ter than any other study, enabled us to
gain a profound insight into past ages, not external criticism.[105] An
historian who should be fortunate enough to find all the documents
bearing on his studies already edited correctly, classified, and
critically examined as to authorship, would be in just as good a
position to use them for writing history as if he had performed all the
preliminary operations himself. It is quite possible, whatever may be
said, to have the historical sense in full measure without having ever,
both literally and figuratively, wiped away the dust from original
documents--that is, without having discovered and restored them for
oneself. We need not interpret in the Jewish or etymological sense the
dictum of Renan: "I do not think it possible for any one to acquire a
clear notion of history, its limits, and the amount of confidence to be
placed in the different categories of historical investigation, unless
he is in the habit of _handling_ original documents."[106] This is to be
understood as simply referring to the habit of going direct to the
sources, and treating definite problems.[107] Without doubt a day will
come when all the documents relating to the history of classical
antiquity shall have been edited and treated critically. There will then
be no more room, in this department of study, for textual criticism or
the investigation of sources; but, for all that, the conditions for the
treatment of general ancient history, or special parts of it, will be
then eminently favourable. External criticism, as we cannot too often
repeat, is entirely preparatory; it is a means, not an end; the ideal
state of things would be that it should have been already sufficiently
practised that we might dispense with it for the future; it is only a
temporary necessity. Theoretically, not only is it unnecessary for those
who wish to make historical syntheses to do for themselves the
preparatory work on the materials which they use, but we have a right to
ask, as has been often asked, whether there is any advantage in their
doing it.[108] Would it not be preferable that workers in the field of
history should specialise? On the one class--the specialists--would
devolve the absorbing tasks of external or erudite criticism; the
others, relieved of the weight of these tasks, would have greater
liberty to devote themselves to the work of higher criticism, of
combination and construction. Such was the opinion of Mark Pattis