WHAT we call "history" is largely a dogma. It stands on a basis very similar to that on which some other dogmas, religious, literary, scientific, etc., stand; that is, it stands on a particular, restricted, and local brand of culture, known as "Western civilization." And, like these other dogmas, it is destined to become seriously modified by later researches and discoveries.

For look at our classical history; it is founded chiefly upon a literature—the literature of cultured circles in Greece and Rome. That this literature does not reflect the life of the people to any adequate extent we know; for the spade of the archaeologists, instead of confirmations, too often unearths surprises. The results of archaeology go to show that ancient peoples were more advanced in many important arts of life than we had surmised from our acquaintance with the said literature. Hebraic tradition, too, backed by the weight of religious authority, has colored our views of the past, and prevented us from estimating aright the claims of non-Christian peoples. In considering the history of HindÛstÂn, Persia, Egypt, etc., students have sought to make dates agree with their own sacred traditions. Again, we have too often shown a lack of appreciation of the form and style of other historians, when these have not adopted the literal and precise form favored by our own historians; and have consequently, in a vain attempt to take poetical language in the sense of a scientific treatise, frequently rejected it and its message altogether.

Around that Mediterranean basin which was the classic theater, were great nations to whose history we have not hitherto had access, but of which we are now beginning to learn a little. The civilization—or rather, several distinct civilizations—that preceded Greece, and whose center at one time was Crete, at another the western shores of Asia Minor; the mysterious Nabatheans and Sabaeans; the equally mysterious Hittites; empires in Africa, south of Egypt, and inland from the east coast; these and other fragmentary remains slowly accumulate to confirm the assurances made by H. P. Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine that a far greater and longer past lies behind us than we have so far guessed.

The name Cyrene is suggestive along these lines, and forms the topic of a recent article by Professor Alfred Emerson of the Chicago Art Institute, in The Scientific American.

A number of Dorian islanders, we are there told, planted a European colony on the great Libyan headland to the south of Greece proper, 640 years b. c., so that Cyrene and its neighborhood had as long an authentic history as ancient Rome itself. A dynasty of kings was succeeded by a republic and the Libyans sometimes pressed the Greek colony hard. Cyrene had its own school of philosophy and a famous school of medicine. It had over 100,000 inhabitants, and the Ptolemies gave it kings again.

Sporadic explorations have brought to light a few relics, but heretofore the Ottoman government has repressed the curiosity of more systematic researchers. Now, however, an American expedition has won a firman to explore the ruins, and we shall soon have a record of this powerful but little known outlier of classic culture.