truth which could not elsewhere be spoken to them. He discourses on the principles according to which actions are to be judged, and how true greatness and goodness in actions are to be discerned. He points out how history warns nations against vanity and boastfulness, the too eager pursuit of wealth and of external advantages, ambition and war. Sacred history he describes as a picture of the divine government of the world and of the course of the education of the human race; and profane history as also essentially religious and moral in its tendency and teaching. He insists with due emphasis that absolute truthfulness is the prime requisite of history. He indicates the importance of the search for causes, and what care is needed to distinguish real from apparent causes; as also the special claims which the characters of great men, and all that relates to laws, manners, and religion, have on the attention of the historical student. He attempts to apply his principles to, and illustrate his precepts by, select chapters of sacred and profane history; but in this part of his task he is not very successful. As to Rollin, then, we may sum up thus: he recommends the study of history with a warm and earnest eloquence; his reflections on history are morally impressive and religiously edifying; but they throw no light on the methodology of history.

Historical scepticism appeared in a very extravagant form in the publications of John Hardouin (1646-1729). This Jesuit Father was a man of great learning, and especially eminent as a numismatist; but he was of a very singular character of mind and maintained very extraordinary opinions. He is well described in his epitaph written by his friend De Boze: "In expectatione judicii hic jacet hominum paradoxotatos, natione Gallus, religione Romanus, orbis literati portentum: venerandæ antiquitatis cultor et destructor, docte febricitans, somnia et inaudita commenta vigilans edidit. Scepticum pie egit, credulitate puer, audacia juvenis, deliriis senex." Père Hardouin had enormous vanity and ambition, and the utmost contempt for the abilities and views of other scholars. He placed little faith in books or documents, but immense trust in his medals. It was very largely from medals that he sought to construct the chronology and history of ancient and medieval

times. The ordinary or traditional history he regarded as almost entirely the invention of monks of the thirteenth century who wished to substitute for Christianity a belief in fate. These monks, he held, had either entirely or virtually fabricated the works attributed to Thucydides, Livy, Terence, Ovid; and, indeed, all the so-called classical writings of antiquity, except those of Homer and Herodotus, Cicero and the elder Pliny, the Georgics of Virgil and the Satires and Epistles of Horace. The chronicles and documents relating to the Franks he likewise pronounced to be forgeries. These and suchlike conclusions confidently maintained by a man who through his edition of the 'Natural History' of Pliny had early acquired the highest reputation for learning, whose industry and ingenuity were amazing, and whose publications succeeded one another in an incessant and rapid flow, naturally excited agitation and controversy. His ecclesiastical superiors feeling the faith of the Church in the genuineness and antiquity of the Scriptures undermined by his scepticism, compelled him in 1708 to publish a retractation, but he neither changed his obnoxious views nor ceased to repeat them. All through the first quarter of the eighteenth century Hardouin's hypotheses were under dispute. They were generally and often violently condemned, but the controversies to which they gave rise also made manifest the extent to which scepticism had invaded the province of history. They showed that not a few people were disposed to regard the bon mot ascribed to Fénélon, "L'histoire n'est qu'une fable convenue," as an arrow which nearly hit the mark. They helped to bring into due prominence questions as to historical certitude which lie at the basis of historical methodology: How far is historical testimony to be trusted at all? what is genuine and what false in history, and how are we to distinguish between them? It was during this period that these questions for the first time clearly presented themselves in the consciousness of historians. Later on in the century they became familiar even to the common mind.

Of much greater significance and influence than the paradoxical arguments of Hardouin was the discussion carried on during a series of years in the Academy of Inscriptions. It was conducted throughout in a truly scientific spirit, and may

not unreasonably be held to mark an epoch in the development of historical criticism.

The two papers of Father Anselm, 'Sur les monuments qui ont servi de Mémoires aux premiers historiens,' read in 1720, may be regarded as opening the discussion. In these essays the Abbé endeavoured to establish that antiquity had not been so devoid of literary and other means of recording events as had been represented, and that the most ancient historians had based their narratives on memorials of various kinds. The only merit, however, which can fairly be ascribed to him, is that of having seen that there was a great question as to historical certitude which demanded an answer. He did not examine the question closely, or perceive clearly the conditions to be fulfilled by any one who would answer it. His own answer to it is loose and inconclusive.

