Chapter 2: Ars historica

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2

Ars historica

RHETORIC, CREDIT AND HISTORICAL SCHOLARSHIP, 1660-1730

Viscount Bolingbroke insisted in his Letter … Concerning the True Use and Advantages of the Study of History (1735) that the love of history was inseparable from human nature. He wrote:

The child hearkens with delight to the tales of his nurse: he learns to read, and he devours with eagerness fabulous legends and novels: in riper years he applies himself to history, or to that which he takes for history, to authorised romance: and even in age, the desire of knowing what happened to other men, yields to the desire alone of relating what has happened to ourselves. Thus history, true or false, speaks to our passions always.

Bolingbroke complained that history was often read as idle diversion, merely to increase learning: he explained, 'we effect the slender merit of becoming great scholars at the expense of groping all our lives in the dark mazes of antiquity'. The true purpose to the study of history was not pedantic scholarship but, 'a constant improvement in private and public virtue'. ^[1] During the Augustan era the value of history as a form of instructive knowledge was repeatedly affirmed. Historical writing was considered as a particularly competent means to display precepts of prudence and morality. Charles Leslie, eminent non-Juror, insisted in his Dissertation upon Ecclesiastical History (1704), that while a 'picture allures more than description; matters of fact beyond many arguments: discourse tells us of things, but history shews them to us'. ^[2] This view contradicts that of many modern historians who have suggested that the seventeenth century saw the eclipse of exemplary uses of history, and the move towards a modern idea of historical objectivity. Modern historians have been led astray by a conflation of the meanings of 'truth' and 'objectivity'. The period saw the practice of history expanding from the purveyance of moral injunctions, to legitimating social <26> practices and institutions such as the Church of England. As historical writing became more entrenched in these ideological conflicts it developed a more complex and sophisticated set of rules to secure the position of history as a medium for the dissemination of ethical precepts. The religious past was particularly important: as Charles Leslie wrote, 'of all history, the ecclesiastical is the most beneficial, as much more as the concern of the Church are beyond that of the state, our souls above that of our bodies, and our eternal state more than the moment we have to stay in this world. Secular history may make us statesmen and politicians; but the ecclesiastical will make us wise unto salvation'. ^[3] Historians and churchmen argued that scholarly research could resolve disputes about the true model of Church government and discipline. William Lloyd, Bishop of St Asaph, and close associate of the latitudinarian divine Edward Stillingfleet, composed his Historical Account of Church Government (1684) with the aim of refuting hostile anti-episcopalian visions of the history of the Church of England. Sir Roger Twysden, in defending the legality of the Anglican Reformation against papist charges of schism, explicitly denied he was dealing with dogmatical complexities, asserting that the controversy could be resolved through historical enquiry. He wrote: 'I began to cast with myself how I could historically make good that I had thus asserted, which in general I held most true, yet had not at hand punctually every circumstance, law, and history that did conduce unto it; in reading therefore I began to note apart what might serve for proof any way concerning it.'^[4] The picture of Sir Roger Twysden or William Prynne, a more extreme case, ravenously poring over a pile of musty old tomes, gleaning them for relevant examples to validate their beliefs, is an accurate description of the practice of history in the period.

RELIGION, HISTORY AND TRUTH: THE PURSUIT OF IMPARTIALITY

The ecclesiastical histories of the period contained the ubiquitous assertion that authors wrote impartially. This claim interlocked with the contrary insistence that opponents' works were fictional. On the one hand the 'impartial' historian suggested that his work was 'true' because it was real, it was simply a direct representation of what actually happened. On the other hand the opponent was caricatured as constructing an historical past; such history was the fabrication of an interested imagination. By implication men <27> should only be convinced by the truth; conversely to be duped by fictitious material was to endanger one's salvation. It was strategically imperative that a writer present his work as a 'fair and impartial history'. ^[5]

Characters as theologically opposed as Peter Heylyn and Thomas Fuller both claimed to be serving truth with impartiality. Thomas Fuller wrote of his own work, 'my Church history was so far from prostituting herself to mercenary embraces, she did not at all espouse any particular interest, but kept herself a virgin'.^[6] Peter Heylyn in a vituperative attack on Fuller's work proclaimed that 'truth is the mistresse which I serve'; he decried Fuller's history as subversive of both Church and state.^[7] The injunction to conduct a sincere search after the truth was ingrained in histories of the period. The claim to impartiality was linked to the moralistic intention of the history: a work was considered impartial, or true, only if it had a congruency with the ethical or theological framework of truth. Implicit within this assumption was that false precepts could only be maintained historically upon forged or fictitious evidence. Edward Stillingfleet's motivation was to rescue the history of the Church, 'from those fabulous antiquities which had so much debased the value and eclipsed the glory of it'. ^[8]

