PHILOLOGY. 



525 



garten, Bopp, the Chinese by Montucci and Klaproth, 

 and several others. The influence of this philological 

 industry appears principally in theology, for we find 

 the greatest exegetical writers among the Germans 

 since the time of the reformation. Melanchthon and 

 Beza were distinguished before. In the seventeenth 

 century, there follow Jablonski, Herman von der 

 Hardt, Reineccius, Simon ; in the eighteenth, Semler, 

 Ernesti, Morus, Koppe, Ilgen, Griesbach, Matthia, 

 Storr, Nosselt, Knapp, Paulus, the Rosenmullers, 

 De Wette, &c. Jurisprudence was investigated 

 from its sources by means of philology, and cultivated 

 as one of the learned sciences, which character it 

 still bears in Germany. The study of history and 

 geography has been, by its means, cultivated and 

 extended in various ways, and no department of the 

 sciences and arts has been without its support, and, 

 conversely, the study of classical literature has been 

 promoted by antiquarian and archaeological know- 

 ledge, as in the cases of Heyne, Bottiger, Voss. 



In the history of philology, since the revival of 

 learning, Creuzer distinguishes several periods. The 

 first was characterized by the spirit of imitation, when 

 men were enraptured with the beauty of the works 

 to which they were for the first time introduced, and 

 a spirit of imitation almost unconsciously took pos- 

 session of them, and appeared in all their labours. 

 At this time, they had not learned to distinguish 

 what was accidental from what was essential to the 

 excellence they so much admired. Representatives 

 of this period are Poggio, Angelo, Poliziano, and 

 Marsilio Ficino, the latter a reviver of ancient phi- 

 losophy. Then follows the period which Creuzer 

 calls that of realism, when men became possessed 

 with a love for wide and deep learning. It had its 

 origin in the well founded opinion of the necessity of 

 great and thorough knowledge for the restoring and 

 illustrating of the works of antiquity, but it led to the 

 accumulation of unwieldy stores of learning, which 

 impeded the proper activity of the mind. Scaliger, 

 Claude, Saumaise, Gerh. and John Vossius, Casp. 

 Barth, and others, represent this period, and partake 

 more or less in its errors. 



What these great accumulators had brought to- 

 gether was first rendered truly useful by the critical 

 labours of the following period, which we may call 

 the period of understanding, when a discriminating 

 criticism was applied to these stores. The merits 

 and the genuineness of ancient works were now more 

 carefully examined. A more accurate study of lan- 

 guage and a more continual reference to the context, 

 gave greater weight to criticism. A methodical ar- 

 rangement of knowledge, judicious selection, acute 

 thinking, and correct taste, were now more prized 

 than vast erudition. In this period, the bold and in- 

 genious Richard Bentley, the thorough and judicious 

 Tib. Hemsterhuis, are distinguished. Rhunken, 

 Valkenaer, and several of the living philologists of 

 Germany, including the celebrated Greek scholar 

 Hermann, belong to the same class. The meaning 

 of philology, even in the limited character in which 

 it has just been considered, is not accurately settled. 

 The famous Fr. Aug. Wolf calls it, without any 

 qualification, the science of antiquities in general, 

 See Museum der Alterthumsivissenscha.fi, edit, by 

 Wolf & Buttman (vol. i. 1807). Others" go equally 

 far in restricting its meaning. Wherever the limits 

 of the two sciences may be fixed, it is certain that 

 philology and archaeology are so intimately connected 

 that one is indispensable to the other. 



Philology, as the science which embraces the lan- 

 guages and literature of antiquity, comprises an ac- 

 quaintance with grammar, with hermeneutics, or the 

 science of interpretation (implying, of course, the 

 power of criticism and emendation), with the theory 



of prose and metrical composition and with the his- 

 tory of Greek and Roman literature. Wolf says 

 there exist 1600 Greek and Roman authors, pre- 

 served entire or in fragments, exclusive of the fathers 

 of the church, and of this number, the Latin authors 

 amount to little more than a quarter. The auxiliary 

 sciences to philology are, 1. ancient geography (which 

 is divided, by Wolf, into mythical geography, or 

 uranography, historical geography, with chorography 

 and topography) ; 2. the general history of the na- 

 tions of antiquity, together with chronology and his- 

 torical criticism as subsidiary to it ; 3. Greek and 

 Roman antiquities, or the history of particular cir- 

 cumstances, of the constitution and customs of the 

 chief tribes of Greece and of the Romans; 4. mytho- 

 logy, or a knowledge of the religious tales ot the 

 Greeks and Romans ; 5. the history of their philoso- 

 phy and their other sciences ; 6. the history of ancient 

 art, poetry included ; 7. archaeology, to which be- 

 long epigraphies, or the knowledge of the inscrip- 

 tions of both nations, and numismatics ; 8. the his- 

 tory of philology ; 9. aesthetics (particularly in rela- 

 tion to poetry) and philosophical criticism on the 

 value of ancient authors. 



In the history of philology we have touched upon 

 the remarkable hold which the literature of Greece 

 and Rome, above that of all other nations, has ac- 

 quired upon the minds of men, and it is not strange 

 that so beautiful a literature, falling finished into an 

 age in many respects benighted, should always retain 

 great influence, having been, in fact, the source of 

 our civilization, and presenting models of excellence 

 attained under the most favourable circumstances, 

 in addition to the beauty of the idioms in which they 

 are clothed. The Greek, in particular, is the most 

 finely organized and most fully developed language 

 with which we are yet acquainted. In consequence 

 of these circumstances, this science has been, and 

 still is, overrated, and often pursued with an exclusive 

 and injurious preference, which is nourished by the 

 present system of school instruction in Europe. The 

 Germans, we believe, are at present the most devot- 

 ed to philology a consequence of the studiousness 

 that distinguishes the country, and which arises itself 

 from the restraints upon action, at least to a consid- 

 erable degree. To conclude, with a few words of 

 Wolf, " The exercise of the thoughts on languages 

 (which involve much of what is highest and most 

 profound in the operations of the mind), particularly 

 on foreign languages, throws open the field of ab- 

 stract inquiry, and excites to the study of the intel- 

 lect. The thorough study of the written works of 

 antiquity serves as a means for the vigorous develop- 

 ment of the powers. All the powers of the mind 

 are occupied by the explanation and emendation of 

 these works. And what a fund of knowledge is af- 

 forded by the view which they present of the devel- 

 opment of man and of society in ancient times ! 

 In ancient Greece, we find, what we search for in 

 vain almost every where else, nations and states 

 which possessed in their nature most of those qualities 

 which conduce to perfect the character of man, a 

 people of so lively and susceptible a spirit as to leave 

 no field of action which presented itself untried, and 

 who pursued, in this way, the path of improvement 

 more independently of the nations around them, and 

 for a longer period, than was possible in after times 

 and under altered circumstances; who forgot the 

 man so little in the citizen, that the civil institutions 

 themselves aimed at the development of the human 

 powers by general sacrifices ; who, in fine, with an 

 extreme sensibility for every thing noble and grace- 

 ful in the arts, united such depth in scientific re- 

 searches, that they have produced the first admirable 

 masters in ideal speculation as well as the most 



