498 
and the number of theories as to what ancient history had 
been soon became legion. I submit that this method is 
based on no sound rational foundation. Some of these guesses 
may be more or less probable, but they never can be made to 
rest on any certainty of evidence. Science, too, has her 
theories; these, after they have originated, admit of being 
again brought to the test of an ever increasing array of facts, 
but there are no facts by which to test those of which I am 
speaking beyond those on which they are erected. Niebuhr 
compared his faculty of divination to the case of a man who 
had been shut up for a long time in a dark room. In time 
the eye gets accustomed to the light, and acquires a power of 
discerning objects which, to a person suddenly introduced 
into it, would seem incredible. Niebuhr thought that a similar 
power of intuition could be acquired by the mental eye getting 
accustomed to the dim light of ancient history. 
It seems to me that the analogy is a false one. I do not 
deny that long meditation on the materials and uncertain 
lights of ancient history might enable a man to make many 
more or less plausible conjectures. But that such a power 
can avail to reconstruct what has actually perished is impos- 
sible. The worthlessness of the method has, I think, been 
established by Lewis beyond all contradiction. . Similar prin- 
ciples to those of Niebuhr have been applied by Bunsen and 
numerous other writers to extensive fields of historical inquiry, 
and to the history of Egypt in particular ; and the result is 
that where real building materials fail them, they have com- 
posed their structures of sand. These have been demolished 
by the next theorizer, and so on for ever. 
Are we, then, to be compelled to abandon the hope of the 
reconstruction of history ? I fear so, except as far as we can 
do it by the light of positive evidence. Where that fails, we 
must be content to leave the large gaps in all their naked 
deformity. Viewed on the negative side, the principles of 
historical criticism are of the highest value, but, like other 
human things, some of them are imperfect and liable to 
abuse. They have delivered us from the danger of mistaking 
shadows for living men. After the demolitions effected by 
the negative side of criticism, our hopes of reconstructing the 
past lie in the discovery of fresh evidence. This must be 
patiently waited for ; it will probably be more or less perfectly 
supplied by the elaboration of a science of human language. 
As the organisms of previous races have been preserved in 
the rocks by being entombed in them, so man 5 s mental acti- 
vities have been entombed in language, and many of them 
will be disinterred in their proper season. 