One of the most important pieces of historical scholarship was Gilbert Burnet's three-volume History of the Reformation (1679-1714) which was written with didactic intentions: such was its efficacy that it received institutional applause from both Houses of Parliament in 1680. Burnet, insistent that his work had instructive purposes, published an abridgement in 1682. Although the reduced work could not engender the same extent of authority as the complete work, it was still an efficient means of conveying true knowledge in a palatable form to the populace. Burnet's work was not to be considered

only as a tale of what was transacted in former times … It becomes most profitable, when the series and reasons of affairs, and secret counsels and ends, together with the true characters of eminent men, are rightly presented to us, and so upon the light which is given to us of past times, we may form prudent judgements of the present time, and probable conjectures of what is to come; and may both enlighten our understandings more by giving us a freer prospect of humane affairs, and may better direct us in our conduct.^[9]

Burnet's work 'took quiet possession of the belief of the nation at home, of a great part of Europe abroad, being translated into four languages'. ^[10] The work had been composed as a warning to the nation against the <28> encroaching dangers of popery, during the attempted exclusion of James, the Catholic Duke of York, from the British throne. While the History of the Reformation inspired great public praise, it also attracted many attacks intended to undermine its prescriptions. Burnet, later Bishop of Salisbury, in his response to these attacks, made it a common theme to present an image of scholarly moderation. While willing to have his mistakes corrected where uncovered, he reserved hostility for the petty cavils of theological opponents whose only purpose was to devalue his authority and integrity. Burnet was adamant that his work contained no deliberate, nor important distortions. The analogy between the value of true history and good money was drawn; he wrote:

History is a sort of trade in which false coyn and false weights are more criminal than in other matters; because the errors may go further and run longer. tho' these authors colour their copper too slightly to make it keep its credit long. If men think there are degrees of lying, then certainly these that are the most loudly told, that wound the deepest, that are told with the best grace, and that are transmitted to posterity under the deceitful colours of truth, have the blackest guilt.^[11]

The appendix to the second volume of the history contained lists of such corrections sent to Burnet by Thomas Baker, member of the High Church and later non-juror. It was part of Burnet's strategy for objectivity that his desire for public and detailed correction was loudly proclaimed. In this way he implored impartial critics to render his work even more authoritative. This strategy did not pass unhindered.^[12]

One of the most damaging assaults on Burnet's historical fidelity was Anthony Harmer's A Specimen of Some Errors (1693). 'Anthony Harmer' was a pseudonym for Henry Wharton (1664-95), chaplain to the High Church Archbishop William Sancroft. Wharton was an extremely productive historian, his great scholarly contribution being the two folio volumes of medieval Church and monastic history Anglia Sacra (1691). This work lauded the history of the spirituality of the medieval Church, directly contrary to the commonplace post-Reformation denunciation of the era as heralding the rise of superstition, and the ascendancy of popery.^[13] Wharton insisted it was his right to examine the claims Burnet had made for the impartiality of the History of the Reformation.^[14] He wrote:

This examination will be so much the more necessary and serviceable, by how much the history hath obtained the greater reputation in the world: since where any history

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acquireth (as this has most deservedly) such an universal reception; as to be read, and esteemed by all at home, to be translated into other languages abroad, to be accounted the most perfect in its kind; that the universal reputation will the more effectually contribute to the propagation of the errors contained in it.

Wharton quantified Burnet's inconsistencies and manipulations, concentrating in particular upon his manuscript sources. Burnet had included large appendices of unpublished records supplementing his historical veracity. Wharton insisted, on the contrary, that the collections were worthless because there 'appears just reason to suspect the care and fidelity of the transcriber'.^[15] Wharton informed the reader 'that of those which I have examined, I found near as many to be false as true'. Wharton examined Burnet's work page by page, line by line, and word by word. In referring throughout the examination to 'the Historian', as he catalogued the misdemeanours of the History of the Reformation, Wharton implied that Burnet did not merit the privileges the title of historian endowed. Wharton identified and displayed eighty-nine faults in Burnet's evidence: a damning blow to one who proclaimed the purity and truth of his scholarship so loudly.

