nature is also skilfully and truthfully delineated, and in a style simple and natural, often vivid and strong, and at times pathetic and sublime. The various stages and fortunes through which the people of Israel passed read like successive chapters of an autobiography and characters and episodes the most varied are strikingly described. Nevertheless, the Hebraie account (representing as it does the high-water mark in ancient annal and chronicle) while superlatively exhibiting qualities of the highest literary art and not a few secondary characters of historic science, stops short of the critical test of a true science and the dignity of an independent art. Recognizing this is not to detract from the rare merits either of content or form for which the Hebraie scriptures, above all other ancient writings, are conspicuous. But the history of the Bible is much more than history, and exists not for its own sake but for the sake of something higher, of which it is merely the medium and manifestation. Science, philosophy, and literary art, as such, are to it as handmaids who, however, best serve their purpose as such, when they are faithful to the inherent nature severally constituting them. The historic records of the Old Testament contained what was far more precious than anything China or Greece possessed; and yet looked at from another side, "they fell short of, and only led up to, history as we find it among the Greeks who in this, as in so many other provinces of intellectual activity, asserted an unmistakable preeminence and an unparalleled originality."

2. WORK AMONG THE GREEKS.

FIRST WRITERS OF HISTORY AS AN INQUIRY.-The first writers of history considered as an inquiry designed to elicit truth, were the logographi of the Ionian cities in the sixth century before Christ. These men carried their inquiry (historie) beyond both written record and oral tradition to an investigation of the world around them.

FIRST CULTIVATED AS ITS OWN END.-Previous to that time historic record had been cultivated either as a nationally useful art, for civic purposes, or, as in the instance of the Jews, for what may be designated as a religious end. But in ancient Hellas it was first cultivated as an end in itself, and for its own sake. The saying logos of the logographi was gathered mostly from contemporaries, and upon the basis of a widened experience they became critics of 1Flint, Robert-"History of the Philosophy of History." p. 50.

their own traditions. The opening lines of one of their number, Hecataeus of Miletus, "begin the history of the true historic spirit"1 marking an epoch in the history of thought and forming "an introduction to historical criticism and scientific investigations." Hecataeus speaks thus: "I write as I deem true, for the traditions of the Greeks seem to me manifold and laughable." From the time of Hecataeus onward the scientific movement was set going.

HERODOTUS.-Herodotus of Heraclea tried to rationalize mythology, and established chronology on a solid basis. He, in turn, was followed by Herodotus, a professional story-teller of Asia Minor, who rose to the height of genuine scientific investigation. Herodotus' inquiry was not simply that of an idle tourist. He was a critical observer who tested his evidence. But he gathered all his knowledge of the ancient world not simply for itself but to mass it around the story of the war between the Greeks and the Persians. He was, first and foremost, a story-teller, and his story was a vast "prose epos" in which science, to a certain extent, was subordinated to art. But it represented not only record but also reason, or philosophy; he mentions at the opening of the first book that he desires not only to recount the glorious actions of the forefathers but also to give reasons for those actions. In Herodotus, Book I, we read:

"This is a publication of the researches of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, in order that the actions of men may not be effaced by time, nor the great and wondrous deeds displayed by both Greeks and barbarians deprived of renown; and among the rest, what were their grounds of strife.”

CHARACTER OF HIS NARRATIVE: AND AIM.-The narration of Herodotus was not confined exclusively even to political account and its interpretation. "Like others of the ancients he combined geographical description with his records of the affairs of states."

Although considered defective as a historian (because of his credulity and want of criticism and because he lacked insight into the working of general causes,) Vincent calls attention to the fact that he was by no means credulous about that information which fell into his way. And, taking into consideration the imperfect medium of investigation of his day and the absence of an archaeolo1Encyclopedia Britannica. Vol. XIII, p. 528. 2Encyclopedia Britannica. Vol. XIII, p. 528.

Eleventh Edition.
Eleventh Edition.

Encyclopedia Britannica-"History." Vol. XIII, p. 528. Eleventh Edition. 4Vincent, John Martin-"Historical Research." p. 2. Henry Holt & Co. 1911.

gical basis of criticism, the work of Herodotus remarkable as it was for the breadth of its scope and its approximation to truth, even from a scientific point of view must be regarded as a great achievement.

Considered from another standpoint, his work was "the very type and model" of one great class of today's historians, they who look upon historic record and its objective in the light of literary art. "The comprehensiveness of research, combined ingenuity and naturalness of arrangement, the merits and charm of style, and the general originality of conception and execution displayed by Herodotus well entitled him to be called the "Father of History".1

THUCYDIDES.-While Herodotus of Halicarnassus was still retouching his history, severer standards of criticism and different conceptions of history were developing in the work of Thucydides the Athenian, historian of the Peloponnesian war. Thucydides was a contemporary of Herodotus and only a few years younger. As Herodotus had been the first to employ genuine scientific investigation in history inquiry, so Thucydides presented the first great example of the careful sifting of evidence. He took part in person during a portion of the Peloponnesian war and afterwards visited the principal scenes of conflict; but, more than this, he sought carefully on every hand for information from important personages. Unlike Herodotus, whose aim was first to please, and who drew into his narrative whatever he judged would increase its popular interest, Thucydides rigidly excluded from his narrative whatever did not bear directly on his theme. His sole object was always to write only authentic, strictly true history.

