Roland and Roncesvalles in the chronicles of England, or (in the
sphere of Greek legend) by the excavations of Hissarlik. But to

rob a mythical narrative of its kernel of supernatural elements,
and to present the dry husk thus obtained as historical" target="_blank" title="a.历史(上)的">historical fact, is,

as has been well said, to mistake entirely the true method of
investigation and to identify plausibility with truth.

And as regards the critical point urged by Palaiphatos, Strabo, and
Polybius, that pure invention on Homer's part is inconceivable, we

may without scruple allow it, for myths, like constitutions, grow
gradually, and are not formed in a day. But between a poet's

deliberate creation and historical" target="_blank" title="a.历史(上)的">historicalaccuracy there is a wide field
of the mythopoeic faculty.

This Euhemeristic theory was welcomed as an essentially" target="_blank" title="ad.本质上，基本上">essentially
philosophical and critical method by the unscientific Romans, to

whom it was introduced by the poet Ennius, that pioneer of
cosmopolitan Hellenicism, and it continued to characterise the tone

of ancient thought on the question of the treatment of mythology
till the rise of Christianity, when it was turned by such writers

as Augustine and Minucius Felix into a formidableweapon of attack
on Paganism. It was then abandoned by all those who still bent the

knee to Athena or to Zeus, and a general return, aided by the
philosophic mystics of Alexandria, to the allegorising principle of

interpretation took place, as the only means of saving the deities
of Olympus from the Titan assaults of the new Galilean God. In

what vain defence, the statue of Mary set in the heart of the
Pantheon can best tell us.

Religions, however, may be absorbed, but they never are disproved,
and the stories of the Greek mythology, spiritualised by the

purifying influence of Christianity, reappear in many of the
southern parts of Europe in our own day. The old fable that the

Greek gods took service with the new religion under assumed names
has more truth in it than the many care to discover.

Having now traced the progress of historical" target="_blank" title="a.历史(上)的">historicalcriticism in the
special treatment of myth and legend, I shall proceed to

investigate the form in which the same spirit manifested itself as
regards what one may term secular history and secularhistorians.

The field traversed will be found to be in some respects the same,
but the mental attitude, the spirit, the motive of investigation

are all changed.
There were heroes before the son of Atreus and historians before

Herodotus, yet the latter is rightly hailed as the father of
history, for in him we discover not merely the empirical connection

of cause and effect, but that constantreference to Laws, which is
the characteristic" target="_blank" title="a.特有的 n.特性">characteristic of the historian proper.

For all history must be essentially" target="_blank" title="ad.本质上，基本上">essentiallyuniversal; not in the sense of
comprising all the synchronous events of the past time, but through

the universality of the principles employed. And the great
conceptions which unify the work of Herodotus are such as even

modern thought has not yet rejected. The immediate government of
the world by God, the nemesis and punishment which sin and pride

invariably bring with them, the revealing of God's purpose to His
people by signs and omens, by miracles and by prophecy; these are

to Herodotus the laws which govern the phenomena of history. He is
essentially" target="_blank" title="ad.本质上，基本上">essentially the type of supernatural historian; his eyes are ever

strained to discern the Spirit of God moving over the face of the
waters of life; he is more concerned with final than with efficient

causes.
Yet we can discern in him the rise of that HISTORIC SENSE which is

the rational antecedent of the science of historical" target="_blank" title="a.历史(上)的">historicalcriticism, the
[Greek text which cannot be reproduced], to use the words of a

Greek writer, as opposed to that which comes either [Greek text
which cannot be reproduced].

