the religious and political associations of the Athenians," and helps
us to do it by a train of argument and illustration. The larger part
of the strength of the modern historical school lies in this method,
and in able hands it has produced great results.

It would be unfair to compare Gibbon to these writers. They had a
training in social studies which he had not. But it is not certain
that he has always acquitted himself well, even if compared to his
contemporaries and predecessors, Montesquieu, Mably, and Voltaire. In
any case his narrative is generally wanting in historic perspective
and suggestive background. It adheres closely to the obvious surface
of events with little attempt to place behind them the deeper sky of
social evolution. In many of his crowded chapters one cannot see the
wood for the trees. The story is not lifted up and made lucid by
general points of view, but drags or hurries along in the hollow of
events, over which the author never seems to raise himself into a
position of commanding survey. The thirty-sixth chapter is a marked
instance of this defect. But the defect is general. The vigorous and
skilful narrative, and a certain grandeur and weightiness of language,
make us overlook it. It is only when we try to attain clear and
succinct views, which condense into portable propositions the enormous
mass of facts collected before us, that we feel that the writer has
not often surveyed his subject from a height and distance sufficient
to allow the great features of the epoch to be seen in bold outline.
By the side of the history of concrete events, we miss the
presentation of those others which are none the less events for being
vague, irregular, and wide-reaching, and requiring centuries for their
accomplishment. Gibbon's manner of dealing with the first is always
good, and sometimes consummate, and equal to anything in historical
literature. The thirty-first chapter, with its description of Rome,
soon to fall a prey to the Goths and Alaric, is a masterpiece,
artistic and spacious in the highest degree; though it is unnecessary
to cite particular instances, as nearly every chapter contains
passages of admirable historic power. But the noble flood of narrative
never stops in meditative pause to review the situation, and point out
with pregnant brevity what is happening in the sum total, abstraction
made of all confusing details. Besides the facts of the time, we seek
to have the tendencies of the