From the Archives (December 18, 1920): The light of history(From an editorial)

It is natural that after an exhausting world-struggle which has had no parallel in the past, thinkers and writers should speculate upon the goal of humanity, its future organisation and the trend of its future development. History has been appealed to in the past to throw its light upon the future of the world's races and the directions in which the development of humanity may be expected. When Buckle wrote his “History of Civilisation” which aroused immense interest at the time, he did so to read partly the future of the races, in the light of the past development, interpreted with the aid of the generalisations based on environment and physical laws — generalisations whose validity, in the light of other facts, were seriously open to question. Buckle’s interpretation of history, were it true, would have made the East despair of its future; for, it was his view that placed as the tropics were nearer the Sun, the population of these vast areas were ultimately doomed to comparative weakness, langour and stagnation, although in the beginning of the world, the tropics were bound to be the cradle of early civilisations. Buckle, however, is not seriously considered now as a great historian; and his claim to memory is now chiefly that of a man of letters.