CHAPTER XIII
.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES, APPLICABLE TO QUESTIONS OF THE GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY OF ANCIENT RECORDS.
Civilization has not ordinarily, if indeed it has ever done so, sprung up spontaneously in any land. A germ of the arts, and of literature, transmitted from people to people, and passed down from age to age, has taken root and become prolific, in a degree, proportioned generally to the amount and variety of those elements of social and intellectual improvement that may have been received from distant sources.
These germs of civilization may have been transported, and scattered by colonization, by trade, or by conquest; but they are never so fully expanded as when they are cherished by an imported literature. It is not by comparing themselves with themselves, that individuals, or that nations, become wise; and though there are fruits of genius which seem to owe nothing to extraneous sources, the general perfectionment of reason and of taste can be attained only by an extended knowledge of what has been thought and performed by men of other nations, and of other times.
Among all the inestimable advantages which have raised the inhabitants of England and of France and of Germany, above those of Turkey or of China, very few can be named that have not--directly or indirectly--sprung from a knowledge of the civilisation, the arts, and the literature of ancient nations. What is it that would be left to the people of Europe, if all this knowledge, and all its remote consequences, could at once be subtracted from their religious, their political, and their intellectual condition? But it must be remembered that it has chiefly been by _the transmission of books_, from age to age, that this yeast of civilisation is now possessed and enjoyed. If those works which we believe to be genuine are not so in fact, we may be said to hold all the blessings of social and intellectual advancement by a forged title. For on such a supposition the first stock, or the rudiment of our advantages has sprung from a mass of fabrications. No one entertains such a supposition; and yet it must be admitted if any _general_ objections are to be allowed to disparage the mode in which ancient literature has been transmitted to modern times.
If we except the almost forgotten enterprise of the Jesuit, Harduin, no such general objections are ever formally made, or insinuated, in relation to the remains of classic literature, and this for two reasons;--first, because an attempt to support a sceptical doctrine of this sort would be treated by the _learned_ with contempt, as proceeding from a whimsical love of paradox, or from an inane ambition to attract attention; and secondly, because the _unlearned_ could never be induced to take so much interest in a controversy of this kind, as might reward the pains of those who attempted to delude them.
But it is otherwise in relation to the Holy Scriptures; for while some few of the learned are, from sinister motives, willing to aid an attempt to bring the authority of these books into suspicion, there are always thousands of the community who may easily be engaged to listen to objectors, and who, from their want of information, and their incapacity to reason correctly, are easily made the dupes of any plausible sophistry.
Nor is it merely the uneducated classes that are exposed to the artifices of sophists; for persons whose acquirements in general literature are respectable, seem sometimes to be perplexed by objections of a kind which, if levelled at the remains of classic authors, they would deem undeserving of any serious regard.
This strange, and often fatal inconsistency, may sometimes arise from the influence of moral causes, which it does not fall within the design of this volume to notice; but it is often attributable to a want of attention to some common principles of evidence which, though they are so obvious that it may seem almost frivolous to insist upon them, are never respected by objectors, and are seldom remembered by the victims of sophistry. The most prominent of these principles may be classed under the five following heads.
I. Facts remote from our personal observation may be as certainly proved by evidence that is fallible _in its kind_, as by that which is not open to the possibility of error.
By _certain_ proof is here meant, not merely such as may be presented to the senses, or such as cannot be rendered obscure, even for a moment, by a perverse disputant;--but such as when once understood, _leaves no room for doubt in a sound mind_. And this degree of certainty is every day obtained, in the common occasions of life, by means of evidence that is fallible in its nature, and which may be questionable in all its parts, _separately_ considered. Let us take such an instance as this.--A person receives letters from several of his friends in a neighbouring town, informing him that an extensive fire has happened the night before, in that place, in consequence of which many of the inhabitants have been driven from their homes:--presently afterwards, a crowd of the sufferers, bringing with them the few remains of their furniture, passes his door:--his friends arrive among them, and ask shelter for their families;--the next day the papers contain a full description of the calamity. Does this person entertain any doubt as to the alleged fact? He cannot do so; and yet he admits that human testimony is fallacious:--he knows that men lie much oftener, than that towns are burned down:--perhaps there is not one of all those who have reported the fact whose veracity ought to be considered as absolutely unimpeachable;--some of them deserve no confidence:--and as for the public prints, they every day admit narratives that are altogether unfounded.
