e old models is interesting and profitable. One may enjoy the
controversy and derive benefit from it without taking sides. I suspect
that there is truth in the view of both. We may be sure that the
long-continued study and approval by scholars of many ages of the works
of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Tacitus implies historical merit on their
part in addition to literary art. It is, however, interesting to note
the profound difference between President Woolsey's opinion of
Thucydides and that of some of his late German critics. Woolsey said, "I
have such confidence in the absolute truthfulness of Thucydides that
were he really chargeable with folly, as Grote alleges [in the affair of
Amphipolis], I believe he would have avowed it." On the other hand, a
German critic, cited by Holm, says that Thucydides is a poet who invents
facts partly in order to teach people how things ought to be done and
partly because he liked to depict certain scenes of horror. He says
further, a narrative of certain occurrences is so full of
impossibilities that it must be pure invention on the part of the
historian. Another German maintains that Thucydides has indulged in "a
fanciful and half-romantic picture of events." But Holm, whom the
scientific historians claim as one of their own, says, "Thucydides
still remains a trustworthy historical authority;" and, "On the whole,
therefore, the old view that he is a truthful writer is not in the least
shaken." Again Holm writes: "Attempts have been made to convict
Thucydides of serious inaccuracies, but without success. On the other
hand, the writer of this work [that is, the scientific historian, Holm]
is able to state that he has followed him topographically for the
greater part of the sixth and seventh books--and consequently for nearly
one fourth of the whole history--and has found that the more carefully
his words are weighed and the more accurately the ground is studied the
clearer both the text and events become, and this is certainly high
praise." Holm and Percy Gardner, both of whom have the modern method and
have studied diligently the historical evidence from coins and
inscriptions, placed great reliance on Herodotus, who, as well as
Thucydides and Tacitus, is taken by scholars as a model of historical
composition.

The sifting of time settles the reputations of historians. Of the
English of the eighteenth century only one historian has come down to us
as worthy of serious study. Time is was