It is this quality which has made the master-works of Chillingworth and Bentley supereminent.

The particular point for which the writers contended is settled or forgotten.

But in moving up to that point they touched--such was their large discourse of reason--on topics of perennial interest, did such justice, though only in passing, to certain other truths, that they are gratefully remembered ever after.

Thus Bentley's dissertation on Phalaris is read, not for the main thesis--proof of the spuriousness of the letters--but for the profound knowledge and admirable logic with which subsidiary positions are maintained on the way to it.

Tried by this standard, and he deserves to be tried by a high standard, Gibbon fails not much, but entirely.