Scepticism of this sort, on such an occasion, if it be supposable, could only arise from a degree of mental perversity, not much differing from insanity. In other words, this amount of evidence is such as leaves absolutely no room for doubt in a sound mind; nevertheless, the material of which it is composed--if we may so speak--is in itself fallible, and as to all the parts of it, if _separately taken_, they might be rejected.
Or we may take an example or two of another kind.--It has been long affirmed by voyagers, and on their authority it has been assumed as certain by the compilers of geographical works, and by the framers of charts, that, midway in the Pacific Ocean, there are several groups of inhabited islands. And the people of England, generally, think these affirmations as certain, as that two and two are four. And yet who does not know that voyagers are too fond of bringing home tales, invented to amuse the weariness of a long voyage, and published to win the wonder of the vulgar, or to turn a penny? Now it may be imagined that some question of national importance--some argument for the remission of taxes--depended upon proving that such islands do not exist; and then let it be supposed that certain interested disputants are permitted to win the ear of the common people, and to keep it to themselves: in such a case the proof of this fact--certain as it is, might easily be made to appear very questionable, or to be altogether unworthy of belief--in a word, a trick of the Government, contrived to wring money from the people!
Or again:--It has been affirmed by historians that some two hundred years ago the Parliament of England quarrelled with their king--levied war against him--vanquished, and beheaded him, and set up a republican form of government, in the place of the monarchy. But in proof of facts so improbable as these we have no better evidence than the testimony of prejudiced political writers: the whole story rests on the credit of old books or manuscripts; nor is there one of the writers who have repeated the narrative that may not be convicted of some misrepresentation; and some of them are plainly chargeable with many direct and wilful untruths. Notwithstanding this array of objections, yet the principal events of the civil war are, in the estimation of all persons of sound mind, as certainly established as any mathematical proposition. The same may be said of innumerable facts--much more remote, or apparently obscure, than those above mentioned; and yet they are so proved, that they cannot be questioned without doing violence to common sense.
The difference between the proof obtained by mathematical demonstration, and that which results from an accumulation of oral or written testimony, is not--that the latter must always, and _from its nature_, be less certain than the former; but that the certainty of the former may be _exhibited_ more readily, and by a simpler and more compact process, than that of the other. If it were denied that the three angles of every triangle are equal to two right angles, an actual measurement of lines, or the placing of two pieces of card one over the other, would end the dispute in a moment: or even if the problem were of a more complicated kind, belonging to the higher branches of mathematical science, and therefore if it were such as could not be made plain to an uninstructed person, by any means, or to any one by a very brief process, yet whoever will choose to bestow time enough and is capable of giving attention enough to the demonstration, will not fail, at length, to be convinced of its truth; for all the parts of which it consists are certain, and their connexion, one with another, is also certain. But the certainty that is obtained from a mass of testimony, oral or written, does not result from the solidity of the separate parts, or the firmness of the cement which connects them; but from the irresistible pressure of the multifarious mass. The strength of mathematical demonstration is like that of a pier;--the strength of accumulated testimony is like that of the swelling ocean when its tides are mantling upon the shore.
II. Facts, remote from our personal knowledge, are not necessarily more or less certain in proportion to the length of time that has elapsed since they took place.
An illusion of the imagination, taking its rise, naturally, from the indistinctness of our individual recollections of infancy, and from the entire obliteration of many of the records of memory, leads us, involuntarily, to attach an idea of obscurity, and of uncertainty, to whatever is remote in time. And besides; if the knowledge of remote facts has been imperfectly, or suspiciously, transmitted, and if there be a want of direct evidence on any point of ancient history, then the distance of time does really decrease the chances of collecting any _new_ evidence; and therefore such facts must always be shrouded in uncertainty.
