CRITICAL SCHOLARSHIP AND SCHOLARS
The sum of the operations described in the preceding chapters
(restoration of texts, investigation of authorship, collection and
classification of verified documents) constitutes the vast domain of
external criticism, or critical scholarship.
The public at large, with its vulgar and superficial standards, has
nothing but disdain for the whole of critical scholarship. Some of its
votaries, on the other hand, are inclined to exalt it unduly. But there
is a happy medium between these extremes of over-appreciation and
contempt.
The crude opinion of those who pity and despise the minute analysis of
external criticism hardly deserves refutation. There is only one
argument for the legitimacy and honourable character of the obscure
labours of erudition, but it is a decisive argument: it rests on their
indispensability. No erudition, no history. "_Non sunt contemnenda quasi
parva_," says St. Jerome, "_sine quibus magna constare non
possunt_."[104]
On the other hand, scholars by profession, in their zeal to justify
their pride in their work, are not content with maintaining its
necessity; they allow themselves to be carried away into an exaggeration
of its merit and importance. It has been said that the sure methods of
external criticism have raised history to the dignity of a science, "of
an exact science;" that critical investigations of authorship "enable
us, better than any other study, to gain a profound insight into past
ages;" that the habit of criticising texts refines or even confers the
"historical sense." It has been tacitly assumed that external criticism
is the whole of historical criticism, and that beyond the purgation,
emendation, and classification of documents there is nothing left to do.
This illusion, common enough among specialists, is too crude to need
express refutation; the fact is, that it is the psychological criticism
which deals with interpretation and examines into the good faith and
accuracy of authors that has, better than any other study, enabled us to
gain a profound insight into past ages, not external criticism.[105] An
historian who should be fortunate enough to find all the documents
bearing on his studies already edited correctly, classified, and
critically examined as to authorship, would be in just as good a
position to use them for writing history as if he had performed all the
preliminary operations himself. It is quite possible, whatever may be
said, to have the historical sense in full measure without having ever,
both literally and figuratively, wiped away the dust from original
documents--that is, without having discovered and restored them for
oneself. We need not interpret in the Jewish or etymological sense the
dictum of Renan: "I do not think it possible for any one to acquire a
clear notion of history, its limits, and the amount of confidence to be
placed in the different categories of historical investigation, unless
he is in the habit of _handling_ original documents."[106] This is to be
understood as simply referring to the habit of going direct to the
sources, and treating definite problems.[107] Without doubt a day will
come when all the documents relating to the history of classical
antiquity shall have been edited and treated critically. There will then
be no more room, in this department of study, for textual criticism or
the investigation of sources; but, for all that, the conditions for the
treatment of general ancient history, or special parts of it, will be
then eminently favourable. External criticism, as we cannot too often
repeat, is entirely preparatory; it is a means, not an end; the ideal
state of things would be that it should have been already sufficiently
practised that we might dispense with it for the future; it is only a
temporary necessity. Theoretically, not only is it unnecessary for those
who wish to make historical syntheses to do for themselves the
preparatory work on the materials which they use, but we have a right to
ask, as has been often asked, whether there is any advantage in their
doing it.[108] Would it not be preferable that workers in the field of
history should specialise? On the one class--the specialists--would
devolve the absorbing tasks of external or erudite criticism; the
others, relieved of the weight of these tasks, would have greater
liberty to devote themselves to the work of higher criticism, of
combination and construction. Such was the opinion of Mark Pattison, who
said, _History cannot be written from manuscripts_, which is as much as
to say: "It is impossible for a man to write history from documents
which he is obliged to put for himself into a condition in which they
can be used."
Formerly the professions of "critical scholar" and "historian" were, in
fact, clearly distinguished. The "historians" cultivated the empty and
pompous species of literature which then was known as "history," without
considering themselves bound to keep in touch with the work of the
scholars. The latter, for their part, determined by their critical
researches the conditions under which history must be written, but were
at no pains to write it themselves. Content to collect, emend, and
classify historical documents, they took no interest in history, and
understood the past no better than did the mass of their contemporaries.
