2D3 
trustworthy 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 which 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 
