Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/869

Rh historical et philosopham). He divides philology into five parts : first, an inquiry into public acts, with a knowledge of times and places, into civil institutions, and also into law ; second, an inquiry into private affairs ; third, an exhibition of the religions and arts of the ancient nations ; fourth, a history of all their moral and physical speculations and beliefs, and of their literatures ; and fifth, a complete explanation of the language. These ideas in regard to philology Bocckh gave out in a Latin oration delivered in 1822 (Gcsammelte Rhine Schriften, vol. i. p. 104). He repeats them in somewhat different language in the speech which he delivered at the opening of the congress of German philologists in 1850. He there defines philology to be the historical construction of the entire life, there fore, of all forms of culture and all the productions of a people in its practical and spiritual tendencies. He allows that such a work is too great for any one man .; but the very infinity of subjects is the stimulus to the pursuit of truth, and men strive because they have not attained (vol. ii. p. 189). Even before Boeckh had published anything on this subject, his oral expositions had become widely spread, and were much discussed. (Liibker, &quot; De Partitione Philologias/ Gesammelte Schriften ziir Philologie und Pcedo- gogik, vol. i. p. 8.) Freund gives the following account of Boeckh s division of philology:— &quot; Boeckh distinguishes two chief parts of philological discipline a formal and a material part. To the formal part belong only interpretation and criticism ; to the material all the other disciplines, even grammar. More par ticularly the material part embraces I. the practical life ; II. the theoretical life of the ancients. I. The practical, again, falls into the two divisions of 1. Public life, including (1) political history, (2) political antiquities, (3) chronology, and (4) geography; 2. Private life, which is considered as (1) external life, in agriculture, commerce, trades, domestic economy, and metrology ; (2) internal life, including marriage, education, slaves, &c. II. Theoretical life is divided into two parts 1. The life in which the thought of man is presented externally through a symbol worship, plastic art, music, OrchestUc ; 2. Life in which the thought remains pure within the mind science. In the case of the last (1) the contents, and (2) the form of acquisition are distinguished. The contents lie originally in mythology, out of which philosophy developed itself, and out of philosophy came the other sciences, which are partly physical, including mathematics, and partly ethical. The form of knowledge is language, and it must be con sidered first in itself, in its inner structure through grammar, and then in its formation and application to the various artistic forms which the history of literature has to exhibit &quot; ( Wie studirt man Philologie, p. 29). From 1806 till the time of his death, Boeckh s literary activity was unceasing. His principal works were (1.) An edition of Pindar, the first volume of which (1811) contains the text of the Epinician odes ; a treatise De Metris Pindari, in three books ; and Notce Criticce : the second (1819) contains the Scholia ; and part ii. of volume ii. (1821) contains a Latin translation, a commentary, the fragments, and indices. It is the most complete edition of Pindar that we have. But it was especially the treatise De Metris Pindari in the first volume which placed Boeckh in the first rank of scholars. This treatise forms an epoch in the treatment of Greek metres. In it the author threw aside all attempts to determine the Greek metres by mere subjective standards, pointing out at the same time the close connection between the music and the poetry of the Greeks. These were Boeckh s great works ; but his activity was continually digressing into widely different fields. He has gained for himself a foremost position amongst investigators into ancient chronology, and his name will occupy a parallel place with those of Ideler and Momrusen. His principal work on this subject was called Zur Geschichte d(r Mondcyden der Hellenen, Leipsic, 1855 ; but another, Epigraphisch-chronologische Studien, 1856, and several papers which he published in the Transactions of the Berlin Academy, throw light on the subject. Boeckh also occupied himself with philosophy. One of his earliest papers was on the Platonic doctrine of the world (De Platonica corporis mundani fabrica, 1809), and De Plat. System, ccelestium globorum et de versa indole astronomies Philolaicc, 1810. In opposition to Gruppe he denied that Plato affirmed the diurnal rotation of the earth, Untcrsuchungen iiber das Icosmische System des Platon, Berlin, 1852, and when in opposition to him Grote published his opinions on the sub jects (Plato and the Rotation of the Earth) Boeckh was ready with his reply. Another of his earlier papers, and one frequently referred to, was Commentatio Academica de simidtate quce Platoni mm Xenophonte intercessisse fertur (1811). Boeckh did not do much in the way of editing the classics. We have already noticed his edition of Pindar. He. also published an edition of the Antigone of Sophocles, with a poetical translation. (Antigone, Griechisch und Deutsch: Nebst Abhandhmgen iiber diese Tragodie in Ganzen und iiber Eimelne Stellen derselben, Berlin, 1 843). He also collected and arranged the fragments ascribed to Philolaus (Berlin, 1819), and endeavoured to show that they were genuine. The force of his arguments in this direction has, however, been recently weakened by Schaarschmidt, and the genuineness of the fragments is open to grave doubt. The smaller writings of Boeckh began to be collected in his lifetime. Three of the volumes were published before his death, and four after (Gcsammelte Meine Schriften, 1 vols., 1859-1873). The first two consist of orations 