“ Böckh worked out the ideas of Wolf in regard to philology, and illustrated them by his practice. Discarding the old notion that philology consisted in a minute acquaintance with words and the exercise of the critical art, he regarded it as the entire knowledge of antiquity, historical and philosophical. ”

“ In his speech at the opening of the congress of German philologists in 1850, he defined philology as the historical construction of the entire life—therefore, 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 (ib. ii.) . An account of Böckh’s division of philology will be found in Freund’s Wie studirt man Philologie? ”

“ BÖCKH, PHILIPP AUGUST (1785–1867) , German classical scholar and antiquarian, was born in Karlsruhe on the 24th of November 1785. He was sent to the gymnasium of his native place, and remained there until he left for the university of Halle (1803) , where he devoted himself to the study of theology. F. A. Wolf was then creating there an enthusiasm for classical studies; Böckh fell under the spell, passed from theology to philology, and became the greatest of all Wolf’s scholars. ”