By the Rev. J. O. Picton. 273 
an eminent writer has called antiquarianism, or the spirit which 
leads men to investigate what has gone by without any reference 
to what is in being. I contend that the true archeologist is 
actuated by a wholly different impulse—that he is neither a mere 
constructor of curiosity shops, nor a self-complacent despiser of the 
problems and questions which agitate his own age. His is a more 
catholic and liberal spirit, for what is Archeology? It is the study 
of the past in the most comprehensive sense, implying thereby an 
examination of all existing remains, whether in the shape of 
architectural erections, written records, spoken dialects, and the 
implements of warlike, civil and domestic use. And it is the rigid 
examination of these, with the one purpose of furnishing accredited 
materials for history. We are not to gaze on the wrecks of time 
in gaping wonderment, as if, to use Carlyle’s words, “all the Titans 
had written upon them, dry rubbish shot here.” No! the medieval 
temple and the ruined fortress, the dusty charter and the defaced 
coin, obsolete words and ancient customs, are all to be interrogated 
as to their several meanings—are all to be compelled to put in 
evidence, as to how far they are significant symbols of the wants, 
the habits and institutions which characterised preceding genera- 
tions. In fine, the ultimate aim of this science is to supply such 
data as will enable us to draw fair inferences as to the state of those 
who have gone before us, to present us with a vantage ground from 
which we may discern, as in a bright and well defined prospect, 
the complexity of life and action which signalised those who are 
no longer upon earth. And, I would ask, is it possible for a man 
to enter on such studies aright, who is dead to what is being trans- 
acted in hisown day? There cannot be an intelligent apprehension 
of the past, unless in some way or other a comparison can be 
instituted, and an analogy sought for, in antecedent and existing 
conditions. It is difficult to separate a book from the writer—the 
present is but the ever increasing past,—and no book that was ever 
written about the past was worth the reading, if it did not exhibit 
a manifest sympathy with living actors and present interests. In 
this view Dr. Arnold has well observed, that one of the falsest and 
and most inaccurate histories of Greece, that of Mitford, is never- 
