Grote
insists on the duty "to take reasonable pains to realise in our minds
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.
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