GROWTH AND DIFFUSION OF CRITICAL SPIRIT. 139 



by G. Hermann, so the programme sketched by Wolf 

 was elaborated by his pupils and followers ; but it is 

 significant that, whereas the former school, which was 

 characterised by concentration and logical acumen, found 

 a centre and its classical expression in the one person of 

 Friedrich Ritschl, the school of Wolf, which was char- 

 acterised rather by breadth than exactitude of view, 

 spread out into a number of branches represented by 

 men of very varying ability and interests, among whom 

 in the first generation may be mentioned Niebuhr, 

 Bockh, Welcker, Otfried Miiller. The two schools 

 represented by Hermann in Leipzig on one side, by 

 Wolf and Bockh in Berlin on the other, carried on 

 for some time the celebrated feud of the " Sprach- 35. 

 philologen " v. the " Sachphilologen," but it is gratifying phiioiogen 

 to know that the two great masters themselves, Hermann piiiogen. 

 and Bockh, who, according to the statement of the latter, 

 stood in the remarkable relation " of a friendship main- 

 tained by mutual recriminations," ended their lives with 

 the expression of mutual appreciation and personal 

 esteem. 



The critical spirit reached its highest development in 

 the hands of representatives who, like Hermann and 

 Ritschl, knew how to circumscribe the field of their 

 research, how to define their object, and how to concen- 

 trate their attention and ingenuity. Most of the texts 

 of the classical authors were at that time in a state of 

 great corruption and mutilation. The work of editing 

 and restoring these neglected relics, the study of the 

 remains of antique life, the work of extricating and 

 reviving, the collation of manuscripts, the deciphering 



