439 
of Edinburgh, Session 1881-82. 
for this is still a disputed question. Some buildings inquirers did 
not expect to find, and did not find ; there was no hospital or 
infirmary, — that was a feature of life unknown to Greek or Roman 
civilisation. But much that was unexpected was found, as, for 
instance, beautiful glass windows and objects made of blown glass. 
Herculaneum has been less excavated ; the modern town of Portici 
stands above it, and the expense of penetrating the harder material 
is greater. Still none can doubt but that few discoveries have thrown 
more light upon the details of the manners of those times than these 
marvellous and unexpected disclosures. 
In conclusion, I would venture to lay down four positions as 
naturally arising out of this inquiry. 
1. It does not appear to lend support to the views of a school, 
somewhat fashionable just at present, which would represent history 
as simply one vast falsehood. Several of our witnesses have certainly 
been vague, and so far misleading, but they have not in any case been 
proved false ; and two among them, Tacitus and Josephus (to say 
nothing of the elder Pliny), intended to have told us more. By all 
means let both premises and conclusions in history be examined with 
due severity. Its assertions may never reach demonstration ; but 
they may in some cases fall short of it by an amount less than any 
assignable quantity. Let me repeat, on this head, the words which 
I heard uttered by Dr. Arnold almost forty years ago : — “ If 
historical testimony be really worth nothing, it touches us in one 
of the very divinest parts of our nature, the power of connecting 
ourselves with the past.” * 
2. This inquiry does, if I am not mistaken, deal a serious blow at 
the view of that school which would limit our historical researches to 
the study of contemporary written evidence. It is true that such a 
principle cannot adequately be judged by any single instance ; but 
there are plenty more to be had, as for example, the narrative of the 
Indian campaign of Alexander the Great, for which we now depend 
mainly upon Arrian, who was born four hundred years after the death 
of Alexander. Still the case before us supplies an exceedingly crucial 
test. It is but seldom that we can hope to confront the statements 
of historians with such evidence as has been afforded by the excava- 
* Lectures on Modern History, lect. viii. 
