justification, and the more freely condemned, should these charges not be sustained.