Wharton exclaimed that his cause was that of historical fidelity, and his intention to undermine Burnet's 'credit'. He wrote:

Now to mistake and report falsely the dates of publick instruments is not a matter of light moment. For these will necessarily betray both writers and readers into infinite other mistakes, while they endeavour to adapt things and the circumstances of them to the supposed, but mistaken time of other actions. Besides all this diminished the credit of any history, so that in all other matters the reader cannot safely rely upon it, when he knows the negligence of the Historian in any part of it.^[16]

Burnet swiftly identified Wharton's intention. In a letter to William Lloyd, the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, Burnet commented, 'as to the charge of falsehood that comes over so often, that it is plain by his frequent repeating it, that he intended it should stick'.^[17] Burnet, anxious to rebuff Wharton's threat to his credit, produced written testimony from a Mr Angus, his transcriber, to the effect that he was willing to swear on oath that his copies of the manuscripts had been correct. Burnet supplemented this with a statement that he had double-checked all his references 'so that I may sincerely say that I writ that work with the same fidelity that I should have given evidence upon oath in a Court of judicature'. Burnet rather paradoxically interpreted Wharton's work as testimony to the value of his own work. The mistakes identified in the Specimen were of such a minor status that they indicated that everything essential to Burnet's argument was sound.^[18] In the retrospective third volume of his history (1714), Burnet identified Wharton as the author of A Specimen, suggesting that the attack had been inspired by <30> personal malice. Wharton had approached Burnet after 1689 in the hope that the bishop might be able to procure him clerical advancement. Burnet was unresponsive to these requests: Wharton's criticisms were devalued because constructed for personal revenge.

A common characteristic of historical works of the period, as the case of Burnet and Wharton indicates, was the fashion for extensive line-by-line analysis of opponents' works. In the early Restoration, the rival visions of Peter Heylyn and the Presbyterian Henry Hickman resulted in each man publishing extremely detailed dissections of opponent texts. Francis Atterbury and William Wake took it in turns to publish histories, and then comb the replies, sentence by sentence, to expose inconsistency and contradiction. Many works were simply long lists of mistakes, prefaced by the authorial injunction that the reader in face of the evidence should ignore the prescriptions of the work under examination. Burnet was a typical exponent of the practice. His History of the Reformation had been originally published in refutation of the French republication of an earlier Jesuit work written by Nicholas Saunders, which treated the English Reformation as heretical schism. Included at the rear of Burnet's first two volumes were detailed analyses of the mistakes in Saunders' work.^[19] Another historian, the Frenchman Varillas, had his work subjected to a similarly anatomical investigation by Burnet's pen. Instead of eulogizing the actions of the Reformation, Varillas contradicted Burnet in his history of Protestant heresies, Histoire des revolutions arrivée l'Europe en matière de religion (1686-8, 6 volumes). Between 1687 and 1689 Burnet published three long volumes against Varillas's work.^[20] Each of these works set out to destroy Varillas's 'credit', and discover him as a 'false coyner', a man who issued 'romantick impostures'.^[21]

One of Burnet's most common charges, against such men as Varillas and Heylyn, was that they gave no voucher for their statements.^[22] The development of citations, footnotes, and appendices crammed full of musty manuscripts has been heralded as the birth of modern objective scholarship. What I would argue is that the practice originated in the attempt to accredit a particular text with authority: the reference to hard empirical documents created an image of transparent truth. Jean Leclerc in his Parrhasiania (1700) noted that 'tis a common question, whether those who write ancient history, or at least a history of which there are no living witnesses, ought to cite the authors, whom they made use of, in every page or in every article'.^[23]

Leclerc discussed the variant ideas presented on the issue; some thought <31> the reader ought to rely simply on the honesty of the writer, or that a list of source material ought to be placed at the end of the text. Leclerc was insistent that reference had to be continually made throughout an historical work. He explained, 'for the republic of letters is at last become a country of reason and light, and not of authority and implicit faith as it has been too long'. With a description of the material used the reader could check the veracity of the relation. The contrary reasoning was that, if an historian omitted reference to primary manuscripts and vouchers then either he had something to hide or was writing fiction. Leclerc continued, 'we therefore maintain, that if a man avoids to quote his vouchers, the reason of it is, because he would not have anyone to examine the history, as he relates it, by comparing the narration with that of other historians who writ before him'. Without footnotes it was too easy for the devious historian to foist a fraud upon the helpless reader. Leclerc complained, "tis easy for a man to sham a romance upon the world without fear of discovery, and to give his history, whatever turn he pleases, the suspicious reader does not know where to take his word, and immediately throws aside a book upon which he cannot safely depend'.^[24]

While Burnet appreciated that the demand for his History meant an abridgement was necessary, he was unhappy that the 'great collection' of records included in the original 'for my justification' had to be abandoned: everything written in the Abridgement (1682) had to be taken upon trust.^[25] In the introduction to the first volume of his History Burnet had castigated Peter Heylyn, for 'he never vouched any authority'.^[26]

