the division of
labour in this respect--The exceptional skill acquired by
specialists--Difference of work the corollary of difference
of natural aptitudes 115

The natural aptitudes required for external criticism--Fondness
for the work, which is distasteful to the creative
genius--The puzzle-solving instinct--Accuracy and its
opposite--"Froude's Disease"--Patience, order, perseverance 121

The mental defects produced by devotion to external
criticism--Its paralysing effect on the
over-scrupulous--Hypercriticism--Dilettantism 128

The "organisation of scientific labour" 135

The harshness of judgment attributed to scholars, not always
rightly--Much of it a proper jealousy for historic truth--Bad
work nowadays soon detected 136

SECTION II.--INTERNAL CRITICISM

CHAPTER VI

INTERPRETATIVE CRITICISM (HERMENEUTIC)

Internal criticism deals with the mental operations which
begin with the observation of a fact and end with the
writing of words in a document--It is divided into two
stages: the first concerned with what the author meant,
the second with the value of his statements 141

Necessity of separating the two operations--Danger of reading
opinions into a text 143

The analysis of documents--The method of slips--Completeness
necessary 145

Necessity of linguistic study--General knowledge of a language
not enough--Particular variety of a language as used at a
given time, in a given country, by a given author--The
rule of context 146

Different degrees of difficulty in interpretation 149

Oblique senses: allegory, metaphor, &c.--How to detect them--Former
tendency to find symbolism everywhere--Modern
tendency to find allusion everywhere 151

Results of interpretation--Subjective inquiries 153

CHAPTER VII

THE NEGATIVE INTERNAL CRITICISM OF THE GOOD FAITH
AND ACCURACY OF AUTHORS

Natural tendency to trust documents--Criticism originally due
to contradictions--The rule of methodical doubt--Defective
modes of criticism 155

Documents to be analysed,