The scholars acted as though erudition were an end in itself, and the
historians as if they had been able to reconstruct vanished realities by
the mere force of reflection and ingenuity applied to the inferior
documents, which were common property. So complete a divorce between
erudition and history seems to-day almost inexplicable, and it was in
truth mischievous enough. We need not say that the present advocates of
the division of labour in history have nothing of the kind in view. It
is admittedly necessary that close relations should obtain between the
world of historians and that of critical scholars, for the work of the
latter has no reason for existence beyond its utility to the former. All
that is meant is, that certain analytical and all synthetic operations
are not necessarily better performed when they are performed by the same
person; that though the characters of historian and scholar may be
combined, there is nothing illegitimate in their separation; and that
perhaps this separation is desirable in theory, as, in practice, it is
often a necessity.
In practice, what happens is as follows. Whatever part of history a man
undertakes to study, there are only three possible cases. In the first
the sources have already been emended and classified; in the second the
preliminary work on the sources, which has been only partially done, or
not at all, offers no great difficulty; in the third the sources are in
a very bad state, and require a great deal of labour to fit them for
use. We may observe, in passing, that there is naturally no proportion
between the intrinsic importance of the subject and the amount of
preliminary work which must be done before it can be treated: there are
some subjects of the highest interest, for example the history of the
origin and early development of Christianity, which could not be
properly attacked till after the completion of investigations which
occupied several generations of scholars; but the material criticism of
the sources of the history of the French Revolution, another subject of
the first rank, gave much less trouble; and there are comparatively
unimportant problems in mediaeval history which will not be solved till
after an immense amount of external criticism shall have been performed.
In the two first cases the expediency of a division of labour does not
come in question. But take the third case. A man of ability discovers
that the documents which are necessary for the treatment of a point of
history are in a very bad condition; they are scattered, corrupt, and
untrustworthy. He must take his choice; either he must abandon the
subject, having no taste for the mechanical operations which he knows to
be necessary, but which, as he foresees, would absorb the whole of his
energy; or else he resolves to enter upon the preparatory critical work,
without concealing from himself that in all probability he will never
have time to utilise the materials he has verified, and that he will
therefore be working for those who will come after him. If he adopts the
second alternative he becomes a critical scholar by profession, as it
were in spite of himself. _A priori_, it is true, there is nothing to
prevent those who make great collections of texts and publish critical
editions from using their own compilations and editions for the writing
of history; and we see, as a matter of fact, that several men have
divided themselves between the preparatory tasks of external criticism
and the more exalted labours of historical construction: it is enough to
mention the names of Waitz, Mommsen, and Haureau. But this combination
is very rare, for several reasons. The first is the shortness of life;
there are catalogues, editions, _regesta_ on a great scale, the
construction of which entails so much mechanical labour as to exhaust
the strength of the most zealous worker. The second is the fact that,
for many persons, the tasks of critical scholarship are not without
their charm; nearly every one finds in them a singular satisfaction in
the long run; and some have confined themselves to these tasks who
might, strictly speaking, have aspired to higher things.
Is it a good thing in itself that some workers should, voluntarily or
not, confine themselves to the researches of critical scholarship? Yes,
without a doubt. In the study of history, the results of the division of
labour are the same as in the industrial arts, and highly
satisfactory--more abundant, more successful, better regulated
production. Critics who have been long habituated to the restoration of
texts restore them with incomparable dexterity and sureness; those who
devote themselves exclusively to investigations of authorship and
sources have intuitions which would not occur to others less versed in
this difficult and highly specialised branch; those who have spent
their lives in the construction of catalogues and the compilation of
_regesta_ construct and compile them more easily, more quickly, and
better than the man in the street. Thus, not only is there no special
reason for requiring every "historian" to be at the same time an active
worker in the field of critical scholarship, but even those scholars who
are engaged in the operations of external criticism come under different
categories. Similarly, in a stoneyard there is no point in the architect
being at the same time a workman, nor have all the workmen the same
functions. Although most critical scholars have not rigorously
specialised so far, and although they vary their pleasures by
voluntarily executing different kinds of critical work, it would be easy
to name some who are specialists in descriptive catalogues and indexes
(archivists, librarians, and the like), others who are more particularly
"critics" (purifiers, restorers, and editors of texts), and others who
are pre-eminently compilers of _regesta_. "The moment it is admitted
that erudition is only valuable for the sake of its results, it becomes
impossible to carry the division of scientific labour too far;"[109] and
the progress of the historical sciences corresponds to the narrower and
narrower specialisation of the workers. It was possible, not very long
ago, for the same man to devote himself successively to all the
operations of historical inquiry, but that was because he appealed to a
not very exacting public: nowadays we require of those who criticise
documents a minute accuracy and an absolute perfection which presuppose
real professional skill. The historical sciences have now reached a
stage in their evolution at which the main lines have been traced, the
great discoveries made, and nothing remains but a more precise treatment
of details. We feel instinctively that any further advance must be by
dint of investigations of such extent, and analyses of such depth, as
none but specialists are capable of.
