rallel difficulty occurs in the interpretation of illustrative
monuments; the representations are not always to be taken literally. In
the Behistun monument Darius tramples the vanquished chiefs under foot:
this is a metaphor. Mediaeval miniatures show us persons lying in bed
with crowns on their heads: this is to symbolise their royal rank; the
painter did not mean that they wore their crowns to sleep in.

[141] A. Boeckh, in the _Encyclopaedie und Methodologie der
philologischen Wissenschaften_, second edition (1886), has given a
theory of _hermeneutic_ to which Bernheim has been content to refer.

[142] The method of extracting information on external facts from a
writer's conceptions forms part of the theory of constructive reasoning.
_See_ book iii.

[143] For example, Pere de Smedt, Tardif, Droysen, and even Bernheim.

[144] Descartes, who came at a time when history still consisted in the
reproduction of pre-existing narratives, did not see how to apply
methodical doubt to the subject; he therefore refused to allow it a
place among the sciences.

[145] Fustel de Coulanges himself did not rise above this kind of
timidity. With reference to a speech attributed to Clovis by Gregory of
Tours, he says: "Doubtless we are unable to affirm that these words were
ever pronounced. But, all the same, we ought not to affirm, in
contradiction to Gregory of Tours, that they were not.... The wisest
course is to accept Gregory's text" (_Monarchie franque_, p. 66). The
wisest, or rather the only scientific course, is to admit that we know
nothing about the words of Clovis, for Gregory himself had no knowledge
of them.

[146] Quite recently, E. Meyer, one of the most critically expert
historians of antiquity, has in his work, _Die Entstehung des
Judenthums_ (Halle, 1896, 8vo), revived this strange juridical argument
in favour of the narrative of Nehemiah. M. Bouche-Leclercq, in a
remarkable study on "The Reign of Seleucus II. (Callinicus) and
Historical Criticism" (_Revue des Universites du Midi_, April-June
1897), seems, by way of reaction against the hypercriticism of Niebuhr
and Droysen, to incline towards an analogous theory: "Historical
criticism, if it is not to degenerate into agnosticism--which would be
suicidal--or into individual caprice, must place a certain amount of
trust in testimony which it cannot verify, as long as it is not flatly
contradicted by other testimony of equal value." M. Bouche-Leclercq is
right