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ANCIENT GREECE.[CHAP. xiv.A sentiment of reverence accompaniesus from the first tothe last leaf of his work. Not the historian, History herselfseems to address us.,1111 -+iBut to what new views must he have been led, wliert, witnthe desire of arrivingat truth, he turned his eyesto the formunder which history had thus far It was his imappeared !mediate aim to relate the events of his own times ;but thepreceding age could not remain wholly excluded from thesphere of his observation. It to him clothed inappearedthe mantle of tradition ;and he who scrutinized every thingwith care, was not caught by its delusive Hesplendour.endeavoured to contemplate antiquity as it was, to take fromit this false glare, leaving nothing but the light of truth and;thus was producedthat invaluable introduction which precedes his work.By such means Thucydides was the inventor of an art,which before him had been almost unknown, the art of historic criticism ;without being conscious of the infinite valueof his invention. For he did not applyit to all branches ofknowledge, but only to his subject, because it was a naturalconsequence of that subject.him acquaintedwith her most secret nature ;The historic Muse had madeno one beforeor after him has drawn the line more clearly between historyand tradition. And what is this, but to draw the distinctionbetween the historic culture of the West? and ifEast^andwe recognisehow much depended on this historic culturebetween the whole scientific culture of the East and West?For to repeata remark, which has already been cursorilymade, the great difference between the two consists in this ;in the West, the free spirit of criticism was developed, andin the East never.It is therefore justto say, that Thucydides advanced agiant's step.It is just to say, that he rose above his age ;neither his own nor the following could reach him. Poetictradition was too deeply interwoven with Grecian history,toadmit of an entire separation.A Theopompus and Ephorus,whenever the heroic age was to be discussed, drew their materials with as little concern from the writers of mythologicalfables and the poets,as if Thucydides never had written.^A third step yet remained to be taken ;and it was insome respectsthe most dangerous of all to become the his-