Much more important was the 'Dissertation sur l'incertitude de l'histoire des quatre premiers siècles de Rome,' read by M. de Pouilly before the Academy on the 15th December 1722. By limiting the question as to historic certitude to the consideration of a wisely selected special period of history, he at once rendered it more precise, and made more apparent how vital it was. As a general question the time had not yet come for its profitable discussion. Controversy regarding the truth or falsity of the story of the first four centuries of Rome as told by her own historians, could not fail to be suggestive and useful. Pouilly was not the first to entertain doubts regarding that story. Almost with the first awakening of the modern critical. spirit came suspicion as to the credibility of the traditional story of early Rome. Lorenzo Valla gave expression to it in the fifteenth century, and Glareanus in the sixteenth. In the seventeeth century Holland possessed a school of learned criticism which had its chief seat at Leyden, and of that school one member, Bochart, showed that the traditions as to Æneas were unhistorical; another, Gronovius, argued that the story of Romulus was a legend; and a third, Perizonius, brought to light the frequent contradictions of the Roman historians, and declared that the earlier books of Livy contained traces of the popular songs of primitive Rome. Just in the year previous to that in which Pouilly's dissertation was read, the profound

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and ingenious Neapolitan philosopher, Vico, had begun in his 'De Constantia Jurisprudentis' to propound the hypothesis as to early Roman history which he afterwards stated in a more developed form in the first edition of the 'Scienza Nuova' (1725), and which so remarkably anticipated the conclusions reached by Niebuhr, Mommsen, and others in the present century. But Pouilly knew nothing about Vico; and further, his criticism is merely negative, whereas that of Vico was but a clearing of the ground for the work of construction. begins his dissertation by laying down the general proposition that ancient history is so filled with fictions that all the annals of the ancient peoples should be the subject of a strict criticism; and then he undertakes to prove that Roman history ought to be regarded as uncertain until the time of the wars of Pyrrhus. In doing so he anticipates, but expressly denies, the applicability of the charge of "Pyrrhonism," or scepticism in an unfavourable sense; he merely refuses, he says, to assent to what is not adequately authenticated. The earliest writers who profess to give an account of the history of Rome during the first four centuries had not, he contends, the means of knowing what that history was. They allow it to appear that they did not themselves regard what they recounted, to be certain. They only worked up the traditions and legends which were afloat into a plausible continuous narrative. Their accounts do not agree. Stories drawn from foreign sources have been incorporated into what is described as native history; such events as the birth, exposure, and death of Romulus, the deeds of the Horatii and Curiatii, of Curtius, &c., never happened, the accounts of them being merely fictions transplanted from Greece.

The Abbé Sallier replied in two discourses, the first of which, 'Sur les premiers Monuments historiques des Romains,' was read on the 10th of April 1723; and the second, Sur la Certitude de l'Histoire des quatre premiers siècles de Rome,' on the 11th of February 1724. In the former he maintained that historical records, the Annales Pontificum,' Libri Lintei,' &c., had been kept at Rome from its foundation; that they had survived the burning of the city by the Gauls; and that they had been consulted and closely followed by Fabius and Cincius,

Livy and Dionysius, so that the extant narratives of the two last-named historians are entitled to be received with respect and confidence. In other words, he answered Pouilly in substantially the same manner as Wachsmuth answered Niebuhr. In the latter discourse he argued that the conformity between certain features of Roman and Grecian history, which had been made prominent in the treatise Of Greek and Roman Parallels,' ascribed to Plutarch, afforded no legitimate presumption against the credibility of the Roman annals.

M. Fréret intervened in the debate on the 17th March 1724, by Réflexions sur l'étude des anciennes histoires, et sur le degré de certitude de leurs preuves.' Acknowledging that the great scholars of the past century had done much to dispel the darkness over ancient history, he affirmed that much still remained to be done, and that it would be accomplished if inquirers would lay aside their preconceptions, be on their guard against the love of system, start only from well-ascertained particulars, and proceed to general views in a strictly inductive manner. He has some admirable pages on the perverting influence of the spirit of system, and on the difference between this spirit and the spirit of method, the philosophical spirit. "True criticism," he says, "is nothing else than the philosophical spirit applied to the discussion of facts." It is equally opposed to credulity and scepticism. Credulity has been the fault of previous ages; scepticism had now become the danger. To avoid both it is necessary to have correct views of historical certitude in general, and of degrees of certitude. This is the subject, accordingly, of which Fréret treats. Historical proofs, he says, may be reduced to two classes-contemporary testimonies and traditions. The former are of various kinds, but if they are sufficiently proved to be genuine, and their authors to have been honest, and so circumstanced as to be able to know the truth, they are accepted by all reasonable people. Their superiority to traditions, those popular beliefs which rest only on their own persistence and prevalence, and cannot be traced back to any contemporary testimony, is denied by no one. It is only tradition which is assailed. And, argues Fréret, tradition is not to be indiscriminately or wholly rejected. If it be, we shall have little left us to believe as to the course and events of history. For except

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