Volume - The Clarence Darrow Collection

CONTINUED GROWTH OF SCIENTIFIC INTERPRETATION. 33Q
A hundred years after Bentley's main efforts appeared
in Germany another epoch-making book Wolf's Introduc-
tion to Homer. In this was broached the theory that the
Iliad and Odyssey are not the works of a single great
poet, but are made up of ballad literature wrought into
unity by more or less skilful editing. In spite of various
changes and phases of opinion on this subject since Wolf's
day, he dealt a killing blow at the idea that classical works
are necessarily to be taken at what may be termed their face
value.
More and more clearly it was seen that the ideas of early
copyists, and even of early possessors of masterpieces in ancient
literature, were entirely different from those to which
the modern world is accustomed. It was seen that manipu-
lations and interpolations in the text by copyists and possessors
had long been considered not merely venial sins, but
matters of right, and that even the issuing of whole books
under assumed names had been practised freely.
In 1 811 a light akin to that thrown by Bentley and Wolf
upon ancient literature was thrown by Niebuhr upon an.
cient history. In his History of Rome the application of scientific
principles to the examination of historical sources was
for the first time exhibited largely and brilliantly. Up to
that period the time-honoured utterances of ancient authorities
had been, as a rule, accepted as final : no breaking away,
even from the most absurd of them, was looked upon with
favour, and any one presuming to go behind them was re-
garded as troublesome and even as dangerous.
this sacred conventionalism Niebuhr broke fear-
Through
lessly, and, though at times overcritical, he struck from the
early history of Rome a vast mass of accretions, and gave to
the world a residue infinitely more valuable than the original
amalgam of myth, legend, and chronicle.
His methods were especially brought to bear on students'
history by one of the truest men and noblest scholars that
the English race has produced Arnold of Rugby and, in
spite of the inevitable heavy conservatism, were allowed to
do their work in the field of ancient history as well as in that
of ancient classical literature.
The place of myth in history
thus became more and