I.That There is in History Sufficient Authenticity to Render it Useful,notwithstanding All Objections to the Contrary.II.Of the Method and Due Restrictions to be Observed in the Study of it.
Whether the letter I now begin to write will be long or short,I know not:but I find my memory is refreshed,my imagination warmed,and matter flows in so fast upon me,that I have not time to press it close.Since therefore you have provoked me to write,you must be content to take what follows.
I have observed already that we are apt naturally to apply to ourselves what has happened to other men,and that examples take their force from hence;as well those which history,as those which experience,offers to our reflection.
What we do not believe to have happened,therefore,we shall not thus apply:
and for want of the same application,such examples will not have the same effect.Ancient history,such ancient history as I have described,is quite unfit therefore in this respect to answer the ends that every reasonable man should propose to himself in this study;because such ancient history will never gain sufficient credit with any reasonable man.A tale well told,or a comedy or a tragedy well wrought up,may have a momentary effect upon the mind,by heating the imagination,surprising the judgment,and affecting strongly the passions.The Athenians are said to have been transported into a kind of martial phrensy by the representation of a tragedy of Aeschylus,and to have marched under this influence from the theatre to the plains of Marathon.These momentary impressions might be arranged,for aught I know,in such manner as to contribute a little,by frequent repetitions of them,towards maintaining a kind of habitual contempt of folly,detestation of vice,and admiration of virtue in well-policed commonwealths.But then these impressions cannot be made,nor this little effect be wrought,unless the fables bear an appearance of truth.When they bear this appearance,reason connives at the innocent fraud of imagination;reason dispenses,in favor of probability,with those strict rules of criticism that she has established to try the truth of fact:but,after all,she receives these fables as fables;and as such only she permits imagination to make the most of them.If they pretended to be history,they would be soon subjected to another and more severe examination.What may have happened,is the matter of an ingenious fable:what has happened,is that of an authentic history:the impressions which one or the other makes are in proportion.When imagination grows lawless and wild,rambles out of the precincts of nature,and tells of heroes and giants,fairies and enchanters,of events and of phenomena repugnant to universal experience,to our clearest and most distinct ideas,and to all the known laws of nature,reason does not connive a moment;but,far f rom receiving such narrations as historical,she rejects them as unworthy to be placed even among the fabulous.Such narrations therefore cannot make the slightest momentary impressions on a mind fraught with knowledge,and void of superstition.
Imposed by authority,and assisted by artifice,the delusion hardly prevails over common sense;blind ignorance almost sees,and rash superstition hesitates:
nothing less than enthusiasm and phrensy can give credit to such histories,or apply such examples.Don Quixote believed;but even Sancho doubted.
What I have said will not be much controverted by any man who has read Amadis of Gaul,or has examined our ancient traditions without prepossession.
The truth is,the principal difference between them seems to be this.In Amadis of Gaul,we have a thread of absurdities that are invented without any regard to probability,and that lay no claim to belief:ancient traditions are a heap of fables,under which some particular truths,inscrutable,and therefore useless to mankind,may lie concealed;which have a just pretence to nothing more,and yet impose themselves upon us,and become,under the venerable name of ancient history,the foundations of modern fables,the materials with which so many systems of fancy have been erected.
But now,as men are apt to carry their judgments into extremes,there are some that will be ready to insist that all history is fabulous,and that the very best is nothing better than a probable tale,artfully contrived,and plausibly told,wherein truth and falsehood are indistinguishably blended together.All the instances,and all the common-place arguments,that Bayle and others have employed to establish this sort of Pyrrhonism,will be quoted:
and from thence it will be concluded,that if the pretended histories of the first ages,and of the originals of nations,be too improbable and too ill vouched to procure any degree of belief,those histories that have been written later,that carry a greater air of probability,and that boast even cotemporary authority,are at least insufficient to gain that degree of firm belief,which is necessary to render the study of them useful to mankind.
But here that happens which often happens:the premises are true,and the conclusion is false;because a general axiom is established precariously on a certain number of partial observations.This matter is of consequence;for it tends to ascertain the degrees of assent that we may have to history.
I agree,then,that history has been purposely and systematically falsified in all ages,and that partiality and prejudice have occasioned both voluntary and involuntary errors,even in the best.Let me say without offence,my lord,since I may say it with truth and am able to prove it,that ecclesiastical authority has led the way to this corruption in all ages,and all religions.
