speculative knowledge which all should aim at, but which it seldom
happens that one man in a generation is fortunate enough to obtain.

From the sixteenth century, the writers of history begin to assume a
different character from that of their predecessors. During the middle
ages, the elements of society were fewer and less diversified. Before
that time the people were nothing. Popes, emperors, kings, nobles,
bishops, knights, are the only materials about which the writer of
history cared to know or enquire. Perhaps some exception to this rule
might be found in the historians of the free towns of Italy; but they
are few and insignificant. After that period, not only did the classes
of society increase, but every class was modified by more varieties of
individual life. Even within the last century, the science of political
economy has given a new colouring to the thoughts and actions of large
communities, as the different opinions held by its votaries have
multiplied them into distinct and various classes. Modern historians,
therefore, may be divided into two classes; the one describing a state
of society in which the elements are few; the other the times in which
they were more numerous. As a specimen of the first order, he selects
Bede. Bede was born in 674, fifty years after the flight of Mahomet from
Mecca. He died in 755, two or three years after the victory of Charles
Martel over the Saracens. His ecclesiastical history, in five books,
describes the period from Augustine's arrival in Kent, 597.

Dr Arnold's dissertation on Bede involves him in the discussion of a
question on which much skill and ability have been exercised. We allude
to the question of miracles. "The question," says he, "in Bede takes
this form--What credit is to be attached to the frequent stories of
miracles or wonders which occur in his narrative?" He seizes at once
upon the difficulty, without compromise or evasion. He makes a