oduction of documents: their frequency
under the most favourable conditions--Mistakes of
copyists--"Sound" and "corrupt" texts 71

Necessity of emendation--The method subject to fixed rules 73

Methods of textual criticism: (_a_) original preserved; (_b_) a
single copy preserved, conjectural emendation; (_c_) several
copies preserved, comparison of errors, families of manuscripts 75

Different degrees of difficulty of textual criticism: its results
negative--The "emendation game"--What still remains
to be done 83

CHAPTER III

CRITICAL INVESTIGATION OF AUTHORSHIP
PAGE
Natural tendency to accept indications of authorship--Examples
of false attributions--Necessity of verification--Application
of internal criticism 87

Interpolations and continuations--Evidence of style 92

Plagiarism and borrowings by authors from each other--The
filiation of statements--The investigation of sources 93

Importance of investigations of authorship--The extreme of
distrust to be avoided--Criticism only a means to an end 98

CHAPTER IV

CRITICAL CLASSIFICATION OF SOURCES

Importance of classification--The first impulse wrong--The
note-book system not the best--Nor the ledger-system--Nor
the "system" of trusting the memory 101

The system of slips the best--Its drawbacks--Means of
obviating them--The advantage of good "private librarianship" 103

Methods of work vary according to the object aimed at--The
compiling of _Regesta_ or of a _Corpus_--Classification by
time, place, species, and form 105

Chronological arrangement to be used when possible--Geographical
arrangement best for inscriptions--When these
fail, alphabetical order of "incipit"--Logical order useful
for some special purposes--Not for a _Corpus_ or for _Regesta_ 107

CHAPTER V

CRITICAL SCHOLARSHIP AND SCHOLARS

Different opinions on the importance and dignity of external
criticism--It is justified by its necessity--But is only
preliminary to the higher part of historical work 112

Distinction between "historians" and "critical scholars" [Fr.
"_erudite_"]--Expediency, within limits, of