204 LIGHTS OF THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE vi 



of histories the answer is not doubtful : they are all 

 only partially true. Even those venerable works 

 which bear the names of some of the greatest of 

 ancient Greek and Roman writers, and which have 

 been accepted by generation after generation, down 

 to modern times, as stores of unquestionable truth, 

 have been compelled by scientific criticism, after 

 a long battle, to descend to the common level, and 

 to confess to a large admixture of error. I might 

 fairly take this for granted ; but it may be well 

 that I should entrench myself behind the very 

 apposite words of a historical authority who is cer- 

 tainly not obnoxious to even a suspicion of scepti- 

 cal tendencies. 



Time was and that not very long ago when all the rela- 

 tions of ancient authors concerning the old world were received 

 with a ready belief ; and an unreasoning and uncritical faith 

 accepted with equal satisfaction the narrative of the campaigns 

 of Caesar and of the doings of Romulus, the account of Alex- 

 ander's marches and of the conquests of Semiramis. We can 

 most of us remember when, in this country, the whole story of 

 regal Rome, and even the legend of the Trojan settlement in 

 Latium, we're seriously placed before boys as history, and dis- 

 coursed of as unhesitatingly and in as dogmatic a tone as the 

 tale of the Catiline Conspiracy or the Conquest of Britain. . . 



But all this is now changed. The last century has seen the 

 birth and growth of a new science the Science of Historical 

 Criticism. . . , The whole world of profane history has 

 been revolutionised. . . . 1 



* Bampton Lectures (1859), on "The Historical Evidences of 

 the Truth of the Scripture Records stated anew, with Special 

 Reference to the Doubts and Discoveries of Modern Times, " by 

 the Rev. G. Rawlinson, M.A., pp. 5-6. 



