perhaps was not an endless
one.

It is clear, then, that the principles to which we have been adverting
would, if established, be really subversive of morality, inasmuch as
they are incompatible with free agency, without which there can be no
responsibility. The soundness of a doctrine does not, however, depend
upon its tendencies; and Mr. Buckle was fully warranted in demanding
that his views should be examined with reference, not at all to their
consequences, but solely and exclusively to their truth. They certainly
ought to be so examined, if examined at all; but morality is so
indispensable to the happiness of mankind, that if there were reason for
apprehending it to be based upon error, there would be equal reason for
avoiding an enquiry which might demonstrate the weakness of its
foundations, by bringing forward an antagonistic truth. The only
adequate excuse, therefore, for enquiring, as I now proceed to do, into
the validity of Mr. Buckle's theory, is the confidence I feel that it
will be found to contain not recondite, newly-discovered truth, but, at
best, only skilfully and curiously-compounded fallacies, which, being
dispelled, will leave the foundations of morality as firm and
unimpeachable as before.

In order that he might be able to prove the possibility of a Science of
History, Mr. Buckle asked no more than the following concessions:
'That, when we perform an action, we perform it in consequence of some
motive or motives; that those motives are the results of some
antecedents, and that therefore, if we were acquainted with the whole of
the antecedents and with all the laws of their movements, we could with
unerring certainty predict the whole of their immediate results.' Now,
there is certainly nothing in these demands which may not be
unhesitatingly conceded. As there can be no effect without a cause, so
there can be no action without a motive: the motive or motives of an
action are the product of all the conditions and circumstances among
which the agent is placed--which conditions and circumstances, again,
must have been brought about by antecedent events. The same
circumstances would indeed differently affect persons of different
mental constitutions and characters; but the original constitution of a
man's mind is itself the product of antecedent events, as is also any
subsequent modification of character which it may have undergone. It
cannot be denied, then, that men's motives are the results of