It was this type of assault that Burnet intended to avoid by self-consciously parading a large manuscript collection at the end of his work. He wrote:

I know it is needless to make great protestations of my sincerity in this work. These are of course, and are little considered, but I shall take a more effectual way to be believed, for I shall vouch my warrants for what I say, and tell where they are to be <32> found. And having copied out of Records and Mss. many papers of great importance, I shall not only insert the substance of them in the following work, but at the end of it shall give a collection of them at their full length, and in the language they were originally written: from which the reader will receive full evidence of the truth of this history.^[27]

Burnet intended to convince the reader of the 'truth' of his position: this conviction was to be achieved through displaying empirical evidence which was a 'more effectual way to be believed'.

In the first volume of the History, Burnet noted that his research had the full support of such eminent divines as Stillingfleet, Lloyd and Tenison. These men, who would hold some of the highest clerical offices in the country, accrued authority to his work. Burnet omitted to point out that even with this backing he had been banned from one manuscript collection. Renowned throughout Europe, the Cottonian library contained Saxon works, Hebrew texts, Greek originals, plus primary authorities for every period of English History. Burnet desired to use this collection, but Sir John Cotton (1621-1701) was reluctant to allow him access. Although Sir John was a scholar, a man who encouraged learning, and who made arrangements just prior to his death to open the library to the public, he objected to Burnet, conceiving Burnet as 'being no friend to the prerogative of the Crown, nor the constitution of the Church'.^[28] Burnet could bring no argument to sway Cotton. He was thus forced to enter the library illegally, under the cover of night, aided by Cotton's unfaithful nephew Sir John Marsham. This vision of a reputable cleric stealing into the library after the witching hour to transcribe manuscripts faithfully, in order to warn the nation against the impending threat of popery, is a delightfully apt one to characterize the practice of Augustan history.

HISTORICAL REVOLUTION: RHETORIC, PERSUASION AND PROBABILITY

In order to comprehend the persuasive and didactic purpose of historical writing we need to explore seventeenth-century ideals of historiography, bearing in mind Bolingbroke's dictum that the correct purpose of historical research was not meticulous erudition, but prudential instruction. This distinction is one which modern historians of history have failed to grasp. There are many works commenting on early modern historiography, all committed to narrating the growth of the 'modern discipline'. The most <33> recent work, B. Shapiro's Probability and Certainty (1983), suggests the seventeenth century saw the practice of history joining hands with that of the scientist in following the ideal of dispassionate investigation. For both disciplines the method lauded was that of 'impartial accuracy', 'accurate reporting' and the 'requirements of scholarship'.^[29] J. Preston has commendably set out to examine the problem of 'bias' in Restoration ecclesiastical historians. However, he represents the works of the period as attempting to grapple with the 'complexity and difficulty of the problem of objectivity', constructing 'new expedients' to ward off bias. Preston epitomizes the proleptic notions of modern historiography.^[30]

The case for the origins of modern historical method arising in the early modern period has been forcefully argued by F. Smith Fussner in The Historical Revolution (1962). Again the scientific ideal is lauded. His subjects are berated for not consciously articulating their historical methodology. Fussner's work heralds the advent of the use of primary material, the 'awareness of process', and the inevitable secularization of belief. 'Science, not religion, was the new and revolutionary force in human society.' A more recent work, A. B. Ferguson's Clio Unbound (1974), is a more sensitive attempt than that of Fussner; it is still constrained by the implicit need to document the progress and origins of the 'modern sense of history'. The work condemns the early modern historian for entertaining incomplete notions of causality, for being innocent of methodological theory, for irritating 'modern tastes' with an 'Indigestible lump of ecclesiastical apologetics' and, finally, for not studying social and cultural issues.^[31] <34> All the above works appear to be the result of a Rankean or positivistic belief in the inevitable progress of knowledge. The mythology of prolepsis is evident. The evaluation of past historical work is conducted in terms of the current status of historical method. Modern history is practised in terms of pseudo-scientific objectivity; its social function is confined, in general, to academic circles. The early modern mind perceived 'history' as a means of access to religious and moral rectitude: because of this, historical method and writings, like Burnet's History of the Reformation, became entrenched in the ideological conflicts of the period.^[32] It will be central to my argument that methodological apparatus, both implicitly accepted, and explicitly forged, was linked to the ideological function of historical discourse. The intellectual disunity of the period meant that participants had to search for some form of authoritative leverage in polemical debate, for a form of knowledge that could be deployed and maintained with a status of certainty and objective truth. History was a means of creating assurance in an audience. Thus, in an age of religious disunity, the past, and the presentation of the past, became a displaced crucible for ideological dispute. The internecine struggle between different interests in turn led to redefinitions, and increasing sophistication, in the techniques created for cementing the mandatory value of historical discourse.^[33]

