For in Homer the modern world, I will not say has
learnt, but has examined, a great historical point of view; and, even
without now putting forward my own opinion as to whether this
examination has been or can be happily carried out, it was at all
events the first example of the application of that productive point of
view. By it scholars learnt to recognise condensed beliefs in the
apparently firm, immobile figures of the life of ancient peoples; by it
they for the first time perceived the wonderful capability of the soul
of a people to represent the conditions of its morals and beliefs in the
form of a personality. When historical criticism has confidently seized
upon this method of evaporating apparently concrete personalities, it is
permissible to point to the first experiment as an important event in
the history of sciences, without considering whether it was successful
in this instance or not.
It is a common occurrence for a series of striking signs and wonderful
emotions to precede an epoch-making discovery. Even the experiment I
have just referred to has its own attractive history; but it goes back
to a surprisingly ancient era. Friedrich August Wolf has exactly
indicated the spot where Greek antiquity dropped the question.
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