For all history must be essentially universal; not in the sense of
comprising all the synchronous events of the past time, but through
the universality of the principles employed. And the great
conceptions which unify the work of Herodotus are such as even
modern thought has not yet rejected. The immediate government of
the world by God, the nemesis and punishment which sin and pride
invariably bring with them, the revealing of God's purpose to His
people by signs and omens, by miracles and by prophecy; these are
to Herodotus the laws which govern the phenomena of history. He is
essentially the type of supernatural historian; his eyes are ever
strained to discern the Spirit of God moving over the face of the
waters of life; he is more concerned with final than with efficient
causes.

Yet we can discern in him the rise of that HISTORIC SENSE which is
the rational antecedent of the science of historical criticism, the
[Greek text which cannot be reproduced], to use the words of a
Greek writer, as opposed to that which comes either [Greek text
which cannot be reproduced].

He has passed through the valley of faith and has caught a glimpse
of the sunlit heights of Reason; but like all those who, while
accepting the supernatural, yet attempt to apply the canons of
rationalism, he is essentially inconsistent. For the better
apprehension of the character of this historic sense in Herodotus
it will be necessary to examine at some length the various forms of
criticism in which it manifests itself.

Such fabulous stories as that of the Phoenix, of the goat-footed
men, of the headless beings with eyes in their breasts, of the men