But the best justification of the division of workers into "scholars"
and "historians" (and of the distribution of the former among the
various branches of external criticism) is to be found in the fact that
different persons have a natural vocation for different tasks. One of
the chief justifications of the institution of higher historical
teaching is, in our opinion, the opportunity afforded the teachers
(presumably men of experience) of discerning in the students, in the
course of their university career, either the germ of a vocation for
critical scholarship, or fundamental unfitness for critical work, as the
case may be.[110] _Criticus non fit, sed nascitur._ For one who is not
endowed by nature with certain aptitudes, a career of technical
erudition has nothing but disappointments in store: the greatest service
that can be rendered to young men hesitating whether to adopt such a
career or not is to warn them of the fact. Those who hitherto have
devoted themselves to the preparatory tasks of criticism have either
chosen them in preference to others because they had a taste for them,
or else have submitted to them because they knew they were necessary;
those who engaged in them by choice have less merit, from the ethical
point of view, than those who submitted to them, but, for all that, they
have mostly obtained better results, because they have worked, not as a
matter of duty, but joyfully and whole-heartedly. It is important that
every one should realise the situation, and, in his own as well as the
general interest, embrace the special work which suits him best.
We now propose to examine the natural aptitudes which fit, and the truly
prohibitory defects which disqualify, for the labours of external
criticism. We shall, then, devote a few words to the effects produced on
the character by professional habituation to the labours of critical
scholarship.
The chief condition of success in these labours is to like them. Those
who are exceptionally gifted as poets or thinkers--that is, those who
are endowed with creative power--have much difficulty in adapting
themselves to the technical drudgery of preparatory criticism: they are
far from despising it; on the contrary, they hold it in honour, if they
are clear-sighted; but they shrink from devoting themselves to it, for
fear of using a razor, as is said, to cut stones. "I have no mind,"
wrote Leibnitz to Basnage, who had exhorted him to compile an immense
_Corpus_ of unpublished and printed documents relating to the history of
the law of nations; "I have no mind to turn transcriber.... Does it not
occur to you that the advice you give me resembles that of a man who
should wish to marry his friend to a shrew? For to engage a man in a
lifelong work is much the same as to find him a wife."[111] And Renan,
speaking of those immense preliminary labours "which have rendered
possible the researches of the higher criticism" and attempts at
historical construction, says: "The man who, with livelier intellectual
needs [than those of the men who performed these labours], should now
accomplish such an act of abnegation, would be a hero...."[112] Although
Renan directed the publication of the _Corpus Inscriptionum
Semiticarum_, and Leibnitz was the editor of the _Scriptores rerum
Brunsvicensium_, neither Leibnitz, nor Renan, nor their peers have,
fortunately, had the heroism to sacrifice their higher faculties to
purely critical learning.
