a, have had some attractiveness not perceived by us, if the case be one in which the supposition of a mere blunder is improbable; or b must be right, and therefore must have expressed the author's meaning with some special fitness which escapes our notice. The antagonism would disappear if we could discover on which side we have failed to perceive or duly appreciate all the facts; but in the mean time it stands. Occasionally the Intrinsic evidence is so strong that the Transcriptional evidence may without rashness be disregarded: but such cases are too exceptional to count for much when we are estimating the general trustworthiness of a method; and the apparent contradiction which the imperfection of our knowledge often leaves us unable to reconcile remains a valid objection against habitual reliance on the sufficiency of Internal Evidence of Readings.
SECTION II. INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF DOCUMENTS
38–48
38. Thus far we have been considering the method which follows Internal Evidence of Readings alone, as improved to the utmost by the distinction and separate appreciation of Intrinsic and Transcriptional Probability, and as applied with every aid of scholarship and special study. The limitation to Internal Evidence of Readings follows naturally from the impulse to deal conclusively at once with each variation as it comes in its turn before a reader or commentator or editor: yet a moment's consideration of the process of transmission shews how precarious it is to attempt to judge which of two or more readings is the most likely to be right, without considering which of the attesting: documents or combinations of documents
