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I have assumed tliat a science of historical criticism ought to 

 exist. It may be defined as the science T\'hich discriminates 

 between fact and fiction in the history of the past. If there be 

 no such science, we can have no certain grounds for knowing what 

 is true or false in the events of history, and past experience would 

 be rendered worthless as a guide to the future. No less dan- 

 gerous is the introduction into it of false principles, by which 

 whole regions of fact are consigned to the domains of fiction. 

 The most dangerous attacks on Christianity have originated in 

 false principles of historical criticism. 



I. One of the most important questions connected with this 

 subject is the limit which ought to be assigned to what Professor 

 Tyndall has designated the principle of philosophical imagina- 

 tion ; or, to speak in the language of this science, the principle 

 of historical conjecture. I put the case thus : if facts are 

 deficient, or their evidence or interpretation uncertain^ to what 

 extent are we at liberty to supply the deficiency by the use of a 

 supposed power of historical divination. You are aware that 

 this principle has of late years claimed the right of reigning 

 over a wide range of subjects, and pronouncing on them with 

 dogmatical authority. Not only has it claimed the right of 

 interpreting the mythical and semi-mythical periods of history 

 with a boundless license of imagination, but within the historical 

 period, where facts are separated from each other by an un- 

 known void, many writers of history claim to possess the power 

 of erecting a solid bridge of fact over the interval which separates 

 the one from the other. I fully admit that it is both the right and 

 the duty of those who engage in these inquiries to employ all the 

 resources of reason in endeavouring to separate the true from 

 the false in the history of the past ; but by this process there is 

 no little danger that a number of mere conceptions which are 

 merely subjective should become metamorphosed into objective 

 facts. 



I am far from wishing to deny the use of philosophical 

 imagination or historical conjecture, as long as they are kept 

 within the limits which a sound philosophy will assign them. 

 AVithout imagination all discovery is impossible ; but^ like all 

 other good gifts, it requires to be carefully watched, lest it 

 should intrude itself beyond its legitimate province. Its duty is 

 to act as the pioneer of reasoning, not to supply its place. Its 

 unguarded use is far more dangerous in history than in science. 

 Scientific analysis can subject its conjectures to a rigid verifica- 

 tion ; and they have no right to plant themselves as facts on 

 the solid earth until they have passed through this process. 

 But as history treats only of the past, conjecture is incapable 

 of verification, except by analogy ; its conclusions, therefore. 



