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LEFT THTTCYDIDES 379 THUG, or TSAO which he himself witnessed in part, while he could obtain the evidence of eye wit- nesses for the remainder. Nor did he wait till the conclusion of the war before setting about his task; from the very beginning he began collecting his facts. Next, his history is not designed to proye or illustrate any theory. He himself, in the passage quoted above, disclaims all attempt to adapt facts "to any notion of his own"; and it is evident that begin- ning to write, as he began, at the com- mencement of the war, when its course and its issue were yet in the future, he could not have designed to bring its his- tory into conformity vnth any precon- ceived or a priori theory. Herodotus, writing the history of the past, was in a position to trace the finger of destiny in what had happened, and to explain history by means of final causes. But Thucydides, when he under- took to record the present, thereby delib- erately elected to confine himself to ef- ficient causes. This preference for ef- ficient causes and for "scientific" history, in the best sense of the term, is intimate- ly connected with the "positive" nature of his history — that is to say, with his perpetual endeavor to record facts and to distinguish them from inferences drawn from facts. A clear consciousness of this difference is involved in one of the most characteristic features of his history — that is, the marked difference between his narrative and the speeches which he introduced into it. The former contains facts, and facts only, facts stated witta a precision and objectivity which — e. g., in his description of the symptoms of fever in sufferers from the great plague — have been the marvel of all sub- sequent generations, and the greatest marvel to those who by special profes- sional knowledge are competent to judge. The speeches, on the other hand, are not what the speakers actually said — ^but of this Thucydides warns the reader at the beginning, showing clearly at once the distinction he drew between facts and inference, and his anxiety that the reader should realize the distinction. In fine, most of the untruth in this world is due not to deliberate perversion, but to the simple fact that so many people are quite unconscious what truth is. WTien, then, we find that Thucydides had a conception of historic truth and fact such as 2,000 subsequent years have been unable to im- prove, and that he strove strenuously all his life to live up to that conception and write up to it, we can well understand that even 19th-century criticism acknowl- edges itself incapable of shakinp" his credibility. As for the subject of Thucydides' his- tory, if the Peloponnesian War was not a matter of importance in universal his- tory, it was at least not Thucydides' fault that he was not a contemporary with some more important war. But we may beg leave to doubt whether the Pelopon- nesian War was of inferior interest for the fortunes of mankind. Had it not been for the exhaustion it induced, Greece would not have succumbed to the Mace- donian, and consequently Alexander's conquests would never have spread Greek culture over the ancient world. But, apart from this, Thucydides' history is the history of the effects of empire on an imperial state; and, as such, will al- ways be of enthralling interest to citizens of sovereign communities. Finally, Thu- cydides' style, criticized by Dionysius and condemned by Mure, is (in the speeches) difliicult beyond all possibil' ■;y of dispute. To throw the blame of this obscurity on the unformed condition if Attic Greek at the time when Thucydides wrote is warrantable indeed, but is no adequate defensrt. To point, on the other hand, to the tn:ct "On the Athenian Polity" as proof that Attic prose could be translu- cent in Thucydides' timv is beside the point, for Attic, as is well known, could only be written well by those who lived continuously in Athens, and Thucydides was exiled for many a year. But, in truth, tiie question whether it is Thucyd- ides or the literary age in which he lived that is to be blamed for his obscurity is a wholly irrelevant question. Obscurity, whatever be its cause, is a crime in a writer. But it is a crime which carries its own punishment, for it diminishes the number of an author's readers. The exact amount of criminality is not to be determined on any abstract principles or by the exercise of any mysterious "taste"; it admits of one simple practical test — viz., has the obscurity of his style (in so far as it exists), as a matter of fact, prevented him from attaining fame? In the case of Thucydides it has had no such effect, as all testify. People will not read a difficult author if there is an easier one out of whom they can get as much. That Thucydides has, in spite of his difficulty, always been read is in itself sufficient testimony that there is no other historian to rank with him. THUG, or THAG, the name given in the N. provinces of India to a member of a fraternity who looked on murder as the sole means of staying the wrath of the goddess Kali, and derived their prin- cipal means of support from the plunder of their victims. In old times, according to Hindu mythology, Kali made war on a race of giants, from every drop of