to use by substantial correction of the text. Of these the greatest and most influential proceeded from J. A. Bengel at Tübingen in 1734. In the closing years of the century, and a little later, the process was carried many steps forward by Griesbach, on a double foundation of enriched resources and deeper study, not without important help from suggestions of Semler and finally of Hug. Yet even Griesbach was content to start from the traditional or revised Erasmian basis, rather than from the MSS in which he himself reposed most confidence.
17. A new period began in 1831, when for the first time a text was constructed directly from the ancient documents without the intervention of any printed edition, and when the first systematic attempt was made to substitute scientific method for arbitrary choice in the discrimination of various readings. In both respects the editor, Lachmann, rejoiced to declare that he was carrying out the principles and unfulfilled intentions of Bentley, as set forth in 1716 and 1720. This great advance was however marred by too narrow a selection of documents to be taken into account and too artificially rigid an employment of them, and also by too little care in obtaining precise knowledge of some of their texts: and though these defects, partly due in the first instance to the unambitious purpose of the edition, have been in different ways avoided by Lachmann's two distinguished successors, Tischendorf and Tregelles, both of whom have produced texts substantially free from the later corruptions, neither of them can be said to have dealt consistently or on the whole successfully with the difficulties presented by the variations between the most ancient texts. On the other hand, their indefatigable labours in the discovery and exhibition
