LX THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



tell us; but it is not only when we visit such a performance that our 

 senses are captured. The thing happens more or less every day. A 

 transaction would have to be of a decidedly simple character, the 

 situation of the observer a very favourable one, and his faculties very 

 wide awake in order to preclude the possibility of error in reporting it. 

 History must everywhere accept and make the best it can of human 

 limitations. 



History has been vitiated in the past by much of sheer misrepre- 

 sentation; but in the use of so-called "authorities" many other points 

 have to be guarded. The whole science of historical criticism comes 

 in here. By what motives were the writers swayed? What pains, if 

 any, did they take to be well informed ? What were their sources of in- 

 formation? What degree of intelligence in the treatment of facts do 

 they display? To what prejudices were they manifestly or probably 

 subject? How far were they free to speak the truth? Truth has al- 

 ways been more praised than popular; and it is a very happy state of 

 things where it can be told without reserve. Bishop Burnet got such a 

 fright over the death on the scaffold of his friend Lord William Russell 

 that he sought the favour of Charles II by offering to represent his ac- 

 tions in the most favorable light in the memoirs he was then writing. 

 Yet, on the whole, the worthy and robust bishop has told a pretty fair 

 story; though his anti-Catholic prejudices betrayed him sadly in the 

 matter of the birth of a son to James II. As to biography the remark 

 was lately made by one of the most prominent writers of the present 

 day, Mr. H. G. Wells, that, speaking generally, it is false with "the worst 

 of all falsehoods, the falsehood of omission," the reason, we must suppose, 

 being that biographies are frequently written by those who have a direct 

 interest in guarding the reputation of the subject, or by others upon 

 whom they have imposed the obligation to do so. As materials for 

 history, therefore, biographies, when proceeding from the environment 

 of the subject are open to no small amount of legitimate suspicion. 

 Tiiey may contain much truth; but how about the truth they do not 

 contain? What says the learned Cujacius? "Quae non est plena 

 Veritas, est plane falsitas, non semi- Veritas." In plain English: "Incom- 

 plete truth is not half truth but whole falsehood." 



The claim is put forward in some quarters that literary, as well 

 as personal, reputations must be protected; and that, if a man has ac- 

 quired glory for his nation by his works, that glory should be looked upon 

 us as a national asset, not to be diminished by any belittling criticism. 

 Thus, in the early part of the last century, Chateaubriand made a bril- 

 liant reputation for himself, and reflected glory on his nation, by such 

 works as "Le Génie du Christianisme," "Les Martyrs," and "Les 

 Révolutions." But, from the historical point of view, these works, 