CHARACTER OF HIS NARRATIVE: AND AIM.-But, added to this, he aspired to be also a teacher, and he "assumes to tell both what has happened, and will hereafter happen again, according to human nature". His aim was thus distinctly didactic. He hoped that his work would teach political lessons, "not because they were presented as lessons, but because a picture of political conditions and events which was a true and faithful one would of itself convey political lessons". While Herodotus may be regarded as the father of historic record, Thucydides is the father of didactic history and in its best and highest sense.

3

1Flint, Robert-"History of the Philosophy of History." p. 51, 52.

2Vincent, J. M.-"Historical Research." p. 3.

of

3Johnson, Henry-"Teaching History." p. 22. Macmillan Co.

CONTROLLING OBJECTS AND AIM OF HISTORY FIRST SET FORTH.In Thucydides there was given to the world a high example of research and style or presentation, together with a clearly defined theory as to the object and proper content of the historic narrative. Ever since Thucydides' day men have differently been trying to improve the definition of the concept history, but they have continued to agree at least in one thing, namely the controlling object and aim of history as set forth for the first time by Thucydides"The historian must seek the truth." As to the nature of the content, what kinds of facts are wanted for the history record, and as to whether or not the historian should be a prophet and a moral teacher, the controversy has varied; but not as to the controlling characters of history.

BATTLES, WARS, GOVERNMENT.-During a very long period after Thucydides, writings which could be dignified with the name of history were concerned, as were his, chiefly with statescraft, wars, battles, or diplomacy; these were the conspicuous features in a nation's life, were regarded by the writers and by the public as the only essentials. And there were reasons for this. The concept "government" at that time included the greatest number of important activities of men. In one form or another even today, the concept is a generic one being continuous with that of yesterday, providing now as then a ground-plan upon which to indicate the social evolution of a people. And although the political factors of a nation's life were not any more then than now the only essential ones, at the same time government (regarded in its narrower and more specific aspect) in the nearer past as well as in that remote period, through its battles alone, at critical junctures, has decided the fate of peoples and nations. Through its relatively insignificant political and court intrigues, through the personal biases, ambitions, and whims of governors and kings, government has shaped the fate of states and dynasties, and contributed to the history of societies, for better or worse, in large economic and social measure.

LIFE AND DEVELOPMENT.-But it is a discovery of recent times that the life and development of a nation means more than what is contained in the externals of political and military history. This has come to be realized through the growth of the spirit and ideals of a newer and more vital democracy than that of the day of Thucydides. It is now natural to inquire into the conditions, 1Vincent, J. M.-"Historical Research." p. 4.

other than political, of the peoples of past ages, and to trace their development into conditions of the present; in Thucydides' day it was not natural to do so. This fact accounts for, and extenuates the limitations of Thucydides' historical content. Through analogy, the question intrudes itself: What should the twentieth century have a right to expect as to the content of modern historic narrative? And in the construction of such narrative, has modern thought offered anything better than the development of history narrative about a controlling center of political development, as about a growing core?

For more than two thousand years after Herodotus and Thucydides the narrative and the didactic types of history seemed to exhaust the possibilities of historical construction. "The particular forms which they assumed, the particular kinds of facts which they celebrated, the particular kinds of lessons or precedents which they sought to impress, the particular philosophies which they invoked to explain events were bewildering in their variety, but the general types, narrative and didactic, persisted.

1

SUCCESSORS OF HERODOTUS AND THUCYDIDES: THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS.-Returning to the age of Herodotus and Thucydides, who were their more immediate successors, and what did they contribute to the growth of historiography?

XENOPHON.-Xenophon attempted to complete the unfinished history work of Thucydides, but his continuation the "Hellencia" was dry, ill arranged, superficial, prejudiced and even feeble and unattractive in style. His contribution as a historian consisted of the "Anabasis". This was a straightforward story of the political type, which, in past ages, through its "exquisite simplicity and fascinating art", made, for that narrative, a quality of literary value.

EPHORUS.-But after Xenophon (with Theopompus and Ephorus) history passed from Greece to Rome in the guise of rhetoric. With Ephorus universal history writing was begun, to be taken up later by Polybius and Deodorus.

POLYBIUS. In a measure a renewal of the more scientific aspect of history writing was discernible in Timaeus, the Siscilian, at the end of the fourth century, and, in turn, by Polybius, who excelled him.

1Johnson, H.-"Teaching of History." p. 23.

2Flint, Robert-"History of the Philosophy of History. p. 55. Charles Scribner's Sons.