ry processes of the
human mind; for, since these are universal, they must appear in each
particular case. We know what are the cases in which men in general are
inclined to alter or distort facts. What we have to do in the case of
each statement is to examine whether it was made under such
circumstances as to lead us to suspect, from our knowledge of the habits
of normal humanity, that the operations implied in the making of it were
incorrectly performed. The practical procedure will be to draw up a set
of questions relating to the habitual causes of inaccuracy.

The whole of criticism thus reduces to the drawing up and answering of
two sets of questions: one for the purpose of bringing before our minds
those general conditions affecting the composition of the document, from
which we may deduce general motives for distrust or confidence; the
other for the purpose of realising the special conditions of each
statement, from which special motives may be drawn for distrust or
confidence. These two sets of questions ought to be drawn up beforehand
in such a form as may enable us to examine methodically both the
document in general and each statement in particular; and as they are
the same for all documents, it is useful to formulate them once for all.

IV. The critical process comprises two series of questions, which
correspond to the two series of operations by which the document was
produced. All that interpretative criticism tells us is what the author
meant; it remains to determine (1) what he really believed, for he may
not have been sincere; (2) what he really knew, for he may have been
mistaken. We may therefore distinguish a _critical examination of the
author's good faith_, by which we seek to determine whether the author
of the document lied or not, and a _critical examination_ of his
_accuracy_, by which we seek to determine whether he was or was not
mistaken.

In practice we rarely need to know what an author believed, unless we
are making a special study of his character. We have no direct interest
in the author; he is merely the medium through which we reach the
external facts he reports. The aim of criticism is to determine whether
the author has reported the facts correctly. If he has given inexact
information, it is indifferent whether he did so intentionally or not;
to draw a distinction would complicate matters unnecessarily. There is
thus little occasion to make a separate examination of an author's g