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The early modern idea of the methods and value of historical writing was entrenched in the canons of literate society. A brief examination of curricula and the prescriptions of educationalists reveal the determining influence of the thought, principles, and texts of classical antiquity. The trivium at Cambridge University focused upon learning the techniques of grammar, rhetoric and dialectic - traditions which were a legacy of the humanist preoccupation with pagan learning. Rhetoric and oratory, that is, the correct use of words, were a central feature of university education in the period. ^[34] Rhetoric involved not only methods of communication, but also those of persuasion. Early modern ideas of history were part of this tradition. The works commonly employed to teach the principles of the ars dicendi were classical texts like Cicero, Quintillan and Aristotle. The principles of classical rhetoric were also disseminated to the seventeenth century in a form directly linked to historical methods in the works of ancient historians such as Polybius, Sallust, Thucydides, Dionysus of Halicarnassus and Lucian. The works of these authors were the common stock of the libraries of literate individuals. In order to understand seventeenth-century attitudes to history these works and their relationship with the ingrained ideas of the function of rhetoric must be defined.^[35]

The premises of rhetoric were based on the relationship between the expert, or the authority, and the uninitiated audience. The intention of the rhetor was to persuade the audience that the thesis proposed was a 'true' one. The process was one of cultivating a conviction in the minds of the listeners or readers that the speaker was communicating a valid and correct proposition. In this relationship the rhetor has to establish authority in two forms. The creation of conviction in the speaker's personal authority was a condition of persuading the audience of the authoritative value of the thesis proposed. The rhetorical relationship is intent, in tandem, at establishing both the 'credit' of the opinion and the utterer. If we examine one of the most influential classical texts, Aristotle's Rhetoric, this will become evident. In 1651 Thomas Hobbes anonymously published a translation and abridgement of Aristotle's Rhetoric. The latter was republished, with the <36> authorship acknowledged, in 1681. Hobbes conceived the work as supplementary to his Leviathan (1651); in the latter work he had demonstrated 'in the state of nature, the primitive art of fighting to be the only medium whereby men procur'd their ends'. In the Art of Rhetoric he intended to show 'what power in societies has succeeded to reign in its stead. I mean the art of speaking, which by the use of the commonplaces of probability, and knowledge in the manners and passions of mankind, through the working of belief is able to bring about whatsoever interest'.^[36] Hobbes complimented the ancients for their perspicacity in insisting that the rhetorical art was necessary to politics. Hobbes followed Aristotle in defining rhetoric as 'that faculty, by which we understand what will serve our turn, concerning any subject to win belief in the hearer. Of those things that beget belief; some require not the help of art; as witnesses, evidences, and the like, which we invent not, but make use of; and some require art and are invented by us.' For Aristotle the techniques of persuasion were a form of demonstration, 'for we chiefly believe a thing when we suppose it to be demonstrated'. The central rhetorical principle was for the speaker to present 'what is like to truth. For men are sufficiently inclin'd to truth. Wherefore he who attains easily to probability by conjecture, takes the same course to find out the truth.' Intrinsic to this action was that the oration 'is so pronounced that the orator may be thought a person worthy to be credited. For we believe the vertuous more easily and sooner, and barely in all things; but absolutely in these things where there is not that certainty, but a suspense of judgements, and a difficulty of determination, in regard to the various opinions of men.'^[37]

Classical historical writing was founded on these rhetorical principles.^[38] <37> The contribution of the oratorical traditions to the practice of history in the ancient world was the use of rhetorical finesse to render persuasion more effective, by creating a narration that 'sounded' like the truth. The role of the historian in classical antiquity mirrored that of the orator in providing incentive for virtue. If the ancient historian was committed to the role of presenting paradigms of morality as a didactic function, then the author, by default, had to employ the persuasive tools of rhetoric.^[39]

