29i 



jfbr an event which occurred more than one thousand years 

 before his time. If he had no definite historical materials 

 before him, his authority because he lived 1,800 years ago 

 would be valueless. If the world should last another thousand 

 years, writers of the present day may be then ancient authori- 

 ties, and some will probably think their testimony valuable for 

 some fact connected with the battle of Hastings. Against this 

 fallacy we cannot be too closely on our guard. 



A considerable portion of the blame must be laid on the 

 ancient historians themselves. History was viewed by them 

 too much as a work of art. Style held the first place; the 

 separation of fact from fiction the second. Hence the facility 

 with which they composed speeches, and put them into the 

 mouths of others. Even the accurate Thucydides, as you 

 know, did not escape from this evil habit, though he candidly 

 owns that his speeches are his own composition. The same spirit 

 has led some of them to give us lively descriptions of battles for 

 which it is evident they could have had no authority but their 

 own inventive powers. Hardly an ancient historian exists 

 who applied the principles of criticism to events which occurred 

 before the period of written contemporaneous documents. 

 Livy's preface well exhibits the careless spirit with which they 

 generally treated the events of early history. 



Great, also, is the debt which modern history owes to the 

 growth of the critical spirit. Partisan writers, and writers who 

 drew their information from second-rate authorities, had suc- 

 ceeded in stereotyping their own views of it. We have now 

 arrived at the conclusion, that history which is not based on a 

 comparison of original authorities, and a careful sifting of evi- 

 dence, is valueless. The extent to which documentary evidence 

 has been adduced is one of the most striking- improvements 

 which the spirit of modern times has introduced into this study. 

 If hero-worship has sometimes too much characterized it^ it has 

 certainly demolished a multitude of idols. 



- Of the critical school of ancient history Niebuhr may be 

 regarded as the founder, although several earlier writers had 

 prepared the way by calling attention to its uncertainty. Prior 

 to his labours the general views of it were hopelessly indistinct, 

 and the value of the authorities, on which it rested, had never 

 been tested. Certain positions may be considered to be now 

 firmly established. 1. That all secular history, to entitle it to the 

 name, must be founded on contemporaneous testimony of some 

 sort, and that alleged facts, which cannot be discovered to rest 

 on such' testimony, are unworthy of credit. 2. That the 

 assertions of no writer, however ancient, are trustworthy 

 evidence for events which occurred centuries before his birth, 



