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have perished can seldom be revivified by the imagination. 
Two events may have been united together in twenty different 
ways. It is necessary to speak on this point very plainly, 
for the most serious consequences are constantly resulting 
from a use of it, which can be made to rest on no rational 
principle. 
On the other hand, let us not *;lose our eyes to the danger of 
fictions getting into history. This is so great, and numbers of 
writers have been so credulous, that a thorough sifting of the 
evidence on which historical facts rest is absolutely required. 
Even in ordinary life, no small number of events get currently 
reported as facts which a careful inquiry proves to have been 
fictions. It is impossible to deny that there is a considerable 
principle of mendacity in man. Both national, party, and sec- 
tarian feelings have led to the gravest suppressiones veri and 
suggestiones falsi. If a history of -the late German and French 
war was composed from exclusively French sources of informa- 
tion, it would contain a large mythic element. In proportion 
as history rests on one-sided evidences of the character I have 
referred to, it is liable to suspicion. 
It is impossible to deny that the science of historical criticism 
has done us good service. It has banished multitudes of sup- 
posed facts into the regions of fictions ; and the world is always 
benefited by getting rid of a falsehood. An immense mass of 
fiction had succeeded in introducing itself into history. Those 
of us who can remember when Rollin was the great authority 
for ancient history are in a position to estimate the greatness of 
the change which historical criticism has effected. In those days 
history consisted of fact and fiction in nearly equal proportions. 
Little effort was made to test the evidence on which it rested. 
Authors who lived five hundred years after events were referred 
to as equal authorities to those who were contemporaneous. 
The utmost which criticism ventured to do was, either to elimi- 
nate the supernatural or to rationalize it down to the limits of 
the possible. 
There is still a great tendency to think that an event is 
proved to be true if we can adduce the authority of an ancient 
writer for it. The whole value of such a person’s testimony 
depends on the interval of time which separates him from the 
fact which he professes to record. If he lived beyond the period 
of reasonable historical tradition, he is no better an authority 
for an event than a writer of modern date, unless it can be 
shown that he had before him historical materials which have 
since perished. One constantly hears authorities quoted to 
prove the truth of facts who lived hundreds of years after them. 
I have heard, for example, Josephus adduced as an authority 
