CRITICISM
504
CRITICISM
which elements often appear quite meaningless to the
untrained observer, we may consider him thoroughly
fitted for the task of critic. He must now proceed to
familiarize himself with the historical method, i. e.
with the rules of the art of historical criticism. In the
remainder of this article we shall present a brief re-
sum6 of these rules apropos of the various kinds of
documents and processes which the historian employs
in determining the relath-e degree of certainty which
attaches to the facts that engage his attention.
Written Documents. — There are two kinds of written documents. Some are drawn up by ecclesi- astical or civil authority, and are known as public documents; others, emanating from private individ- uals and possessing no official guarantee, are known as private documents. Public or private, however, all such documents raise at once three preliminary ques- tions: (1) authenticity and integrity; (2) meaning; (3) authority.
Authenticity and Integrity. — Does the document which confronts us as a source of information really belong to the time and the author claimed for it, and do we possess it in the shape in which it left that au- thor's hand? There is little or no difficulty in the case of a document printed during the author's lifetime, and given at once a wide distribution. It is otherwise when, as often happens, the document is both ancient and in manuscript. The so-called auxiliary sciences of history, i. e. palaeography, diplomatics, epigraphy, numismatics, sigillography, or sphragistics, furnish practical rules that generally suffice to determine ap- proximately the age of a manuscript. In this prelim- inary stage of research we are greatly aided by the nature of the material on which the manuscript is written, e. g. papyrus, parchment, cotton or rag paper ; by the system of abbreviations employed, character of the hand-writing, ornamentation, and other details that vary according to countries and epochs. It is rare that a document claiming to be an original or an autograph, when submitted to such a series of tests, leaves room for reasonable doubt regarding its authen- ticity or non-authenticity. More frequently, how- ever, ancient documents survive only in the form of copies, or copies of copies, and their verification thus becomes more complicated. We must pass judgment on each manuscript and compare the manuscripts with one another. This comparison enables us, on the one hand, to fix their age (approximately) by the rules of palseography ; on the other, it reveals a number of variant readings. In this way it becomes possible to designate some as belonging to one "family", i. e. as transcribed from one original model, and thus eventu- ally to reconstruct, more or less perfectly, the primi- tive text as it left the author's hand. Such labour (merely preliminary, after all, to the question of au- thenticity), were every one forced to perform it, would deter most stutlents of historical science at the very outset. It becomes, however, daily less necessary. Men specially devoted to this important and arduous branch of criticism, and of a literary probity beyond suspicion, have published and continue to publish, with the generous aid of their governments and of learned societies, more or less extensive editions of ancient historical sources which place at our disposal, one might almost say more advantageously, the manu- scripts themselves. In the prefaces of these scholarly publications all the known manuscripts of each docu- ment are carefully described, classified, and often par- tially represented in fac-simile, thereby enabling us to verify the palaeographic features of the manuscript in question. The edition it.self is usually made after one of the principal manuscripts; moreover, on each page we find an exact summary (sometimes in apparently excessive detail) of all the variant readings found in the other manuscripts of the text. With such helps the authenticity of a work or of a text may be dis- cussed without searching all the libraries of Europe or
tiring one's eyes in deciphering the more or less legible
handwriting of the Middle Ages.
The manuscripts once counted and classified, we must examine whether all, even the most ancient, bear the name of the author to whom the work is generally attributed. If it be lacking in the oldest, and be found only in those of a later date, especially if the name of- fered by the earlier manuscripts differ from that given by later copyists, we may rightly doubt the fidelity of the transcription. Such doubt ■nill often occur apro- pos of a passage not met in the oldest manuscripts, but only in the more recent, or vice versa. Unless we can otherwise explain this divergency, we are naturally justified in suspecting an interpolation or a mutilation in the later manuscripts. While the authenticity of a work may be proved by the agreement of all its manu- scripts, it is possible further to confirm it by the testi- mony of ancient writers who quote the work under the same title, andasaworkof the same author; such quota- tions are especially helpful if they are rather extensive and correspond well to the text as found in the manu- scripts. On the other hand, if one or several of such quoted passages are not met with in the manuscript, or if they be not reproduced in identical terms, there is reason to believe that we have not before us the docu- ment quoted by ancient writers or at least that our copy has suffered notably from the negligence or bad faith of those who transcribed it. To these signs of authenticity, called extrinsic because they are based on testimony foreign to the author's own work, may be added certain intrinsic signs based on an examina- tion of the work itself. When dealing with official and public acts care must be taken to see that not only the handwriting, but also the opening and closing formu- lae, the titles of persons, the manner of noting dates, and other similar corroborative indications conform to the known customs of the age to which the document is attributed. Amid so many means of verification it is extremely difficult for a forgery to escape detection. Words and phraseology furnish another test. Each century possesses its own peculiar diction, and amid so many pitfalls of this nature it is scarcely possible for the forger to cloak successfully his misdeed. This is also true for the style of each particular author. In general, especially in the case of the great writers, each one has his own peculiar stamp by which he is easily recognized, or which at least prevents us from attribu- ting to the same pen compositions quite unequal in style. In the application of this rule, no doubt, care should be taken not to exaggerate. A writer varies his tone and his language according to the subject of which he treats, the nature of his literary composition, and the class of readers whom he addresses. Never- theless an acute and practised mind will have little dif- ficulty in recognizing among the various works of a given author certain qualities which betray at once the character of the writer and his style or habitual man- ner of writing. Another and a surer means for the de- tection of positive forgery or the alteration of a docu- ment is the commission of anachronisms in facts or dates, the mention in a work of persons, institutions, or customs that are certainly of a later date than the period to which it claims to belong; akin to this are plagiarism and the servile imitation of more recent writers.
Mcnninq. — The critic must now make the best pos- sible use of the written sources at his disposal, i. e. he must understand them well, which is not always an easy matter. His dilficulty may arise from the ob- scurity of certain words, from their grammatical form, or from their grouping in the phrase he seeks to inter- pret. As to the sense of the individual words it is su- premely important that the critic should be able to read the documents in the language in which they were written rather than in translations. Doubtless there are excellent translations, and they may be very hel[)- ful ; but it is always dangerous to trust them blindly.
