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SCIENCES IN CONNEXION WITH THE STATE.torian of one's own exploits.This step was taken by Xenophon.For when we speakof his historic writings,hisAnabasis so far surpasses the rest, that it alone deserves tobe mentioned. But this new step may with propriety becalled one of the most important.Would that he who ventured to take it,had found many successors By the mild!ness and modesty of his personal character, Xenophon wassecured from the faults, into which men are so aptto fall,when they describe their own actions ; althoughthese virtues and the nature of his subject could not givehis workthose superior qualities,which the geniusof Csesar knewhow to impart to his Commentaries.Thus, in the period of their freedom, all the principal kindsof history were developed among the Greeks. What wasdone afterwards, can hardly be called progress, although thesubjects of history grew more various and more extensivewith the enlarged sphere of politicsin the Macedonian andRoman age; and the idea of a universal history was moredistinctly entertained. But after the downfal of liberty,when rhetoric became prevalent and was appliedto history,the higher kind of criticism ceased to be employed in it.The style, the manner in which a subject was treated, wajs regarded not the ; subjectitself. The essence was forgottenindisputes about the form. We have abundant proofsof this inthe judgments of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who has nevertheless been usually mentioned as the first of these critics.CHAPTER XV.POETRY AND THE ARTS IN CONNEXION WITH THE STATE,WHETHER in our inquiries on the political institutions ofGreece, their poetry and arts must be considered,- willhardly be made a question by any of my readers. Almostevery one of the preceding chapters has served to show howclosely they were connected with the state. Yet ourremarks must be limited to the question: What was thenature, and what were the consequences of this connexion ?