H.T. Buckle (English Historian and chess player, 1821-1862) from his unfinished History of Civilization in England, Vol. 1, pg. 256 (originally published 1857-1861). Buckle had extended Enlightenment rationalist ideas into Victorian liberal culture.
“It is in this way that, looking at things upon a large scale, the religion of mankind is the effect of their improvement, not the cause of it. But, looking at things upon a small scale, or taking what is called a practical view of some short and special period, circumstances will occasionally occur which disturb this general order, and apparently reverse the natural process. And this, as in all such cases, can only arise from the peculiarities of individual men; who, moved by the minor laws which regulate individual actions, are able, by their genius or their energy, to interfere with the operation of those greater laws which regulate large societies. Owing to circumstances still unknown, there appear, from time to time, great thinkers, who, devoting their lives to a single purpose, are able to anticipate the progress of mankind, and to produce a religion or a philosophy, by which important effects are eventually brought about. But, if we look into history, we shall clearly see that, although the origin of a new opinion may be thus due to a single man, the result which the new opinion produces will depend on the condition of the people among whom it is propagated. If either a religion or a philosophy is too much in advance of a nation, it can do no present service, but must bide its time, until the minds of men are ripe for its reception. Of this innumerable instances will occur to most readers. Every science and every creed has had its martyrs; men exposed to obloquy, or even to death, because they knew more than their contemporaries, and because society was not sufficiently advanced to receive the truths which they communicated. According to the ordinary course of affairs, a few generations pass away, and then there comes a period when these very truths are looked upon as commonplace facts; and a little later, there comes another period, in which they are declared to be necessary, and even the dullest intellects wonder how they could ever have been denied. This is what happens when the human mind is allowed to have fair play, and to exercise itself, with tolerable freedom, in the accumulation and diffusion of knowledge. If, however, by violent, and therefore by artificial, means, this same society is prevented from exercising its intellect, then the truths, however important they may be, can never be received. For why should certain truths be rejected in one age, and acknowledged in another? The truths remain the same; their ultimate recognition must, therefore, be due to a change in the society which now accepts what it had before despised.”
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What H.T. Buckle explains relates to the republican tradition, because it demonstrates that republicanism is a collective philosophy. Republicanism is unusual, because it is both a political system and a civic philosophy requiring widespread adoption. When Buckle claimed that the result which the new opinion produces will depend on the condition of the people among whom it is propagated, this is especially relevant to republicanism, because republicanism cannot function unless the people internalize its philosophy.
If citizens, which includes the politicians and business class that emerge from the citizenry, don’t actively live republican principles (i.e. public spirit, responsibility, vigilance), then the institutions are hollow and easily replaced. Unlike monarchy (which rests on dynastic legitimacy) or socialism (which often emphasizes collective economic structures), republicanism depends on civic virtue and shared belief in liberty.
This structure explains why it has often been displaced or undermined by rival traditions like monarchism and socialism. Few talk about the displacement of republicanism itself, because it’s assumed to be either outdated or automatically included in broader struggles. Socialists, Marxists, and communists often treated republicanism as a transitional stage, or rather something to be subordinated or surpassed on the way to their own vision of society. In all three cases, republicanism was instrumentalized, and valued only as a stepping stone. Buckle’s words remind us that republicanism cannot survive unless people internalize its philosophy. If citizens stop believing in republican liberty and civic virtue, then (a) populists, monarchists, Fascists and so forth can reassert the tradition of ordered (and even modern hereditary) hierarchy, (b) socialists and communists can subordinate republicanism to class struggle, and (c) populations may accept authoritarian alternatives. Republicanism is uniquely vulnerable because it requires constant cultural reinforcement, not just institutional design. Citizens have to actively live its philosophy, which is a philosophy of self-rule. If Americans don’t know what republican philosophy is and instead adopt Marxist rhetoric or still have old conservative logic baked into their thinking critically or uncritically, they risk losing the civic foundation that makes liberty possible.
Essentially, (i.) the instrumentalization of republicanism only as a stage or tool and not an end has become common, (ii.) the downplay of civic virtue carries the assumption that institutions or redistribution can substitute for citizen responsibility, and (iii.) Buckle’s particular insight that ideas only succeed when society is ready are ignored. If republican philosophy isn’t internalized, no amount of economic or institutional reform can save liberty, and the republic becomes expendable.
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HENRY T. BUCKLE’S REACTION TO CONSERVATIVE TRADITIONALISM
Henry Thomas Buckle’s fitting words on how new ideas, even revolutionary ones, cannot succeed or must wait until society is ready to receive them directly supports a core principle of the republican tradition, in that political liberty, civic virtue, and republican institutions can only flourish when the character and condition of the people are sufficiently developed and therefore depends on the moral and intellectual maturity of the citizenry. Classical and modern republican thinkers argue that republics cannot be imposed from above, and require civic virtue, public spirit, and collective discipline. A republic fails if the people are not ready to sustain it.
Buckle admired the intellectual progress that made constitutional government possible; therefore, intellectual progress was seen as a precondition for political liberty, making intellectual development, scientific thinking and secular reasoning prerequisites for social progress. Given his focus on the history of England, his deterministic view of history is a reflection of the republican tradition’s historical self-understanding from what was learned about the English Commonwealth emerging only after decades of religious and political conflict, the American Republic succeeding because colonial society had developed habits of self-government; and how 19ᵗʰ century European republics failed when attempted prematurely. Buckle was skeptical of hereditary monarchy and aristocratic privilege, seeing them as obstacles to rational progress, and his emphasis on “laws of progress” implied that republican or democratic forms were the natural outcome of intellectual development.
As a man of the mid-Victorian liberal tradition, his strong anti-clericalism and liberal rationalism resonated with English republicans who believed that civic virtue and rational culture were also prerequisites for self‑government; and his progressive deterministic view of history gave republicanism a kind of inevitability: once society matured, monarchy would be displaced. Because Buckle was not directly a republican theorist, and didn’t anchor republicanism in permanent civic virtue, but in intellectual development and historical readiness, his progressive determinism from a critical standpoint leaves his arguments vulnerable to the idea that republicanism is merely a stage of bourgeois democracy. Although, failed political experiments in the 20ᵗʰ century collapsed when civic culture was absent, proving Buckle’s point that ideas only succeed when society is ready. Buckle was not reacting to socialism. Buckle’s ideas acted mainly as an inoculation or refutation against the conservative nostalgia for monarchy argued by Burke, de Maistre, and Bonald representing the old conservative counter‑revolutionary logic.
Hence, conservative and traditionalist thinkers after de Maistre and Louis de Bonald continued to feel justified, by arguing that thinkers like Buckle who framed history as inevitable progress unintentionally left republicanism (seen as inherently unstable) vulnerable to being re‑interpreted as just a “stage” on the way to socialism or communism. The same old conservative rhetoric is used in U.S. politics by modern conservatives in nearly every accusation against “liberals” or “the left.”