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Essays and Lectures-Part9_OSCAR WILDE (1854-1900)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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Now, most of these questions rest on mere probability, which is

always such a subjective canon that an appeal to it is rarely



conclusive. I would note, however, as regards the inscriptions

which, if genuine, would of course have settled the matter, that



Polybius looks on them as a mere invention on the part of Timaeus,

who, he remarks, gives no details about them, though, as a rule, he



is over-anxious to give chapter and verse for everything. A

somewhat more interesting point is that where he attacks Timaeus



for the introduction of fictitious speeches into his narrative; for

on this point Polybius seems to be far in advance of the opinions



held by literary men on the subject not merely in his own day, but

for centuries after.



Herodotus had introduced speeches avowedly dramatic and fictitious.

Thucydides states clearly that, where he was unable to find out



what people really said, he put down what they ought to have said.

Sallust alludes, it is true, to the fact of the speech he puts into



the mouth of the tribune Memmius being essentially genuine, but the

speeches given in the senate on the occasion of the Catilinarian



conspiracy are very different from the same orations as they appear

in Cicero. Livy makes his ancient Romans wrangle and chop logic



with all the subtlety of a Hortensius or a Scaevola. And even in

later days, when shorthand reporters attended the debates of the



senate and a DAILY NEWS was published in Rome, we find that one of

the most celebrated speeches in Tacitus (that in which the Emperor



Claudius gives the Gauls their freedom) is shown, by an inscription

discovered recently at Lugdunum, to be entirely fabulous.



Upon the other hand, it must be borne in mind that these speeches

were not intended to deceive; they were regarded merely as a



certain dramatic element which it was allowable to introduce into

history for the purpose of giving more life and reality to the



narration, and were to be criticised, not as we should, by arguing

how in an age before shorthand was known such a report was possible



or how, in the failure of written documents, tradition could bring

down such an accurateverbalaccount, but by the higher test of



their psychologicalprobability as regards the persons in whose

mouths they are placed. An ancient historian in answer to modern



criticism would say, probably, that these fictitious speeches were

in reality more truthful than the actual ones, just as Aristotle



claimed for poetry a higher degree of truth in comparison to

history. The whole point is interesting as showing how far in



advance of his age Polybius may be said to have been.

The last scientifichistorian, it is possible to gather from his



writings what he considered were the characteristic" target="_blank" title="a.特有的 n.特性">characteristics of the ideal

writer of history; and no small light will be thrown on the



progress of historicalcriticism if we strive to collect and

analyse what in Polybius are more or less scattered expressions.



The ideal historian must be contemporary with the events he

describes, or removed from them by one generation only. Where it



is possible, he is to be an eye-witness of what he writes of; where

that is out of his power he is to test all traditions and stories



carefully and not to be ready to accept what is plausible in place

of what is true. He is to be no bookworm living aloof from the



experiences of the world in the artificialisolation of a

university town, but a politician, a soldier, and a traveller, a



man not merely of thought but of action, one who can do great

things as well as write of them, who in the sphere of history could



be what Byron and AEschylus were in the sphere of poetry, at once

LE CHANTRE ET LE HEROS.



He is to keep before his eyes the fact that chance is merely a

synonym for our ignorance; that the reign of law pervades the



domain of history as much as it does that of political science. He

is to accustom himself to look on all occasions for rational and



natural causes. And while he is to recognise the practical utility

of the supernatural, in an educational point of view, he is not






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