But whatever has been well and sufficiently proved in one age, remains not less certainly proved in the next, so long as all the evidences continue in the same state. Indeed--as we have before remarked, historical evidence often greatly increases in clearness and certainty by the lapse of time. If in the time of Leo X. it was certain that Augustus ruled the Roman world sixteen hundred years before that period, we have no need to deduct anything from our persuasion of the truth of the fact, on account of the four centuries which have since elapsed. On the contrary, the proof of it has become much greater, both in its amount, and in its clearness, now, than it was then.
The proof of the genuineness of books, even if it should not gather
## particles of evidence, yet remains, from age to age, unimpaired. Nor
is the proof of the genuineness of modern works more satisfactory, although it may be more abundant, than that of ancient books. We could not be persuaded that the Paradise Lost was written in the last century by some obscure scribbler; nor would it be a whit less absurd to suppose that the Æneid was composed in the tenth century, or the Iliad at any time subsequent to the invasion of Greece by Xerxes.
The degree of certainty that is attainable on any point of ancient history, or literature, is regulated--not by distance of time, but by the state of the world at the period in question; especially by the contraction, or the diffusion of general knowledge at that time. This certainty therefore rises and falls--it becomes bright or obscure, alternately, from age to age, and it does so quite irrespectively of distance of years. In sailing up the stream of time, mists and darkness rest upon the landscape at a comparatively early stage of our progress; but as we ascend, light breaks upon the scene in the full splendour of a noonday sun; scarcely an object rests in obscurity, and whatever is most prominent and important, may be discerned in its minutest parts.
III. The validity of evidence in proof of remote facts is not affected, either for the better or the worse, by the weight of the consequences that may happen to depend upon them.
No principle can be much more obviously true than this; and if the reader chooses to call it a truism, he is welcome to do so: and yet none is more often disregarded. With the same sort of inconsistency which impels us to measure the punishment of an offence--not by its turpitude, but by the amount of injury it may have occasioned, we are instinctively inclined to think the most slender evidence _good enough_ in proof of a point which is of no importance; while we distrust the best evidence as if it were feeble, on any occasion when the fact in question involves great and pressing interests. We are apt to think of evidence as if it were a cord or a wire, which, though it may sustain a certain weight, must needs snap with a greater. And yet the slightest reflection will dissipate a prejudice that is so groundless and absurd.
It is very true that the degree of care, of diligence, and of attention, with which we examine evidence, may well be proportioned to the importance of the consequences that are involved in the decision. A juryman ought indeed to give his utmost attention to testimony that may sentence a prisoner to a month’s confinement; but if he be open to the common feelings of humanity, he will exercise a tenfold caution when life or death is to be the issue of his verdict. This is very proper; but no one who is capable of reasoning justly would think that, if the proof of guilt in the former case has been thoroughly examined, and is quite conclusive, it can become a jot less convincing, if it should be found that some new interpretation of the law makes the offence capital.
The genuineness of the satires and epistles of Horace is allowed by all scholars to be unquestionable; and any one who has examined the evidence in this instance, must call him a mere sophist who should attempt to raise a controversy on the subject. Would the case be otherwise than it is, even though the proof of the genuineness of these writings should overthrow the British constitution; or should make it the duty of every man to resign his property to his servant?
The evidence of the genuineness and authenticity of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures has, for no other reason than a thought of the consequences that are involved in an admission of their truth, been treated with an unwarrantable disregard of logical equity--and even of the dictates of common sense. The poems of Anacreon, the tragedies of Sophocles, the plays of Terence, the epistles of Pliny, are adjudged to be safe from the imputation of spuriousness, or of material corruption; and yet evidence ten times greater as to its quantity, variety, and force, supports the genuineness of the poems of Isaiah, and the epistles of Paul.
