They tried also to separate and arrange them, to the best of their abilities, and to make the various parts of their history correspond. They had still some good materials to proceed upon, had they thoroughly understood them; but herein was a great failure. Among the various traditions handed down, they did not consider which really related to their country, and which had been introduced from other[524] parts. Indeed they did not chuse to distinguish, but adopted all for their own; taking the merit of every antient transaction to themselves. No people had a greater love for science, nor displayed a more refined taste in composition. Their study was ever to please, and to raise admiration. Hence they always aimed at the marvellous, which they dressed up in a most winning manner: at the same time they betrayed a seeming veneration for antiquity. But their judgment was perverted, and this veneration attended with little regard for the truth. [525]They had a high opinion of themselves, and of their country in general: and, being persuaded that they sprang from the ground on which they stood, and that the Arcadians were older than the moon, they rested satisfied with this, and looked no farther. In short, they had no love for any thing genuine, no desire to be instructed. Their history could not be reformed but by an acknowledgment which their pride would not suffer them to make. They therefore devoted themselves to an idle mythology: and there was nothing so contradictory and absurd but was greedily admitted, if sanctified by tradition. Even when the truth glared in their very faces, they turned from the light, and would not be undeceived. Those who, like Euemerus and Ephorus, had the courage to dissent from their legends, were deemed atheists and apostates, and treated accordingly. Plutarch more than once insists that it is expedient to veil the truth, and to dress it up in [526]allegory. They went so far as to deem inquiry a [527]crime, and thus precluded the only means by which the truth could be obtained.