It is a great misfortune that our intimate knowledge of the personality of ancient peoples is so nearly confined to that of two races only, the Hellenic and the Italic, or, as we commonly call them, the Greek and the Roman. Our acquaintance with the Egyptians, with certain of the Eastern races-even with the Kelts, who were perhaps the nearest kin of the Romans-has, to be sure, advanced remarkably during the last century, and especially during the last quarter of a century or so, and we may

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... dently look forward to much new light in this direction in the future. But the absence among them, for the most part, of what we call literature -the verbal recording of thought and feeling for the sake of itself-will doubtless ever preveilt us from forming that inner acquaintance with them that we have with the two races that I have mentioned. If we could have this, we might be compelled to modify in some important degree our total conception of ancient character, though no such fresh visions could interfere with the permanence of our vast mental and spiritual inheritance from Greeks and Romans. It is to these two races alone that we apply the epithet "classical," and by this adjective we aim to connote no merely ethno-1 The substance of this article formed the basis of the President's Address at the annual meeting of the American Philological Association held at Washington, D. C., in January, 1907. This fact may explain, if it does not excuse, the superficiality of treatment that appeared necessary in order to adapt the theme to oral presentation before a general audience. ELMER TRUESDELL MERRILL logical and chronological marks, but certain deeper characteristics that may be, after all, not essentially connected with their ethnological and chronological and geographical interrelations. We think we observe in them a sufficient similarity in method of thought and expression to justify us in describing them by a common and unifying appellation. But when we endeavor to formulate with some precision a definition of the word "classical" that we so frequently call into service, we are at once involved in difficulties. We find ourselves floating in an imaginative realm, where everything is airy and elusive. It is doubtful whether any of us could agree on a sufficient definition; and if we should perchance be able to unite upon all the elements that we might consider essential to such a precise and complete definition, I seriously question whether we should any longer agree in including the two races under the common term "classical." In general we are inclined to interpret "classical" not so much by a purely analytical process as by antithesis-by the contrasts that we can point out between "classical" traits and tendencies, and those prevailingly of a later development, which have been often summed up under the widely inclusive term of "romantic." I very much doubt whether our terminology in this matter is happy-whether, indeed, our classification under it is not sure to be defective, in that what we call "classicism" is so fertile in the elements and suggestions that we call "romantic," and what we term "romanticism" is so permeated with strictly "classical" associations and echoes, that the rough and general division that has now become popular is neither scientifically accurate nor as subservient to a useful practical purpose as we may have deemed it. The passion for statistical classification with mathematical precision may easily be carried in things of the spirit to a point where obscuration of view results instead of clarity. But it is not within my present purpose to carry the discussion farther in this direction. Let us see rather what some, if not all, of the essential elements are that we might all agree in including under the appellation "classical," and this without any immediate regard to a contrast between them and what some persons, by way of following the Germans of a century ago, may This content downloaded from 128.135.