lish.
Perhaps, too, they contained a moral defect, and savored of an
arrogance which belongs to a strength that refuses to recognize its
own weakness. Still, even now that they are defeated and brought to
nought, I cannot repent having indulged in them, but, on the
contrary, I would willingly recall them if I could. For, such hopes
belong to that joyous and sanguine period of life, when alone we
are really happy; when the emotions are more active than the
judgment; when experience has not yet hardened our nature; when the
affections are not yet blighted and nipped to the core; and when
the bitterness of disappointment not having yet been felt,
difficulties are unheeded, obstacles are unseen, ambition is a
pleasure instead of a pang, and the blood coursing swiftly through
the veins, the pulse beats high, while the heart throbs at the
prospect of the future. Those are glorious days; but they go from
us, and nothing can compensate their absence. To me, they now seem
more like the visions of a disordered fancy than the sober
realities of things that were, and are not. It is painful to make
this confession; but I owe it to the reader, because I would not
have him to suppose that either in this or in the future volumes of
my History I shall be able to redeem my pledge, and to perform all
that I promised. Something I hope to achieve which will interest
the thinkers of this age; and, something, perhaps, on which
posterity may build. It will, however, only be a fragment of my
original design.'

In estimating the extent to which Mr. Buckle succeeded in consummating
the labor which he undertook, we are not, therefore, to measure his
results by the standard of the first, but by that of the second volume.
It is not, then, the Science of History which he is striving to write;
but only something 'which will interest the thinkers of this age, and
something, perhaps, on which posterity may build.' His task, as thus
abridged, was confined to the endeavor to establish the 'four leading
propositions, which, according to my [his] view, are to be deemed the
basis of the history of civilization;' that is, the basis of a Science
of History. These propositions, given in a previous article, may be here
repeated:

'1st. That the progress of mankind depends on the success with
which the laws of phenomena are investiga