And this disproportion between induction and conclusion becomes still more glaring, when it is observed that he expects his formula for all history to carry an inference much larger than itself.  Dr. Draper is devoted to a materialistic philosophy, and his moving purpose is to propagate this.  He holds that Psychology must be an inference from Physiology,—­that the whole science of Man is included in a science of his body.  His two perpetual aims are, first, to absorb all physical science in theoretical materialism,—­second, to absorb all history in physical science.  And beside the ambition of his aims one must say that his logic has an air of slenderness.

This work, then, may be described as a review of European history, written in obedience to two primary and two secondary assumptions, as follows:—­

Primary Assumptions:  First, that man is fully determined by his “corporeal organization”; second, that all corporeal organizations, with their whole variety and character, are due solely to “external situations.”

Secondary Assumptions:  First, that physical science (under submission to materialistic interpretations) is the only satisfactory intellectual result in history, being the only pure product of “reason”; second, that “reason” alone represents the adult stage of the human mind,—­“faith” being simply immature mental action, and “inquiry” belonging to a stage of intellect still less mature,—­in fact, to its mere childishness.

The position thus assigned to inquiry is very significant of the theoretic precipitancy which is one of Dr. Draper’s prominent characteristics.  His mind is afflicted with that disease which physicians call “premature digestion.”  Inquiry, which is the perpetual tap-root of science, he separates wholly from science, stigmatizes it as the mere token of intellectual childhood; and this not in the haste of an epithet or heat of a paragraph, but as a fixed part of his scheme of history and of mind.  The reason is found in his own intellectual habits.  And the savage fury with which he plies his critical bludgeon upon Lord Bacon is due, not so much to that great man’s infirmities, nor even to his possession of intellectual qualities which our author cannot appreciate and must therefore disparage, as to the profound consecration of Inquiry, which it was one grand aim of his life to make.

His assumptions made, Dr. Draper proceeds to “break” and train history into their service, much after the old fashion of “breaking” colts.  First, he mounts the history of Greece.  And now what a dust!  What are centaurs to a savant on his hobby?  To see him among the mythic imaginations of the sweet old land!  He goes butting and plunging through them with the headiness of a he-goat, another monster added to those of which antique fancy had prattled.