who slept six months in the year ([Greek text which cannot be
reproduced]), of the wer-wolf of the Neuri, and the like, are
entirely rejected by him as being opposed to the ordinary
experience of life, and to those natural laws whose universal
influence the early Greek physical philosophers had already made
known to the world of thought. Other legends, such as the suckling
of Cyrus by a bitch, or the feather-rain of northern Europe, are
rationalised and explained into a woman's name and a fall of snow.
The supernatural origin of the Scythian nation, from the union of
Hercules and the monstrous Echidna, is set aside by him for the
more probable account that they were a nomad tribe driven by the
Massagetae from Asia; and he appeals to the local names of their
country as proof of the fact that the Kimmerians were the original
possessors.

But in the case of Herodotus it will be more instructive to pass on
from points like these to those questions of general probability,
the true apprehension of which depends rather on a certain quality
of mind than on any possibility of formulated rules, questions
which form no unimportant part of scientific history; for it must
be remembered always that the canons of historical criticism are
essentially different from those of judicial evidence, for they
cannot, like the latter, be made plain to every ordinary mind, but
appeal to a certain historical faculty founded on the experience of
life. Besides, the rules for the reception of evidence in courts
of law are purely stationary, while the science of historical
probability is essentially progressive, and changes with the
advancing spirit of each age.

Now, of all the speculative canons of historical criticism, none is