Outside the class of superior men (and the infinitely more numerous
class of those who wrongly think themselves such), nearly every one, as
we have already said, finds in the long run a kind of satisfaction in
the minutiae of preparatory criticism. The reason is, that the practice
of this criticism appeals to and develops two very widespread
tastes--the taste for collecting and the taste for puzzles. The pleasure
of collecting is one which is felt not by children only, but by adults
as well, no matter whether the collection be one of various readings or
of postage-stamps. The deciphering of rebuses, the solution of small
problems of strictly definite scope, are occupations which attract many
able minds. Every find brings pleasure, and in the field of erudition
there are innumerable finds--some lying exposed and obvious, some
guarded by all but impenetrable barriers--to reward both those who do
and those who do not delight in surmounting difficulties. All the
scholars of any distinction have possessed in an eminent degree the
instincts of the collector and the puzzle-solver, and some of them have
been quite conscious of the fact. "The more difficulties we encountered
in our chosen path," says M. Haureau, "the more the enterprise pleased
us. This species of labour, which is called bibliography [investigations
of authorship, principally from the point of view of pseudepigraphy],
could not aspire to the homage of the public, but it has a great
attraction for those who devote themselves to it. Yes, it is doubtless a
humble study, but how many others are there which so often compensate
the trouble they give by affording us opportunity to cry Eureka."[113]
Julien Havet, when he was "already known to the learned men of Europe,"
used to divert himself "by apparently frivolous amusements, such as
guessing square words or deciphering cryptograms."[114] Profound
instincts, and, for all the childish or ridiculous perversions which
they may exhibit in certain individuals, of the highest utility! After
all, these are forms, the most rudimentary forms, of the scientific
spirit. Those who are devoid of them have no place in the world of
critical scholarship. But those who aspire to be critical scholars will
always be numerous; for the labours of interpretation, construction, and
exposition require the rarest gifts: all those whom chance has thrown
into the study of history, who desire to do useful work in that
department, but are wanting in psychological tact, or find composition
irksome, will always allow themselves to be fascinated by the simple and
calm pleasures of the preliminary tasks.
But in order to succeed in critical labours it is not enough to like
them. It is necessary to possess qualifications "for which zeal is no
substitute." What qualifications? Those who have asked this question
have answered vaguely: "Qualifications of the moral rather than the
intellectual order, patience, intellectual honesty...." Is it not
possible to be more precise?
There are young students with no _a priori_ repugnance for the labours
of external criticism, who perhaps are even disposed to like them, who
yet are--experience has shown it--totally incapable of performing them.
There would be nothing perplexing in this if these persons were
intellectually feeble; this incapacity would then be but one
manifestation of their general weakness; nor yet if they had gone
through no technical apprenticeship. But we are concerned with men of
education and intelligence, sometimes of exceptional ability, who do not
labour under the above disadvantages. These are the people of whom we
hear: "He works badly, he has the genius of inaccuracy." Their
catalogues, their editions, their _regesta_, their monographs swarm with
imperfections, and never inspire confidence; try as they may, they
never attain, I do not say absolute accuracy, but any decent degree of
accuracy. They are subject to "chronic inaccuracy," a disease of which
the English historian Froude is a typical and celebrated case. Froude
was a gifted writer, but destined never to advance any statement that
was not disfigured by error; it has been said of him that he was
constitutionally inaccurate. For example, he had visited the city of
Adelaide in Australia: "We saw," says he, "below us, in a basin with a
river winding through it, a city of 150,000 inhabitants, none of whom
has ever known or will ever know one moment's anxiety as to the
recurring regularity of his three meals a day." Thus Froude, now for the
facts: Adelaide is built on an eminence; no river runs through it; when
Froude visited it the population did not exceed 75,000, and it was
suffering from a famine at the time. And more of the same kind.[115]
Froude was perfectly aware of the utility of criticism, and he was even
one of the first in England to base the study of history on that of
original documents, as well unpublished as published; but his mental
conformation rendered him altogether unfit for the emendation of texts;
indeed, he murdered them, unintentionally, whenever he touched them.
Just as Daltonism (an affection of the organs of sight which prevents a
man from distinguishing correctly between red and green signals)
incapacitates for employment on a railway, so chronic inaccuracy, or
"Froude's Disease" (a malady not very difficult to diagnose) ought to be
regarded as incompatible with the professional practice of critical
scholarship.
Froude's Disease does not appear to have ever been studied by the
psychologists, nor, indeed, is it to be considered as a separate
pathological entity. Every one makes mistakes "out of carelessness,"
"through inadvertence," and in many other ways. What is abnormal is to
make many mistakes, to be always making them, in spite of the most
persevering efforts to be exact. Probably this phenomenon is connected
with weakness of the attention and excessive activity of the involuntary
(or subconscious) imagination which the will of the patient, lacking
strength and stability, is unable sufficiently to control. The
involuntary imagination intrudes upon intellectual operations only to
vitiate them; its part is to fill up the gaps of memory by conjecture,
to magnify and attenuate realities, and to confuse them with the
products of pure invention. Most children distort everything by
inexactitude of this kind, and it is only after a hard struggle that
they ever attain to a scrupulous accuracy--that is, learn to master
their imagination. Many men remain children, in this respect, the whole
of their lives.
