DÖLLINGER'S HISTORICAL WORK 419
be accepted as certain kno\vledge. Having made himself master of the reconstructive process that \vas carried on a little apart from the main chain of durable literature, in academic transactions, in dissertations and periodicals, he submitted the materials he \vas about to use to the exigencies of the day. Without it, he would have remained a man of the last generation, distanced by every disciple of the ne\v learning. He \vent to work \vith nothing but his trained and organised common sense, starting from no theory, and aiming at no con- clusion. If he was beyond his contemporaries in the mass of expedient knowledge, he was not before them in the strictness of his tests, or in sharpness or boldness in applying them. He was abreast as a critic, he was not ahead. He did not innovate. The parallel studies of the time kept pace with his; and his judgments are those which are accepted generally. His critical mind was pliant, to assent where he must, to reject where he must, and to doubt where he must. His submission to external testimony appeared in his panegyric of our Indian empire, \vhere he overstated the increase of population. Informed of his error by one of his translators, he replied that the figures had seemed incredible also to him, but having verified, he found the statement so positively made that he did not venture to depart from it. If inclination ever s\vayed his judgment, it \vas in his despair of extracting a real available Buddha from the fables of Southern India, \vhich was conquered at last by the ablest of Mommsen's pupils. He was less apprehensive than most of his English friends in questions relating to the Old Testament; and in the New, he was disposed, at times, to allo\v some force to Muratori's fragment as to the person of the evangelist who is least favourable to St. Peter; and was puzzled at the zeal of the Speaker's commentator as to the second epistle of the apostle. He held to the epistles of St. Ignatius with the tenacity of a Caroline prelate, and was grateful to De Rossi for a chronological point in their favour. He rejected the attacks of Lucius on the most
