descent of a stone falling from a height to the earth; but the astronomical problem of the three bodies has tasked the highest intellects from age to age. This problem, originally applied to the moon, the earth, and the sun, requires that-the masses of the three bodies, projected from certain points, together with their velocities and direction, being given, and it being known that they gravitate to each other with forces that are directly as their masses and inversely as the squares of their distances the lines described by these bodies and their positions at any given instant shall be found.* If this apparently simple problem is in reality very difficult of solution, what can we expect of the complicated problems which man's moral and intellectual life present, in which the forces are scarcely susceptible of enumeration, and the combinations are too numerous to be computed? But although it would be impossible to calculate the moral and intellectual movements of any individual man in their entirety and complexity, the doctrine of averages enables us to achieve no slight success when our labours are applied to the mass. This arises from the fact that man's individualities and eccentricities, although relatively great and important, are yet confined within a narrow circle, * See Somerville. Physical Sciences.'

and vanish when a sufficient number are surveyed in a single glance, just as the minor varieties of contour in the plains below become insensible to the wanderer who views them from a lofty alpine height.

CHAPTER III.

BROAD FEATURES OF CHANGE.

SOCIAL science necessarily comprehends many details, but it is essentially a science of broad principles and generalizations; and no greater mistake can be made than for persons to fancy they deserve to be numbered among its students, when they are only acquiring a knowledge of isolated facts without learning to perceive their import and meaning as portions of a great whole. After the mind has become filled with the conviction that ascertainable laws regulate the movements of individual minds and of human societies, a desire will be felt to survey great historical periods in the light of philosophical investigation, and to know the real nature of the changes that have taken place. The events of society are the outward manifestations of its internal forces or principles; and the first step in scientific inquiry is to ascertain what were the predominant forces or principles at work at a given time, and in what order they were replaced by the

prevailing influence of the succeeding period. As a specimen of this method of inquiry, and also for the sake of obtaining facts and ideas necessary for the prosecution of our work, let us examine the comparison of modern and ancient society presented by M. Guizot in the thirtieth lecture of the "History of Civilization,'* remembering that civilization arises from the growth of individual thought and its action upon social combinations.

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In the ancient world M. Guizot considers that spiritual and temporal order, human thought, and human society developed themselves parallel rather than together." In explanation of this proposition he reminds us, that during the best days of the Greeks and Romans, their philosophers enjoyed full liberty of thought, or nearly so, and that the state interfered very little to cramp their labours or give them any particular bias. They, on the other hand, "concerned themselves little about politics, nor cared much to influence immediately and decisively the society in which they lived." With the triumph of Christianity in the Roman world, philosophy became merged in religion, by which its intellectual character was enfeebled ; but it gained moral strength, and aspired to rule individuals and govern mankind. Intellectual de

*Bohn's 'Translation,' vol. ii.

velopment among Christian nations thus took the form of practical activity, and "the spiritual element penetrated much further into the temporal order than it had done in ancient times."

Science in the first stage was chiefly in its abstract or pure condition, and furnished an intellectual exercise or discipline; in the second it took the applied form, and found itself more humanized because more in contact with the sentiment of conscience and the recognition of duty. By these means it gained power, but lost liberty. "Instead of remaining free, and open to competition as amongst the ancients, intellectual society was organized and governed: instead of philosophical schools there was a church. It was at the cost of its independence that thought purchased empire: it no longer developed itself in all directions, and according to its simple impulse; but it acted forcibly and immediately on mankind and on societies."

No society can be governed by ideas that are foreign to it, or which it is wholly unable to understand; hence a philosopher can only become practical by being nearly on a level with the times. The highest minds of antiquity soared far above this level, and the principles of Christianity are likewise above it; so the Church compounded a theology and a philosophy sufficiently