This violation of argumentative equity, in relation to the Scriptures, has been favoured by the mere circumstance of their having to be so continually defended. It matters little how impudently false an imputation may be; the reply, though, in the most absolute sense, conclusive, is apt to beget almost as much suspicion as it dissipates. Herein consists the strength of infidel writings;--they call for a defence of that which is attacked, and this defence seems to imply that there is a question which may fairly be argued, and that it is in some degree doubtful. Let the genuineness of the most indubitable of the classics be boldly questioned in a popular style, and let it be defended in a form level to the mode of attack--and level also to the ignorance of the middle and lower orders, and the result would produce quite as many cases of doubt, as of conviction.
What course ought to be pursued, or which alternative should be adopted, if a case should arise wherein evidence, intrinsically good, seems to support a narrative that is palpably incredible, and contradictory to common sense, is a question that may well be left undecided until such a case actually presents itself. No such incongruity weighs against our acceptance of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures; for the miracles they report, wrought for purposes so wise and benign, accord with every notion we can antecedently form of the Divine character and government.
IV. A calculation of actual instances, taken from almost any class of facts, will prove that a mass of evidence which carries the convictions of sound minds, is incomparably more often true than false.
Evidence may be spoken of as _good_ if it be such that, after an ordinary amount of examination, it does not appear to be liable to suspicion. However much of falsification and of error there may be in the world, there is yet so great a predominance of truth, that any one who believes indiscriminately will be in the right a thousand times to one, oftener, than any one who doubts indiscriminately. Habitual scepticism will render a man the victim of almost perpetual error. Indeed, either to believe by habit, or to doubt by habit, must be regarded as the symptom of a feeble or diseased mind. And yet the former is vastly more congruous to the actual condition of mankind, and to the ordinary course of human affairs, and is more safe, and is more reasonable, than the latter.
No man, unless his mind is verging towards insanity, acts in the daily occasions of common life on the principles of scepticism; for with such a rule of action in his head, he must retreat from human society, and take up his abode in a cavern. Not only is the sceptic an anomalous being among his fellows, but his scepticism itself is an anomaly in his own ordinary conduct; it is an insanity on single points, which of all kinds is the least hopeful of cure.
Adherence to truth is an element of human nature, just as is the love of kindred: and although the operation of both principles is liable to interruption, such deviations from the impulses of nature must always be held to arise from the influence of some specific inducement. Wilful, difficult, and hazardous falsifications, prompted by no assignable motive of interest or ambition, if indeed such are ever attempted, need not be included in a calculation of probabilities. If, therefore, in listening to a professed narrative of facts, we have reason to feel secure against the ordinary motives of deliberate falsehood; and if, on the contrary, the veracity of the narrator is guaranteed by the circumstances in which he is placed; if, moreover, his testimony is confirmed by a measure of independent evidence; and if it is uncontradicted by testimony of equal value; and if the whole case has been again and again scrupulously examined by persons of every cast of mind--then, and in such a case, if indeed a remaining possibility of delusion exists, it is so incalculably small, that to take it up _in preference_ to the positive evidence, must be accounted an infatuation arising from folly or perversity.
Let then the rule above mentioned be applied to the existing remains of ancient literature. Among the works that were brought to light and printed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, there were not a few--though few in comparison with the whole--which were very soon discovered to be spurious productions--imitations of the style of ancient authors. Although at first sight they seemed to possess a claim to genuineness, they were soon found to be destitute of that external evidence which may be collected from the quotations of subsequent writers; or there was a manifest failure in the attempted imitation of style; or there were oversights, in phrases or allusions, such as served fully to expose the deception. All these cases stand excluded, therefore, from the intention of our proposition; for they do not possess evidence of authenticity that could be spoken of as _seemingly good_.
Besides works obviously spurious, there were a few of which the claim to genuineness was good enough to justify controversy, and which yet find a few advocates among scholars; although the majority of critics has returned a verdict against them. Now these doubtful works, inasmuch as their genuineness is not generally acknowledged, may also be excluded from our proposition; for the evidence in their favour can barely be called--seemingly good.
