Up to this point all schools of textual criticism are theoretically at least in accord. But here begins a divergence which has done more than anything else to discredit the study with the outside world. It emerges because in all judgments on textual matters it is presupposed that they will be acted upon, that a reading accepted will remain in the text, a rejected one obelized, enclosed between brackets or removed, and in this last case something else substituted in its place. Now the "conservative" critic's chief concern is for the safety of the traditional and by preference the transmitted text. He urges very rightly that if alteration is carried beyond a certain point it cuts away its own foundation, and so all certainty is destroyed. His objective is the minimum of change. And as the need of making a text compels some sort of decision in every case, the "doubtful" readings of the tradition, some of which on the evidence would be doubtfully accepted and others doubtfully rejected, will all appear with the accepteds in the text. As to alterations (emendations) that are less than cer tain, his attitude is clearly if somewhat crudely expressed in the dictum that it is better to leave in the text "what, if not the original reading, is at least the remains of it." The corresponding thesis of the opposite school would be that it is better to present to the reader something which the author might have written than something which he could not: or, in other words, that "stopgaps" should be preferred to debris.
An editor of a corrupt and disputed text may reasonably adopt either of two methods of procedure. He may present the text in the purest form which the external evidence warrants, and place all plausible suggestions for its improvement in notes or appen dices. The text will be faithful but unreadable, and his work will be that of an honest man but of a textual antiquarian, not a textual critic, since he declines the duty of "the restoration of the text, as far as possible, to its original form." By the other method the editor will provide all necessary information about the evidence for the text in the notes of his critical apparatus; but in the text itself he will give whatever in each case is supported by the balance of the probabilities. Each and every case he will decide on its own merits and without reference to decisions upon the other cases not now before him. Special consideration will be paid to "doubtful" readings, which will be distinguished in his work as "doubtfully accepted" or "doubtfully rejected." Legiti mate doubt arises when the evidence pro et contra of documental and intrinsic probability is equal, or nearly equal, or when docu mental probability points strongly to one side and intrinsic prob ability to another. Illegitimate doubt is the uncertainty of the doubter as to whether he has examined the whole of the evidence.
Such doubt is much more frequently felt than acknowledged, and its effect upon critical work is highly injurious. On the one hand, it is apt to take refuge in an uncritical acceptance of the tradi tional readings, and on the other hand to produce a crop of hesi tant and mutually destructive conjectures which a reader natu rally resents as a needless waste of his time.
The so-called "conservative text" is neither an antiquarian's text nor a critic's text, but a compromise between the two. When it is conscientiously obtained, it is arrived at by handicapping, more or less heavily, intrinsic probability as compared with docu mental probability, or by raising the minimum of probability which shall qualify a reading for admission into the text until it is in agreement with the notions of the editor. Both of these pro
cedures are arbitrary in their principle, and liable to be erratic in their application. The text will suffer whichever course is adopted, and it will suffer the more the more conservative is the editor, as may easily be shown. Thus, if we suppose that of two editors of equal competence "A" requires a probability of f our fif the to admit a reading into his text and "B" a probability of three-fifths only, then in all the cases in which the probability lies between these two fractions "B" will be right seven times to "A's" three, while outside these limits there will be no difference between them.
Many persons appear to suppose that decisions upon doubtful points can be avoided by the expedient of leaving the traditional reading in possession of the text. The rule is a simple one and easy to apply. But owing to the constitution of the human mind it has consequences which possibly they have not contemplated. The great works of classical literature are not studied as patho logical specimens, and they will be. studied the less the more they contain to repel and disquiet the reader. If a corruption is left in a text when something might be substituted which would at least, as a "stopgap," give the sort of sense required, then one of two things must happen. Either the sense of the passage is blotted out for the reader and the conservation of the corruption is tantamount to the expunging of the rest of the sentence, or else he will obtain the required sense by distorting the meaning of the other constituents of the context until they furnish it. So far so good: the requisite sense has been obtained, but the price has now to be paid. And the price is that the reader's perception of the signification of the word or words so wrested is dimmed and impaired, and his power of discriminating and understanding them when he meets them again is shot with doubt and error. It is a weakness of conservative critics to extol interpretation (or exegesis) at the expense of emendation. Some have even ventured to say that the successful defence of a passage in a text is a greater service than its successful correction. This is not true. The service to the text is the same, what was previously dark being now made clear. But the emendation deserves the higher praise as being in most instances the more difficult achieve ment. The fault of the opposite school, on the other hand, is to disparage interpretation and to regard correction as the proper field of a scholar and gentleman. This bias is reflected in the maxim that "correction should precede interpretation," which is no more than -a half-truth. For emendation must inevitably fail unless it express the meaning which the proper interpretation of the passage has shown to be required. Further, a corrector may prcpose the right word with the wrong meaning. Yet the custom is to give the credit of the emendation to him, and not to a suc cessor who has seen what the right sense was and that this was the only word to express it ; whereas the first scholar blundered once if not twice, first assigning the wrong sense to the passage and then selecting what (in most cases) would be the wrong word to express it. The proper course would be not to mention the first conjecturer or to mention him only for his error.