2.2 "the application of thought to textual criticism" by a.e.  (Page 3/10)

But the application of thought to textual criticism is an action which ought to be within the power of anyone who canapply thought to anything. It is not, like the talent for textual criticism, a gift of nature, but it is a habit; and, like otherhabits, it can be formed. And, when formed, although it cannot fill the place of an absent talent, it can modify and minimise theill effects of the talent's absence. Because a man is not a born critic, he need not therefore act like a born fool; but when heengages in textual criticism he often does. There are reasons for everything, and there are reasons for this; and I will now setforth the chief of them. The fact that thought is not sufficiently applied to the subject I shall showhereafter by examples; but at present I consider the causes which bring that result about.

First, then, not only is a natural aptitude for the study rare, but so also is a genuine interest in it. Most people,and many scholars among them, find it rather dry and rather dull. Now if a subject bores us, we are apt to avoid the troubleof thinking about it; but if we do that, we had better go further and avoid also the trouble of writing about it. And that is whatEnglish scholars often did in the middle of the nineteenth century, when nobody in England wanted to hear about textualcriticism. This was not an ideal condition of affairs, but it had its compensation. The less one says about a subject which one doesnot understand, the less one will say about it which is foolish; and on this subject editors were allowed by public opinion to besilent if they chose. But public opinion is now aware that textual criticism, however repulsive, is nevertheless indispensable, andeditors find that some presence of dealing with the subject is obligatory; and in these circumstances they apply, not thought,but words, to textual criticism. They get rules by rote without grasping the realities of which those [71]rules are merely emblems, and recite them on inappropriate occasions instead ofseriously thinking out each problem it arises.

Secondly, it is only a minority of those who engage in this study who are sincerely bent upon the discovery oftruth. We all know that the discovery of truth is seldom the sole object of political writers; and the world believes, justly orunjustly, that it is not always the sole object of theologians: but the amount of sub-conscious dishonesty which pervades thetextual criticism of the Greek and Latin classics is little suspected except by those who have had occasion to analyseit. People come upon this field bringing with them prepossessions and preferences; they are not willing to look all facts in theface, nor to draw the most probable conclusion unless it is also the most agreeable conclusion. Most men are rather stupid, andmost of those who are not stupid are, consequently, rather vain; and it hardly possible to step aside from the pursuit of truthwithout falling a victim either to your stupidity or else to your vanity. Stupidity will then attach you to received opinions, andyou will stick in the mud; or vanity will set you hunting for novelty, and you will find mare's-nests. Added to these snares andhindrances there are the various forms of partisanship: sectarianism, which handcuffs you to your own school and teachersand associates, and patriotism, which handcuffs you to your own country. Patriotism has a great name as a virtue, and in civicmatters, at the present stage of the world's history, it possibly still does more good than harm; but in the sphere of intellect itis an unmitigated nuisance. I do not know which cuts the worse figure: a German scholar encouraging his countrymen to believethat"wir Deutsche"have nothing to learn from foreigners, or an Englishman demonstrating the unity of Homer by sneers at"Teutonic professors,"who are supposed by his audience to have goggle eyes behind large spectacles, and ragged moustaches saturated in lagerbeer, and consequently to be incapable of forming literary judgments.