But, let the psychological causes of Froude's Disease be what they may,
another point claims our attention. The man of the sanest and
best-balanced mind is liable to bungle the simplest kinds of critical
work if he does not allow them the necessary time. In these matters
precipitancy is the source of innumerable errors. It is rightly said
that patience is the cardinal virtue of the scholar. Do not work too
fast, act as if there were always something to be gained by waiting,
leave work undone rather than spoil it: these are maxims easy enough to
pronounce, but not to be followed in practice by any but persons of
calm temperament. There are nervous, excitable persons, who are always
in a hurry to get to the end, always seeking variety in their
occupations, and always anxious to dazzle and astonish: these may
possibly find honourable employment in other careers; but if they
embrace erudition, they are doomed to pile up a mass of provisional
work, which is likely to do more harm than good, and is sure in the long
run to cause them many a vexation. The true scholar is cool, reserved,
circumspect. In the midst of the turmoil of life, which flows past him
like a torrent, he never hurries. Why should he hurry? The important
thing is, that the work he does should be solid, definitive,
imperishable. Better "spend weeks polishing a masterpiece of a score of
pages" in order to convince two or three among the scholars of Europe
that a particular charter is spurious, or take ten years to construct
the best possible text of a corrupt document, than give to the press in
the same interval volumes of moderately accurate _anecdota_ which future
scholars will some day have to put through the mill again from beginning
to end.
Whatever special branch of critical scholarship a man may choose, he
ought to be gifted with prudence, an exceptionally powerful attention
and will, and, moreover, to combine a speculative turn of mind with
complete disinterestedness and little taste for action; for he must make
up his mind to work for distant and uncertain results, and, in nearly
every case, for the benefit of others. For textual criticism and the
investigation of sources, it is, moreover, very useful to have the
puzzle-solving instinct--that is, a nimble, ingenious mind, fertile in
hypotheses, prompt to seize and even to guess the relations of things.
For tasks of description and compilation (the preparation of inventories
and catalogues, _corpus_ and _regesta_-making) it is absolutely
necessary to possess the collector's instinct, together with an
exceptional appetite for work, and the qualities of order, industry, and
perseverance.[116] These are the aptitudes required. The labours of
external criticism are so distasteful to those who lack these aptitudes,
and the results obtained are, in their case, so small in comparison with
the time expended, that it is impossible for a man to make too sure of
his vocation before entering upon a career of critical scholarship. It
is pitiful to see those who, for want of a wise word spoken in due
season, lose their way and vainly exhaust themselves in such a career,
especially when they have good reason for believing that they might have
employed their talents to better advantage in other directions.[117]
II. As critical and preparatory tasks are remarkably well suited to the
temperament of a very large number of Germans, and as the activity of
German erudition during the present century has been enormous, it is to
Germany that we must go for the best cases of those mental deformations
which are produced, in the long run, by the habitual practice of
external criticism. Hardly a year passes but complaints are heard, in
and about the German universities, of the ill effects produced on
scholars by the tasks of criticism.
In 1890, Herr Philippi, as Rector of the University of Giessen, forcibly
deplored the chasm which, as he said, is opening between preparatory
criticism and general culture: textual criticism loses itself in
insignificant minutiae; scholars collate for the mere pleasure of
collating; infinite precautions are employed in the restoration of
worthless documents; it is thus evident that "more importance is
attached to the materials of study than to its intellectual results."
The Rector of Giessen sees in the diffuse style of German scholars and
in the bitterness of their polemical writings an effect of the habit
they have contracted of "excessive preoccupation with little
things."[118] In the same year the same note was sounded, at the
University of Bale, by Herr J. v. Pflugk-Harttung. "The highest branches
of historical science are despised," says this author in his
_Geschichtsbetrachtungen_[119]: "all that is valued is microscopic
observations and absolute accuracy in unimportant details. The criticism
of texts and sources has become a branch of sport: the least breach of
the rules of the game is considered unpardonable, while conformity to
them is enough to assure the approval of connoisseurs, irrespectively of
the intrinsic value of the results obtained. Scholars are mostly
malevolent and discourteous towards each other; they make molehills and
call them mountains; their vanity is as comic as that of the citizen of
Frankfort who used complacently to observe, 'All that you can see
through yonder archway is Frankfort territory.'"[120] We, for our part,
are inclined to draw a distinction between three professional risks to
which scholars are subject: dilettantism, hypercriticism, and loss of
the power to work.
