Hence the categorical contradictions between one writer and another, which abound. Colonel Mure appeals in defence of an historical thesis to the “fact of the Hellenic confederacy combining for the adoption of a common national system of chronology in 776 B.C.” Mr. Grote replies: “Nothing is more at variance with my conception,”—he just now spoke of the preconceptions of others,—“of the state of the Hellenic world in 776 B.C., than the idea of a combination among all the members of the race for any purpose, much more for the purpose of adopting a common national system of chronology.” Colonel Mure speaks of the “bigoted Athenian public;” Mr. Grote replies that “no public ever less deserved the epithet of ‘bigoted’ than the Athenian,” Colonel Mure also speaks of Mr. Grote’s “arbitrary hypothesis;” and again (in Mr. Grote’s words), of his “unreasonable scepticism.” He cannot disprove by mere argument the conclusions of Mr. Grote; he can but have recourse to a personal criticism. He virtually says, “We differ in our personal view of things.” Men become personal when logic fails; it is their mode of appealing to their own primary elements of thought, and their own illative sense, against the principles and the judgment of another. I have already touched upon Niebuhr’s method of investigation, and Sir George Lewis’s dislike of it: it supplies us with as apposite an instance of a difference in first principles as is afforded by Mr. Grote and Colonel Mure. “The main characteristic of his history,” says Lewis, “is the extent to which he relies upon internal evidence, and upon the indications afforded by the narrative itself, independently of the testimony of its truth.” And, “Ingenuity and labour can produce nothing but hypotheses and conjectures, which may be supported by analogies, but can never rest upon the solid foundation of proof.” And it is undeniable, that, rightly or wrongly, disdaining the scepticism of the mere critic, Niebuhr does consciously proceed by the high path of divination. “For my own part,” he says, “I _divine_ that, since the censorship of Fabius and Decius falls in the same year, that Cn. Flavius became mediator between his own class and the higher orders.” Lewis considers this to be a process of guessing; and says, “Instead of employing those tests of credibility which are consistently applied to modern history,” Niebuhr, and his followers, and most of his opponents, “attempt to guide their judgment by the indication of internal evidence, and assume that the truth is discovered by an occult faculty of historical divination.” Niebuhr defends himself thus: “The real geographer has a tact which determines his judgment and choice among different statements. He is able from isolated statements to draw inferences respecting things that are unknown, which are closely approximate to results obtained from observation of facts, and may supply their place. He is able with limited data to form an image of