- [146] Quite recently, E. Meyer, one of the most critically expert historians of antiquity, has in his work, Die Entstehung des Judenthums (Halle, 1896, 8vo), revived this strange juridical argument in favour of the narrative of Nehemiah. M. Bouché-Leclercq, in a remarkable study on "The Reign of Seleucus II. (Callinicus) and Historical Criticism" (Revue des Universités du Midi, April-June 1897), seems, by way of reaction against the hypercriticism of Niebuhr and Droysen, to incline towards an analogous theory: "Historical criticism, if it is not to degenerate into agnosticism—which would be suicidal—or into individual caprice, must place a certain amount of trust in testimony which it cannot verify, as long as it is not flatly contradicted by other testimony of equal value." M. Bouché-Leclercq is right as against the historian who, "after having discredited all his witnesses, claims to put himself in their place, and sees with their eyes something quite different from what they themselves saw." But when the "testimony" is insufficient to give us the scientific knowledge of a fact, the only correct attitude is "agnosticism," that is, a confession of ignorance; we have no right to shirk this confession because chance has permitted the destruction of the documents which might have contradicted the testimony.
- [147] The "Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz" furnish a conclusive instance: the anecdote of the ghosts met by Retz and Turenne. A. Feillet, who edited Retz in the Collection des Grands Écrivains de la France, has shown (vol. i. p. 192) that this story, so vividly narrated, is false from beginning to end.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF HISTORY
376