These classical ideas carried much weight during the Augustan era. There was an extensive interest in, and publication of, the histories of antiquity during this period. The works of Sallust, Tacitus and Plutarch retained a perennial attraction for the literati of Europe. Works were published in both Latin and vernacular editions. These works shared the common premise that history was an instructive discourse. Thomas Hobbes translated the Eight Books of the Peloponnesian Warre … Written by Thucydides in 1634. He willingly recommended Thucydides' books, 'as having in them profitable instruction for noblemen, and such as may come to have the managing of great and weighty actions … For in history, actions of honour and dishonour doe appear plainly and distinctly, which are which; but in the present age they are so disguised, that few there be, and those very carefull, that be not grossely mistaken in them.' Hobbes was to insist that Thucydides' work was superior even to that of Polybius. Thucydides managed to combine both truth and eloquence in his writings, a beneficial mixture, 'for in truth consisteth the soule, and in eloquution the body of the history. The latter without the former, is but a picture of history; and the former without the latter, unapt to instruct.'^[40] According to Hobbes, Thucydides had avoided instructive digression which was the role of the philosopher, instead by means of 'cohærent, perspicuous, and perswasive' narration he had conveyed his precepts to the reader. This was executed so skilfully that 'the narration itself doth secretly instruct the reader, and more effectually then possibly can be done by precept'.^[41] Hobbes applauded Thucydides for being able to convey moral statements to men without them mobilizing opposition to such instruction.^[42] It was Hobbes' contention in Leviathan (1651) that <38> one of the causes of sedition in the 1640s was that the men of action had been educated in rebellious principles through reading malevolent ancient history.^[43]

History as a substitute for experience was the central motif of Polybius' method; history was to perform therapy on the ills of the body politic.^[44] A competent English version of Polybius was executed by Sir Henry Sheeres in three volumes in 1693-8, with an introductory preface by John Dryden. According to the latter, Polybius was the 'clearest and most instructive of all historians'. So much so that even as a young boy Dryden had been able to extract counsels of prudence from the histories.^[45] Dryden continued in rapture: 'Tis wonderful to consider, with how much care and application he instructs, counsels, warns, admonishes and advises, whensoever he can find it a fit occasion: he performs all these … in the nature of a common parent of mankind.' Polybius was ever diligent in drawing the truth up from the bottom of the deepest well, commending the study of history with the love of virtue.^[46] The value of truth in history in the Polybian scheme was to fulfil the utilitarian function of disseminating moral patterns to the reader. This model of historical enquiry had been commended by such disparate figures as Jean Bodin, William Camden, John Milton and Thomas Hobbes.^[47]

This relationship between the role of the historian as reflector of truth, and the reader as receiving the lessons of this truth, was the essence of early modern history. These ideas are embodied in the work of Degory Wheare (1573-1647), first Camden Prælector of History at Oxford 1625-47. In 1634 Wheare published at Oxford his Reflectiones Hyemales De Ratione et Methodi Legendi: Utrasques Historias Civile et Ecclestasticus. The work was popular. It was translated in 1684 by Nicholas Horseman; a further edition was enlarged and expanded by Edmund Bohun in 1694. The latter work was prefaced with an instructive discourse by Wheare's successor Henry Dodwell (1641-1711). That this work was published in 1634, and still merited two <39> further editions in the 1680s and 1690s would imply both the continuity of attitudes to historical method, and that Wheare's work is a convenient epitome of these attitudes.^[48]

Wheare deployed the Ciceronian maxim 'that history is the register and explication of particular affairs, undertaken to the end that the memory of them may be preserved, and so to universals may be the more evidently confirmed by which we may be instructed how to live well and happily'. History was the mistress of life, a fruitful granary of didactic examples, and prudence. While moral philosophy aided men to the improvement of civil society by the use of precept, history achieved the same purpose by the instrument of example. He wrote: 'For the principle end of history is practice, and not knowledge or contemplation. And therefore we must learn, not only that we may know, but that we may live well and honestly.' Wheare insisted that readers should glean the pages they read in search of true moral insight; these examples ought to be placed in commonplace books for ready instruction.^[49] Particularly commended was the study of ecclesiastical history; it was the readers' 'most indispensible duty to turn over the ecclesiastical history night and day'. Wheare insisted that individuals had a duty to acquire 'civil knowledge'; and although political experience was necessary and indispensable to this search, history was an important supplement. Henry Dodwell, in his prefatory 'Invitation to Gentlemen to Aquaint themselves with Antient History', seconded Wheare's notion that the application of history was 'more fitted for the use of an active than a studious life'.^[50] Dodwell's work was an exhortation to the youth of the 1690s to leave the study and become, like the Pythagoreans, 'useful citizens'. Dodwell conceived of a Platonic unity between contemplation and practice, which could be achieved through the correct direction and application of historical reading.^[51]

The postulate of the impartial, independent and veracious historian was central to the ideological function of the early modern historian. The claim to be unmasking, reflecting, and transmitting the truth, free from partial interests, was an ideological disclaimer. Under the guise of impartiality the historian was free to institute his own 'colour' of truth as objective. The assertion was that the historian could transcend his cultural and political identity in the name of universal truth. Such a claim to have direct access, via <40> historical investigation, to the 'truth' (to knowledge about the correct model of morality) in the context of seventeenth-century polemics was a persuasive strategy. The claim to be an 'historian' was to manufacture integrity and moral authority: the practice of history became entangled in the tendrils of ideology.

