Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Principles of Historical Evidence Considered in Their Bearing on the History of Remote Times: The Arnold Prize Essay for 1868
When obscure, corrupt, or ill-authenticated. In the latter case, the evidence may be supplemented by historical analogies; Which must be held legitimate ground 'for positive reasoning, without any assumption that all history is reducible to physical laws.
But the field of material is narrowed by the rarity of true historical analogies.
Degeneracy of the Niebuhrian deductive school into arbitrary word-splitting. Uncritical use of authorities, groundless plays on numbers, and the like, Rise of the school of interpretation of comparative mythology: uncertainty of the range of its application.
Inadequacy and inappropriateness of either a priora' method, when pursued singly and not in conjunction with the critical examination of evidence.
Four classes of evidence for remote or uncertain history - oral tradition, monuments and inscriptions, fragments of ancient literature, and later compilations.
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