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of such fancied beings, and so, true to the mythological fiction, 
which gave to those beings an existence in the phantasy of the 
human mind, 
To pass on, however, to graver subjects,—Philology, Archzo- 
logy, and that most interesting and important study which is akin 
to both, Ethnology, can only be rightly studied in the spirit of the 
same inductive reasoning, which Bacon has taught us to apply to 
the advancement of every branch of knowledge. The archeologist, 
for example, has to deal with ‘the remnants of history” only, 
* tanquam tabula naufragii;” and it his business, as Bacon describes 
it, “‘ by an exact and scrupulous diligence and observation, out of 
monuments, coins, words, proverbs, traditions, public and private 
records and evidences, fragments of stories, passages of books that 
concern not the story, and the like, to save and recover something 
from the deluge of time.”’ ‘‘ Res sane operosa” (he adds) “sed 
mortalibus grata, et cum reverentid quadam conjuncta; ac digna 
certe, quze, deletis fabulosis nationum originibus, in locum hujus- 
modi commentitiorum substituatur ; sed tamen eo minus habens 
auctoritatis, quia paucorum licentiz subjicitur quod paucis cure 
est.2?* - 
In these most pithy words the great parent of modern philoso- 
phy has ably described the difficulty which has in all ages obstructed 
the progress of Archeeology. To investigate Truth from the scattered 
fragments of antiquity requires an extent of learning, in every 
branch of human knowledge, as well as a patient spirit of sober and 
sound judgment, for which few are qualified. And that study, which 
is thus necessarily within the reach of few, presents itself to mankind 
as resting upon the authority of but few, and is, therefore, if I may 
so say, at the mercy of those few. 
But the difficulty of discovering truth in this branch of science 
does not make Truth to be the less its real object: the facts and 
materials from which Truth is to be gathered are here more frag- 
mentary and more widely scattered than in other sciences ; and the 
key which may solve and explain the phenomena is sometimes to be 
found in the most improbable and unexpected places; still, Truth 
* De Augm. Scient., lib. 1. ¢. vi. 