Now after exclusions of this kind have been made, no one acquainted with the evidence that supports the genuineness of the unquestioned portion of ancient literature, and who has given attention to the controversies which have been carried on relative to doubtful works, and who is aware of the assiduity, the acuteness, the learning, the eager pertinacity of research, that have been brought to bear upon such questions, will affirm that there are ancient works, generally supposed by scholars to be genuine, which are in fact spurious. Every one who is competent to form an opinion on the subject grants, that even if there be a chance that a few of the classic authors, the genuineness of which has never been doubted, are after all spurious, such a chance is incalculably small--it is so small, as to leave nothing but paradoxes and absurdities in the hands of those who, on such ground, should attempt to bring them under suspicion.
V. The strength of evidence is not proportioned to its simplicity, or to the ease with which it may be apprehended by all persons; on the contrary, the most conclusive kind of proof is often that which is the most intricate and complicated.
In the mathematical sciences there are many propositions, so simple and so readily demonstrated, that all to whom they are explained may be supposed to carry away an equally clear apprehension of their truth; but the higher departments of these sciences abound with theorems which, though not in any degree less certain than the simplest axioms, are shown to be true by means of a process which may require hours, or even days to work it out. Among those who actually attend to all the parts of such a process, there will be wide differences in the kind and degree of conviction that is obtained of the truth of such propositions. Some, though they may firmly believe the demonstration to be perfect, as well because they have examined--one by one--the links of which it consists, as because they know it is assented to by calculators more competent than themselves, are yet unable, either from the want of habit, or of capacity, to _comprehend_ the method of proof; or to perceive distinctly the connexion of the parts, and the real _oneness_ of the whole. They have walked in the dark over the ground--groping their way from step to step;--they are satisfied that they have arrived, by a right path, at a certain point, though they cannot survey the route.
But another calculator, long practised in the refined modes of abstract reasoning--expert in leaping with certainty over intervals which others must slowly pace, and capable, by the vigour and comprehension of his mind, of retaining his hold of a multitude of particulars, sees the certainty of such operose demonstrations with as much ease as another finds in comprehending an elementary proposition. Yet the conclusion which perhaps not fifty men in Europe can, with full intelligence, know to be true, is actually as true as the axiom which the schoolboy comprehends at a glance.
Now all evidence on questions of antiquity, whether the facts be historical or literary, thus far resembles an operose demonstration in mathematical science, that it is remote from the intellectual habits, and extraneous to the usual acquirements, even of well-educated persons: very far remote, therefore, must it be from the mental range of the uninstructed classes. The strength of our convictions, as to matters of fact, remote in time or place, must bear proportion to the extent and the exactness of our knowledge, and to the consequent fulness and vividness of our conceptions of that class of objects to which the question relates. By long and intimate familiarity with ancient authors, and by an extensive acquaintance with the relics of antiquity, of all kinds, the imagination of the scholar bears him back to distant ages, with a full and distinct consciousness of the reality of those scenes and persons. Nor is this ideal converse with remote objects like that which is produced by fictitious narratives; for such excursions of the fancy through unreal regions, are disconnected with the rest of our ideas and convictions: on the contrary, the ideal presence of an accomplished mind in the scenes of ancient history is firmly, and by innumerable ties, combined with the knowledge of present realities. The imagination does not flit, on the wing of a fantasy, from the real, to an unreal world; but it tracks its way, with a steady step, on solid ground, from times present, to times past; and the intelligent conviction of truth travels up to the farthest point of its progress.
To those who are thus conversant with history, all facts or events--literary or historical--if they be satisfactorily attested, are held in the mind with a firmness of persuasion which cannot, by any statements, or any reasonings, however conclusive or perspicuous, be imparted to other minds; because, neither its own powers of comprehension, nor its variety of knowledge, can be so imparted.
##