The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-01-22
PROF. WHITELEY'S LECTURE.
''The Principles of Historic Criti-
cism and Interpretation"

There is probably no field Of human
thought that has come in for a larger
share of modern criticism than his
tory. 1t is one Of the earliest studies
that has engaged the attention of man
kind and can boast of a long line Of
scholarly men from Herodotus to Ban
croft, from Tacitus to Macaulay. Ge-
ography and chronology are the eyes
OF history, and what geography is to
space, history is TO time. 1t may be
stated as approximately true that the
historic period covers about 1000 years
starting with Hebrew time and allow
ing a reasonable calculation for the
time and work Of the Aryans.
a well known division of the most
generally recognized fields of historic
research, is that Of the Hebrew, Greek
and Roman-with respect to these we
are on solid historic ground. The scien-
tiic spirit Of exactness of research
which so distinctively characterizes the
nineteenth century, has greatly modi-
fed and changed the study of history.
Modern investigation calls4loudly for
exactness of data-there must be so
lidtty of fact-there must be the real
ism of nature-all things history in
eludes-must be subjected to the sever
est analysis. The Winnowing fan has
blown and blown and continues to
blow, separating the chah from the
wheat, and so scatheless has the crit
icism been that nothing is supposed
TO remain that cannot show the best
of reasons for its CONFERENCE.-The re-
alitv Of fact.
Religion, art, literature, social and
political NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. have been
too time-honored, nor too sacred to es-
cape the pruning knife. History has
had its full share Of this keen treat
ment. So much, indeed, that there has
resulted degree Of skepticism in
some branches that has seriously dis
turbed the relations of the old and the
new of the worlds record Of its mind
life. Beginning with the history of the
globe itself as mans habitation, the
scientists have pushed back the theo-
logians further and further from a.
period of 5000 to the probable distance
Of 200 900, 900 of years. The archaeolo-
gists have necessitated the antedating
Of many of the great cities and civili-
cations Of the past. Many of the his
tortc personages known TO antiquity,
many of the men of the past who have
dignifed and redeemed humanity by
the songs they sang and the deeds they
wrought-but now their names are
whispered with Interrogation. Were the
matchless songs of the Had sung by
a living Homer? Were the moral sub
Unity Of the Penteteuch written by
Moses? Or the dramatic grandeur Of
Shakespeare plays written by Shakes
Deare?
Whatever of common extremeness
there is in this so-called "higher criti-
cism" will rectify itself. 1t is unques-
tionably right that we should reverse
the judgments Of our forefathers when
those judgments are found to have
no foundations in facts, and after all
this kind of reversal has not been con-
fined to history. Many positions and
interpretations of science herself have
had to be relinquished.
1t may be briefly stated that modern
criticism in all matters of historic re
search aims to get at the certainty oj
facts-at a rational Interpretation OF
events-at a fair measurement of the
motive forces Of the worlds great ac-
tors-it takes into account the diversi-
ties of type and gives careful consid-
GRAFTON to the formative agencies OF
environment.