eciprocal term. Whenever a
_real_ history of human civilization is written, they will thus appear.
And Mr. Buckle, in seeking to empty one term in order to obtain room
for the other, was yielding concessions, not to the pure necessities of
truth, but to his own infirmity as a thinker.

Having, however, taken the crown and kingdom from Personality, our
philosophical Warwick proceeds to the coronation of his favorite
autocrat, Society. His final proposition, which indeed is made
obscurely, and as far as possible by implication, is this:--

3. _That Society is the Real Source of Individual Action_. A proposition
made obscurely, but argued strenuously, and altogether necessary for
the completion of his foundation. He attempts proof by reference to the
following facts:--that in a given kingdom there occur, year after year,
nearly the same number of murders, suicides, and letters mailed without
direction, and that marriages are more frequent when food is low and
wages high, and so conversely. This is the sum total of the argument on
which he relies here and throughout his work: if this proves his point,
it is proven; if otherwise, otherwise.

To begin with, I admit the facts alleged. They are overstated; there
_is_ considerable departure from an exact average: but let this pass. I
will go farther, and admit, what no one has attempted to show, that an
average in these common and outward matters proves the like regularity
in all that men do and think and feel. This to concentrate attention
upon the main question.

And the main question is, What do these regular averages signify? Do
they denote the dominancy of a social fate? "Yea, yea," cry loudly the
French fatalists; and "Yea, yea," respond with firm assurance Buckle &
Co. in England; and "Yea," there are many to say in our own land. Even
Mr. Emerson must summon his courage to confront "the terrible statistics
of the French statisticians." But I live in the persuasion that these
statistics are extremely innocent, and threaten no man's liberty. Let us
see.

Take first the instance of forgetfulness. In the United Kingdom some
millions of letters are annually mailed; and of these, one in a certain
number of thousands, "making allowance," as our author innocently says,
"for variation of circumstances," is found to be mailed without a
superscription. Now provision for a forgetting is made in every man's
individual constitution. Partly for permanent and final forgetting; in
t