HISTORY AND TRUTH

Hokitika Guardian, 15 November 1927, Page 1

HISTORY AND TRUTH

Can t(lore )i<> such a tiling; ns a true history? AYe all Know AValpole’s view of the subject. He was lamenting that his life-long preoccupation with business luul deprived him, alter his downfall, of the taste for literature, which to many men in such circumstances was an eltective solace. Works of the imagination made no appeal to him. " Why not read history?” suggested a friend. •• History!” exclaimed the cynical old statesman. “ that cannot he true.” He who had made it, knew that the utmost saturation in documents, even it combined with real talent and perspicacity, can only reach a certain approximation to the truth. In fact, we have only to go into the nearest police court and listen to the evidence concerning the pettiest case to appreciate how difficult, deliberate deception apart, it is to arrive at a completely just conclusion concerning any transaction. When the transaction is on the enormous scale of the Great War, the dilficulty is such as to defeat the most powerful understanding. No witness can divest himscll of prejudice. No one mind can grasp the multitude of facts, and place them in precisely their proper relation to each other. Even given complete intellectual integrity—and that is a large assumption—the French historian must necessarily see things diltcrently from the English, Belgian, Russian or American. to sa,v nothing of the German, Austrian, or Turkish chronicler. —“The Evening Standard ” (l.ondon).