He has passed through the valley of faith and has caught a glimpse
of the sunlit heights of Reason; but like all those who, while

accepting the supernatural, yet attempt to apply the canons of
rationalism, he is essentially" target="_blank" title="ad.本质上，基本上">essentiallyinconsistent. For the better

apprehension of the character of this historic sense in Herodotus
it will be necessary to examine at some length the various forms of

criticism in which it manifests itself.
Such fabulous stories as that of the Phoenix, of the goat-footed

men, of the headless beings with eyes in their breasts, of the men
who slept six months in the year ([Greek text which cannot be

reproduced]), of the wer-wolf of the Neuri, and the like, are
entirely rejected by him as being opposed to the ordinary

experience of life, and to those natural laws whose universal
influence the early Greek physical philosophers had already made

known to the world of thought. Other legends, such as the suckling
of Cyrus by a bitch, or the feather-rain of northern Europe, are

rationalised and explained into a woman's name and a fall of snow.
The supernatural origin of the Scythian nation, from the union of

Hercules and the monstrous Echidna, is set aside by him for the
more probableaccount that they were a nomad tribe driven by the

Massagetae from Asia; and he appeals to the local names of their
country as proof of the fact that the Kimmerians were the original

possessors.
But in the case of Herodotus it will be more instructive to pass on

from points like these to those questions of general probability,
the true apprehension of which depends rather on a certain quality

of mind than on any possibility of formulated rules, questions
which form no unimportant part of scientific history; for it must

be remembered always that the canons of historical" target="_blank" title="a.历史(上)的">historicalcriticism are
essentially" target="_blank" title="ad.本质上，基本上">essentially different from those of judicial evidence, for they

cannot, like the latter, be made plain to every ordinary mind, but
appeal to a certain historical" target="_blank" title="a.历史(上)的">historicalfaculty founded on the experience of

life. Besides, the rules for the reception of evidence in courts
of law are purelystationary, while the science of historical" target="_blank" title="a.历史(上)的">historical

probability is essentially" target="_blank" title="ad.本质上，基本上">essentiallyprogressive, and changes with the
advancing spirit of each age.

Now, of all the speculative canons of historical" target="_blank" title="a.历史(上)的">historicalcriticism, none is
more important than that which rests on psychological probability.

Arguing from his knowledge of human nature, Herodotus rejects the
presence of Helen within the walls of Troy. Had she been there, he

says, Priam and his kinsmen would never have been so mad ([Greek
text which cannot be reproduced]) as not to give her up, when they

and their children and their city were in such peril (ii. 118); and
as regards the authority of Homer, some incidental passages in his

poem show that he knew of Helen's sojourn in Egypt during the
siege, but selected the other story as being a more suitablemotive

for an epic. Similarly he does not believe that the Alcmaeonidae
family, a family who had always been the haters of tyranny ([Greek

text which cannot be reproduced]), and to whom, even more than to
Harmodios and Aristogeiton, Athens owed its liberty, would ever

have been so treacherous as to hold up a shield after the battle of
Marathon as a signal for the Persian host to fall on the city. A

shield, he acknowledges, was held up, but it could not possibly
have been done by such friends of liberty as the house of Alcmaeon;

nor will he believe that a great king like Rhampsinitus would have
sent his daughter [Greek text which cannot be reproduced].

Elsewhere he argues from more general considerations of
probability; a Greek courtesan like Rhodopis would hardly have been

rich enough to build a pyramid, and, besides, on chronological
grounds the story is impossible (ii. 134).

In another passage (ii. 63), after giving an account of the
forcible entry of the priests of Ares into the chapel of the god's

mother, which seems to have been a sort of religious faction fight
where sticks were freely used ([Greek text which cannot be

reproduced]), 'I feel sure,' he says, 'that many of them died from
getting their heads broken, notwithstanding the assertions of the

Egyptian priests to the contrary.' There is also something
charmingly naive in the account he gives of the celebrated Greek

swimmer who dived a distance of eighty stadia to give his
countrymen warning of the Persian advance. 'If, however,' he says,

'I may offer an opinion on the subject, I would say that he came in
a boat.'

There is, of course, something a little trivial in some of the
instances I have quoted; but in a writer like Herodotus, who stands