The ancient Greek historians (Harvard lectures) by J. B. Bury.

252 AN CIENT GREEK HISTORIANS LECT.

the advance of physical science have respectively
operated on theology. The discoveries of geology,
the doctrine of evolution, and the Darwinian theory
created loud alarm in the Churches, but they really
only touched outworks; and their acceptance by
ecclesiastical authorities could not have had a much
greater effect on the received body of essential
doctrine than the acceptance of the heliocentric
system which seemed a diabolical idea to the persecutors of Galilei. Contrast the effects of the
historical criticism which began with Strauss and
Bauer. It has been operating as a steady and
powerful solvent of traditional beliefs; and to-day
we see that within the Churches the men who have
brains and are not afraid to use them are transforming the essential doctrines, under the aegis of
historical criticism, so radically that when those doctrines emerge it will be difficult to recognise them.
I may observe here, and by the way, that it is
highly important for the historian to be aware that
the doctrine of historical relativity applies no less
to his own historical judgments than to other facts.
His view is conditioned by the mentality of his
own age; the focus of his vision is determined
within narrow limits by the conditions of contemporary civilisation. There can therefore be nothing
final about his judgments, and their permanent
interest lies in the fact that they are judgments
pronounced at a given epoch and are characteristic
of the tendencies and ideas of that epoch. The
Greeks had no notion of this. They would have