Thus, even if M. Aulard has not detected more errors in the hook than it contains, still the result is false criticism. But now it appears that M. Aulard himself is not always accurate; and so we have another book, by M. Cochin, in which is demonstrated conclusively that Aulard made mistakes in the process of proving that Taine made mistakes. It remains only for some one to prove definitively that Cochin made mistakes in proving that Aulard made mistakes in proving that Taine made mistakes. It is scarcely necessary to remind you that such a comedy of errors has been staged already, done into downright English by Messrs. Froude, Freeman, Round, and I don't know how many more besides. This, I maintain, is not historical criticism; it is only excess of historical method, tempered with professional amenity.
It is excess of method; and this, I take it, is the secret of M. Aulard's failure. M. Aulard, who has written if not brilliantly at least justly about tho Revolution, can not write justly about Taine because he has surrendered to the cult of method. Nothing but blind faith in method could have led him, from the fact that Taine cited a document incorrectly, to conclude that he never saw the document; or, from the fact that of 500 documents in a certain place in the archives Taine cited only 5, to conclude that he never read but 5. Common sense should have saved him this. But M. Aulard, who has no lack of common sense, does not bring it to the criticism of Taine; he brings method. It is not Taine's conclusions that offend M. Aulard, but bis method of reaching them. What M. Aulard can't endure about Taine is not the fact that he did not read the documents, but rather the fact that, professing to read them, he did not sit still in his chair and read them leisurely, methodically, without malice, and almost without interest—that is to say, as M. Aulard has read them. I suspect that Taine found the documents so interesting that he often forgot to take notes, and so suffered the mischance of having more ideas in his head than could be found in his card cases. But alas! It is even possible that Taine did not use cards.
And this devotion to method, which is the secret of M. Aulard's failure, may perhaps explain in part why our historical reviews contain excellent bibliographical information but very little genuine criticism. A natural reaction from the futile rhetoric which characterized much of the writing of the romantic historians has carried us somewhat too far in the opposite direction. We wish not to be classed with theorists and literary people. We wish to be thought Substantial and scientific. We are bound to have our work very solid even if it prove very heavy. And so in our reviewing we look a little too much to the footnotes and the bibliography, and judge a book to be good if its technique is up to the mark. The result is
