THE BYZANTINES. 8$ of a witty style and an audacious dogmatism that Montesquieu has succeeded so largely in induc- ing posterity to swallow his aphorisms.'* Gibbon has given the history of the Byzan- tines in a monumental work, written in an en- tirely partial manner; he has allowed his judg- ment to be biassed by his prejudices, and has written with the express aim and object of pro- pounding and supporting his own preconceived ideas. The fundamental principle of his theory is that Christianity was the cause alike of the ruin of ancient civilization, of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, and of all the misery and darkness of the Middle Ages. Almost on every page, at least on every occa- sion, he shows his hatred toward the Greeks, which goes so far that it is his custom to qualify j the word " Greek" by some depreciatory adjec- tive. Altogether Gibbon has written history as it should not be and as it is not, as a rule, written any more. However, Gibbon's theory of history is but one instance of a feature which is only too characteristic of the English mind. Many an act of the English people toward the Greeks can be explained by the same trait. "The Byzantine Empire," says Bikelas, "was predestined to perform in particular one great
