Philology, as the subject of this Section, was intended to be taken in that larger and undoubtedly fitter sense of the word which it bears in other countries, and to which the usage of scholars ought certainly to fix it in our own—that is to say, the study of language and of literature without distinction between ancient and modern, and without exclusion of anything which is needed for the full comprehension and illustration of either. By permitting the establishment of this new Section, the Philosophical Society of Glasgow gives a proof that it interprets the word philosophy in its oldest and widest sense—the love of knowledge.
The remarks which I have the honour of addressing to you this evening are intended to be in the nature of an inaugural address for the Section; so, in selecting my subject, I was obedient to two conditions, both of them somewhat difficult to fulfil: first, that the subject must have somewhat of a general character; next, that it must belong to that part of the wide domain of Philology with which I was in some degree conversant.
If we wish to comprehend the forces which are at work in the classical studies of the present day, it is well first to glance backward for a moment and to see how those forces have been prepared. Some four centuries have now elapsed since the interest in classical antiquity was revived, after the neglect or oblivion of the middle ages.
The general course of classical scholarship since that time has shown certain successive tendencies,