To take the last first: the habit of critical analysis has a relaxing
and paralysing action on certain intelligences. Men, of naturally timid
dispositions, discover that whatever pains they take with their critical
work, their editing or classifying of documents, they are very apt to
make slight mistakes, and these slight mistakes, as a result of their
critical education, fill them with horror and dread. To discover
blunders in their signed work when the time for correction is past,
causes them acute suffering. They reach at length a state of morbid
anxiety and scrupulosity which prevents them from doing anything at
all, for fear of possible imperfections. The _examen rigorosum_ to which
they are continually subjecting themselves brings them to a standstill.
They give the same measure to the productions of others, and in the end
they see in historical works nothing but the authorities and the notes,
the _apparatus criticus_, and in the _apparatus criticus_ they see
nothing but the faults in it which require correction.
_Hypercriticism._--The excess of criticism, just as much as the crudest
ignorance, leads to error. It consists in the application of critical
canons to cases outside their jurisdiction. It is related to criticism
as logic-chopping is to logic. There are persons who scent enigmas
everywhere, even where there are none. They take perfectly clear texts
and subtilise on them till they make them doubtful, under the pretext of
freeing them from imaginary corruptions. They discover traces of forgery
in authentic documents. A strange state of mind! By constantly guarding
against the instinct of credulity they come to suspect everything.[121]
It is to be observed that in proportion as the criticism of texts and
sources makes positive progress, the danger of hypercriticism increases.
When all the sources of history have been properly criticised (for
certain parts of ancient history this is no distant prospect), good
sense will call a halt. But scholars will refuse to halt; they will
refine, as they do already on the best established texts, and those who
refine will inevitably fall into hypercriticism. "The peculiarity of the
study of history and its auxiliary philological sciences," says Renan,
"is that as soon as they have attained their relative perfection they
begin to destroy themselves."[122] Hypercriticism is the cause of this.
_Dilettantism._--Scholars by profession and vocation have a tendency to
treat the external criticism of documents as a game of skill, difficult,
but deriving an interest, much as chess does, from the very complication
of its rules. Some of them are indifferent to the larger questions--to
history itself, in fact. They criticise for the sake of criticism, and,
in their view, the elegance of the method of investigation is much more
important than the results, whatever they may be. These _virtuosi_ are
not concerned to connect their labours with some general idea--to
criticise systematically, for example, all the documents relating to a
question, in order to understand it; they criticise indiscriminately
texts relating to all manner of subjects, on the one condition of being
sufficiently corrupt. Armed with their critical skill, they range over
the whole of the domain of history, and stop wherever a knotty problem
invites their services; this problem solved, or at least discussed, they
go elsewhere to look for others. They leave behind them no coherent
work, but a heterogeneous collection of memoirs on every conceivable
subject, which resembles, as Carlyle says, a curiosity shop or an
archipelago of small islands.
Dilettanti defend their dilettantism by sufficiently plausible
arguments. To begin with, say they, everything is important; in history
there is no document which has not its value: "No scientific work is
barren, no truth is without its use for science ...; in history there is
no such thing as a trivial subject;" consequently, "it is not the nature
of the subject which makes work valuable, but the method employed."[123]
The important thing in history is not "the ideas one accumulates; it is
the mental gymnastics, the intellectual training--in short, the
scientific spirit." Even supposing that there are degrees of importance
among the data of history, no one has a right to maintain _a priori_
that a document is "useless." What, pray, is the criterion of utility in
these matters? How many documents are there not which, after being long
despised, have been suddenly placed in the foreground by a change of
standpoint or by new discoveries? "All exclusion is rash; there is no
research which it is possible to brand beforehand as necessarily
sterile. That which has no value in itself may become valuable as a
necessary means." Perhaps a day may come when, science being in a sense
complete, indifferent documents and facts may be safely thrown
overboard; but we are not at present in a position to distinguish the
superfluous from the necessary, and in all probability the line of
demarcation will never be easy to trace. This justifies the most special
researches and the most futile in all appearance. And, if it come to the
worst, what does it matter if there is a certain amount of work wasted?
