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xxviii
THE AUTHOR AND HIS CRITICS.
[Preface.

logy obliges us to draw from them. And, with the true scientific spirit, he has never hesitated to modify these inferences whenever the discovery of new facts seems to require it, while the facts themselves have invariably been presented by him fully and fairly, so that his readers have always been able to test for themselves the validity of the inferences he has based on them. To forbid him to make any suggestion which is supported only by probable or possible evidence, is to deprive him of a privilege enjoyed both by the critics themselves and by every scientific enquirer. But such suggestions will be found to be rare, and the fact that so much has been said about them makes me suspect that the critics do not possess that archaeological knowledge, which would enable them to distinguish between a merely possible or probable theory and an inference which is necessitated by the facts. The very peculiar pottery found immediately below the Greek stratum proves to the archaeologist, more convincingly than any architectural remains could do, that a separate and independent settlement once existed between the fifth and the Greek cities, just as the objects found on the plain below prove that the Greek city must once have extended thus far, even though the walls by which it was surrounded have now wholly disappeared. On the other hand, the theory that this settlement was of Lydian foundation is a theory only, about which Dr. Schliemann expresses himself with the needful hesitation.

One of the most disheartening signs of the little knowledge of prehistoric and Levantine archaeology there is in this country, is to be found in the criticisms passed upon Ilios in respectable English publications. Nowhere but in England would it have been possible for writers who enjoy a certain reputation to pass off-hand judgments and propound new theories of their own on archaeological questions, without having first taken the trouble to learn the elementary principles of the subject about which they treat. What can be said of a critic who does not know the differ-