I shall adopt an archaeological rather than a legal or a philological standpoint.

The legal and philological arguments have often been put forward.

But the legal arguments are entirely _a priori_, and they have led different scholars to very different conclusions.

The philological arguments are no less beset with difficulties.

Both the facts and their significance are obscure, and the inquiry into them has hitherto yielded little beyond confident and yet wholly contradictory assertions and theories which are not susceptible of proof.