"It is a law in science, as in all human effort," and indeed in all the
operations of nature, "to work in broad outlines, with a wide margin of
what is superfluous."
We shall not undertake to refute these arguments to the full extent in
which this is possible. Besides, Renan, who has put the case for both
sides of the question with equal vigour, definitively closed the debate
in the following words: "It may be said that some researches are useless
in the sense of taking up time which would have been better spent on
more serious questions.... Although it is not necessary for an artisan
to have a complete knowledge of the work he is employed to execute, it
is still to be desired that those who devote themselves to special
labours should have some notion of the more general considerations which
alone give value to their researches. If all the industrious workers to
whom modern science owes its progress had had a philosophical
comprehension of what they were doing, how much precious time would have
been saved!... It is deeply to be regretted that there should be such an
immense waste of human effort, merely for want of guidance, and a clear
consciousness of the end to be pursued."[124]
Dilettantism is incompatible with a certain elevation of mind, and with
a certain degree of "moral perfection," but not with technical
proficiency. Some of the most accomplished critics merely make a trade
of their skill, and have never reflected on the ends to which their art
is a means. It would, however, be wrong to infer that science itself has
nothing to fear from dilettantism. The dilettanti of criticism who work
as fancy or curiosity bids them, who are attracted to problems not by
their intrinsic importance, but by their difficulty, do not supply
historians (those whose work it is to combine materials and use them for
the main purposes of history) with the materials of which the latter
have the most pressing need, but with others which might have waited. If
the activity of specialists in external criticism were exclusively
directed to questions whose solution is important, and if it were
regulated and guided from above, it would be more fruitful.
The idea of providing against the dangers of dilettantism by a rational
"organisation of labour" is already ancient. Fifty years ago it was
common to hear people talking of "supervision," of "concentrating
scattered forces;" dreams were rife of "vast workshops" organised on the
model of those of modern industry, in which the preparatory labours of
critical scholarship were to be performed on a great scale, in the
interests of science. In nearly all countries, in fact, governments
(through the medium of historical committees and commissions),
academies, and learned societies have endeavoured in our day, much as
monastic congregations did of old, to group professed scholars for the
purposes of vast collective enterprises, and to co-ordinate their
efforts. But this banding of specialists in external criticism for the
service and under the supervision of competent men presents great
mechanical difficulties. The problem of the "organisation of scientific
labour" is still the order of the day.[125]
III. Scholars are often censured for pride and excessive harshness in
the judgments which they pass on the labours of their colleagues; and
these faults, as we have seen, are often attributed to their excessive
"preoccupation with little things," especially by persons whose attempts
have been severely judged. In reality there do exist modest and kindly
scholars: it is a question of character; professional "preoccupation
with little things" is not enough to change natural disposition in this
respect. "Ce bon monsieur Du Cange," as the Benedictines said, was
modest to excess. "Nothing more is required," says he, in speaking of
his labours, "but eyes and fingers in order to do as much and more;" he
never blamed any one, on principle. "If I study it is for the pleasure
of studying, and not to give pain to any one else, any more than to
myself."[126] It is, however, true that most scholars have no
compunction in exposing each other's mistakes, and that their austere
zeal sometimes finds expression in harsh and overbearing language.
Barring the harshness they are quite right. Like physicians, chemists,
and other members of learned and scientific professions, they have a
keen appreciation of the value of scientific truth, and it is for this
reason that they make a point of calling offenders to account. They are
thus enabled to bar the door against the tribe of incapables and
charlatans who once infested their profession.