Historians of the period were aware that the claim to be writing true history was not enough assurance, in itself, that a text was veracious. To create a standard of rectitude they constructed a system for distinguishing between valid and corrupt works. This method of legitimating historical texts was not only for the practising historian, but more importantly for the direction of the reader to 'true' principles. Since the premise of history was that the reader ought to be persuaded by prescriptive texts, many of the works discussed the standards to be employed by the reader in judging the quality of the history. The historian had to keep a balance between his presentation of the facts and his use of rhetorical techniques: a balance between the process of licit and illegitimate insinuation. Edmund Bolton, author of Hypercritica (1622), noted that 'the judgements of interested authors are commonly not judgements so much as prejudices … iniquities practis'd in this point are not more ordinary than odious, and are some times laid on so impudently thick, that with less than half an eye the paintings are discernible'.^[52] The aim of 'candid and sincere' history was not to impose on the reader. The Huguenot refugee René Rapin-Thoyras commented in his Modest Critick (1691) that good history 'ought to leave my heart free, to judge the better of what it tells me. Eloquence, which by its character, is an art that imposes, may steel upon my liberty, by striving to persuade me beyond my will.'^[53] The limits of legitimate discourse between the necessities of a persuasive medium, and the burgeoning dangers of misuse of these skills were firmly inscribed in the methodological texts of the time. Ultimately it was the duty of the reader to 'judge' whether the work was competent. The judicial activity of the reader was the result of the balance between belief in the credit of the history and a wariness against being imposed upon by fictional testimony.^[54]

<41>

Contrary to the claims of historians, Francis Osborne, in his popular work Advice to a Son (1658), insisted upon the 'great uncertainty in history'; such relations were constructed more for the interest of particular men, than that of the truth.^[55] Osborne advised his son not to follow the injunctions of history 'beyond the pillars of possibility'; in this manner Osborne offered his son what might be called a constructive scepticism in historical method.^[56] Although the medium of historical writing was implicitly susceptible to the distortions of prejudice, there was a type of knowledge that could be accepted if submitted to the realm of 'likelihood'. This point is crucial to an understanding of early modern attitudes to the function of history. This concept is alien to modern minds, constrained by 'scientific' claims to 'objectivity': the assertions of positivism can gain no interpretative access to the form of knowledge suggested by the historical method of the Augustan era. The idea of the 'pillars of possibility' is the central motif. Precepts and narrations were constructed from probability, credit and proof: this edifice was of a similar proportion to the structure of classical rhetoric.

Bolton lamented that many 'have let their credit split in pieces' in defence of false notions of liberty, prerogative and faith. The antidote to this position was to rely upon a concatenation of witnesses, testimony and natural' narrative, which would combine to create a work with valid 'probability'. Part of the reader's duty was to assess the credit of the author he was examining. Du Fresnoy wrote, 'before we read therefore an Historian we should be acquainted with him, and nothing can better tend to our giving a true judgement of the facts he relates than to know his character, his interests, his passions, the circumstances of his life, and the conjectures in which we find him'.^[57] Writers who upheld 'uncertain probabilities' and 'tinsel arguments' were ridiculed by Jean Leclerc. The historian ought to use no other than solid reasonings; if these were not extant then he should operate within the realm of probability. In this manner the writer was to create a foun <42> dation for his narrative out of 'certain incontestable matters of fact in which all the world are agreed'.^[58]

The insistence upon the 'likelyhood' of an historical narrative was a reaction against the poetic tradition of discourse, which suggested that precepts could be transmitted in parable or fable. It was one of the stock dismissals of incorrect histories to term them 'romances' or fictions, rather than histories. Richard Braithwaite noted that poetical histories themselves operated within a structure of probability. Hesiod's accounts of Hercules and Cerberus were set down with 'probable coherence, that if the matter itself did not imply an impossibility, one would certainly be induced to beleeve so concordant a history'.^[59] Narrative had to conform to the constraints of consistency and reality. Braithwaite applauded the historian who 'can joyne profit with a modest delight together in one body or frame of one united discourse, grounding his story upon an essential truth' as the most valid model; the next type of true model was the man who could 'proportion' his text 'to a likeness of truth'. The dylogistic model was the historian who observed 'neither mean nor measure, but gorge their own insatiable appetites with full messes of untruths (without probability).^[60]

