293 



trustwortliy history only begins within a moderate number 

 of years before the birth of a contemporaneous historical 

 literature. 



It will be seen that these principles admit of being applied to 

 history generally^ and cannot be limited to these special cases. 

 We cannot but admit as a general fact that the early history of 

 nations contains a mythic element^ for which historical testimony 

 is wanting. Prosaic writers have mistaken poetry for history, 

 and represented its creations as historical facts. In the case of 

 many of the Oriental nations the art of writing was in use in a 

 very early period, and its employment for recording historical 

 events rests on unquestionable evidence. Hence the period of 

 their credible history extends up to a much earlier date than 

 that of the Occidental races. But in nearly all of these myth 

 precedes history ; races of Gods and heroes that of ordinary 

 men. The question, therefore, becomes of the greatest import- 

 ance. Have we any means of separating the grains of historic 

 truth from the mass of myths and legends in what they are 

 incrusted ? 



It is not my purpose to enter on the regions of pure mythology, 

 or to inquire whether by any possible application of reason an 

 historical element can be extracted from it. It is evident that 

 attempts to assign an origin to the innumerable myths of the 

 ancient world must rest in no small degree on conjectures which 

 admit of no verification. I am far from denying that the 

 study of comparative mythology may lead to some historical 

 results. My immediate concern is with the semi-historical 

 periods of history. Do they admit of a reconstruction which 

 rests on a basis of reliable evidence, or must we be content to 

 leave them in the disjointed state in Avhich they have been 

 handed down to us ? Niebuhr considered that he had discovered 

 a constructive method applicable to this period of history. After 

 the fictions had been destroyed, he held that there remained a 

 certain number of disjointed historic facts. He considered that 

 the intervals which separated these facts could be filled up by the 

 aid of a faculty which he called that of historic divination, but 

 what may be more truly called conjecture, aided by reasonings 

 from analogy. He used as an illustration of this faculty the 

 power which a man who has lived in a dark chamber can acquire, 

 by means of habit, of seeing objects in it, which are invisible to 

 those who have just entered from the light. The analogy, 

 however, fails in one most important particular in its applica- 

 tion to the obscure regions of history. We can verify the asser- 

 tions of the man who reports objects which he sees in the dark 

 chamber, but although a man may see much more deeply than we 

 can into the obscurities of history, we never can verify the 