Among the youths who propose to devote themselves to the study of
history there are some in whom the commercial spirit and vulgar ambition
are stronger than the love of science. These are apt to say to
themselves: "Historical work, if it is to be done according to the rules
of method, requires an infinite amount of labour and caution. But do we
not see historical writings whose authors have more or less seriously
violated the rules? Are these authors thought any the less of on this
account? Is it always the most conscientious writer who enjoys the
highest consideration? Cannot tact supply the place of knowledge?" If
tact really could supply the place of knowledge, then, as it is easier
to do bad work than good, and as the important thing with these people
is success, they might be tempted to conclude that it does not matter
how badly they work as long as they succeed. Why should not things go in
these matters as they do in life, where it is not necessarily the best
men that get on best? Well, it is due to the pitiless severity of the
critics that calculations of this kind would be as disastrous as they
are despicable.
Towards the end of the Second Empire there was in France no enlightened
public opinion on the subject of historical work. Bad books of
historical erudition were published with impunity, and sometimes even
procured undeserved rewards for their authors. It was then that the
founders of the _Revue Critique d'histoire et de litterature_ undertook
to combat a state of things which they lightly deemed demoralising.
With this object they administered public chastisement to those scholars
who showed lack of conscience or method, in a manner calculated to
disgust them with erudition for ever. They performed sundry notable
executions, not for the pleasure of it, but with the firm resolve to
establish a censorship and a wholesome dread of justice, in the domain
of historical study. Bad workers henceforth received no quarter, and
though the _Revue_ did not exert any great influence on the public at
large, its police-operations covered a wide enough radius to impress
most of those concerned with the necessity of sincerity and respect for
method. During the last twenty-five years the impulse thus given has
spread beyond all expectation.
It is now a matter of great difficulty to impose on the world of
scholars, in matters connected with their studies, or at least to keep
up the deception for any length of time. In the case of the historical
sciences, as well as the sciences proper, it is now too late to found a
new error or to discredit an old truth. It may be a few months, possibly
a few years, before a bungled experiment in chemistry or a scamped
edition is recognised as such; but inexact results, though temporarily
accepted under reserve, are always sooner or later, and generally very
soon, discovered, denounced, and eliminated. The theory of the
operations of external criticism is now so well established, the number
of specialists thoroughly versed in them is now so great in every
country, that, with rare exceptions, descriptive catalogues of
documents, editions, _regesta_, monographs, are scrutinised, dissected,
and judged as soon as they appear. It is well to be warned. It will for
the future be the height of imprudence to risk publishing a work of
erudition without having first done everything possible to make it
unassailable; otherwise it will immediately, or after brief delay, be
attacked and demolished. Not knowing this, certain well-meaning persons
still show themselves, from time to time, simple enough to enter the
lists of critical scholarship insufficiently prepared; they are filled
with a desire to be useful, and are apparently convinced that here, as
in politics and elsewhere, it is possible to work by extemporised and
approximate methods without any "special knowledge." They are sorry
afterwards. The knowing ones do not take the risk; the tasks of critical
scholarship have no seductions for them, for they are aware that the
labour is great and the glory moderate, and that the field is engrossed
by clever specialists not too well disposed towards intruders. They see
plainly there is no room for them here. The blunt uncompromising honesty
of the scholars thus delivers them from undesirable company of a kind
which the "historians" proper have still occasionally to put up with.
Bad workers, in fact, on the hunt for a public less closely critical
than the scholars, are very ready to take refuge in historical
exposition. The rules of method are here less obvious, or, rather, not
so well known. While the criticism of texts and sources has been placed
on a scientific basis, historical synthesis is still performed
haphazard. Mental confusion, ignorance, negligence--faults which stand
out so clearly in works of critical scholarship--may in historical
works be disguised up to a certain point by literary artifices, and the
public at large, which is not well educated in this respect, is not
shocked.[127] In short, there is still, in this department, a certain
chance of impunity. This chance, however, is diminishing, and a day will
come, before so very long, when the superficial writers who make
incorrect syntheses will be treated with as little consideration as is
now received by those who show themselves unscrupulous or unskilful in
the technique of preparatory criticism. The works of the most celebrated
historians of the nineteenth century, those who died but yesterday,
Augustin Thierry, Ranke, Fustel de Coulanges, Taine, and others, are
already battered and riddled with criticism. The faults of their methods
have already been seen, defined, and condemned.
Those who are insensible to other considerations ought to be moved to
honesty in historical work by the reflection that the time is now past,
or nearly so, when it was possible to do bad work without having to
suffer for it.
_SECTION II.--INTERNAL CRITICISM_