GROWTH AND DIFFUSION OF CRITICAL SPIRIT. 143 



did not rule supreme ; by its greatest representatives, 

 and even by those who took the extreme view and 

 opposed the more liberal and vaguer conceptions which 

 grew up in the school of Wolf, criticism was regarded 

 as a means to an end, namely, the reconstruction of 

 the culture of classical antiquity or, in more modest 

 phrase, of the texts and works of the classical authors. 

 Something positive was to be done, something definite 

 was to be attained. The result was that critical labours 

 were very frequently cut short and reconstructions 

 attempted long before the necessary material had been 

 collected or the sifting process carried far enough. The 

 preliminary nature of their constructions was probably 

 not always clear to the minds even of such men as 

 Bentley when he wrote his letters on Phalaris, of 

 Niebuhr in his fanciful reconstruction of early Eoman 

 history, or of Ritschl in his rehabilitation of archaic 

 Latin and the text of Plautus. What are now looked 

 upon as merely brilliant examples of method, were to 

 their authors the very aim and object of their studies, 

 and not merely tentative results of subjective criticism 

 and ingenuity. 1 At a much later date, when the histori- 



be overestimated, and the drift 

 given through it to philology one- 

 sided (see vol. i. p. 282, &c.) His 

 manuscript notes of the year 1 868, 

 there quoted, close with the follow- 

 ing sentence : " Where may the 

 fructifying power of philology lie 

 so that we may become somewhat 

 reconciled with her and admit that 

 out of all this immense exertion 

 some germs have sprung up ? 

 Wherever these studies touch 

 upon something of general human 

 interest. Thus her fairest triumph 

 is comparative linguistic with its 



philosophical perspective." This is 

 hardly spoken in the spirit of 

 Ritschl himself. 



1 See specially on this point what 

 Wilamowitz says in Lexis, loc. cit., 

 vol. ii. p. 472, &c. 



The great Niebuhr himself, 

 whose celebrated reconstruction of 

 earlier Roman History made, 

 especially in this country, so 

 great a sensation, but has hardly 

 stood the test of subsequent 

 research (see Wilamowitz, loc. 

 cit., p. 464, also Wachsmuth, 

 'Einleitung in das Studium der 



