Note 104 — Chapter V

This argument is easy to develop, and often has been, recently by M. J. Bédier, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, February 15, 1894, pp. 932 sqq. There are some who willingly admit that the labours of erudition are useful, but ask impatiently whether "the editing of a text" or "the deciphering of a Gothic parchment" is "the supreme effort of the human mind," and whether the intellectual ability implied by the practice of external criticism does or does not justify "all the fuss made over those who possess it." On this question, obviously devoid of importance, a controversy was held between M. Brunetière, who recommended scholars to be modest, and M. Boucherie, who insisted on their reasons for being proud, in the pages of the Revue des langues romanes, 1880, vols. i and ii.