The structure of witnesses and testimony joined together to create a creditable and probable narrative which would convince the reader of the authority of history. The idea of 'probability' is crucial to this persuasive scheme. The modern perception of the word is linked with the idea of statistical regularity, and the notion of a form of mathematical demonstration. The Augustan use of the word implies a type of moral commitment to the statement uttered. To say that something was 'probable' implied both approval of its intent, and that the action was broadly conformable to the realities of the world.^[61] Probability could be created by the credit of the <43> historian, by the type of language used, from the issues presented, 'additional proofs' of probity could be effected by witnesses, oaths and testimonies. The intention was to imprint the issue discussed in the minds of the audience; as Aristotle explained:

That which we call a probable proposition, is that which when we have declared to the hearers, they retain the examples of the thing spoken in their minds … and therefore we are to observe this diligently always in our orations, whether we have left the auditors conscious of the thing of which we discours'd to 'em. For it is most likely that they give greatest credit to those things.^[62]

The deployment of 'testimony' was essential to the procedure of inducing conviction in the audience. It was this that was crucial to the a priori of historical method. The definition posited by Aristotle was: 'Testimony is a voluntary concession of a known thing. Now of necessity it must be either probable or improbable or doubtful to be believed, and in a like manner the witness must be either credible, or not to be believed or of doubtful credit.'^[63] Testimony was adduced to support a case by creating the semblance of truth: in the practice of historical writing the statements of witnesses performed the role of anchoring the text in probable reality, giving it relevance to the universal issues of morality. The claim to be deploying valid witnesses was a rhetorical one, and so the character and motivations of the testimony had to be rendered free from the taint of interest in order to become persuasive. On the contrary, those who wished to undermine a case could do so effectively by contradicting the credit of the witnesses.^[64]

As I have already shown, ideas of rhetorical persuasion were a commonplace in the mentality of the seventeenth century. The structure of an historical text was orientated to develop a conviction in the reader, which <44> would act as an incentive to some form of prudence or virtue.^[65] This image of the reader in judicial guise, vacillating between one opinion and another, according to the nature of probable 'Instances' encountered is an informative one for the practice of Augustan historical discourse.

CREDIT AND 'MATTER OF FACT': THE CONVOCATION CRISIS

The major objective of the historian was to establish the competence of his own credit, while undermining his opponent's integrity. For example, Francis Atterbury in his Rights, Powers, and Priviledges of an English Convocation (1700) set out to diminish the authority of 'those designing writers who … raise to themselves a character of impartiality, of a singular integrity, and courage. Their own virtues also shine to advantage … and withal they imitate … how fit they are to be advanced to a post, wherein they may correct such enormities.'^[66] Atterbury defended the independent rights of the clergy from the Erastian claims of such men as William Wake and Gilbert Burnet, whose historical researches tended to suggest that ultimately the Church was reliant upon secular authority. Atterbury, with typical astuteness, pointed out that the claim to impartiality was a very effective means of imposing upon the reader. He wrote that it was important to ask of Burnet,

if the main facts he professes to relate, and the colours he gives to those facts are right; if there be no premeditated omissions, or disguises of material truths; no designed compliance with popular mistakes and prejudices; if that air of impartiality which at first sight seems to run through the relation, be undissembled, and not only a more artificial way of conveying false principles and characters into the mind of the reader.'^[67]

The process of exposing historians' manipulations had the double benefit both of undermining their visions of the past, and of also accruing more credit to the historian who effected the critique.

The claims to truth and probability were essential to conveying a political or theological precept in historical form. In order for the message to be <45> accepted by a reader as truthful, the language of credit had to be employed. There was an implicit link between the stated value of 'evidence' and its ability to persuade the reader: evidence was the route to proof of a particular case. Francis Atterbury's dispute with Wake's assertion that the clerical convocation was an appendage of the civil state, was couched in the terms of proof, demonstration, and probability. Atterbury suggested that Wake's opinions were innovatory and contained little 'truth or probability'. Atterbury intended to throw light upon these false claims. The metaphor of displaying an issue in full light is central to the idea of transparent and veracious history. Atterbury deployed his own 'evidence' to justify his opinion of the rights of the convocation. Wake's 'cloud of witnesses' did not enlighten Atterbury, they only served 'to darken and confound the point we are in pursuit of, not at all to clear it.'^[68] Edward Stillingfleet was convinced that the bond between testimony and probability was sufficient to establish a morally certain form of knowledge; 'sufficient probation' could only be established on the solid ground of consistent 'evident demonstration' .^[69] For Stillingfleet mere probability was not to qualify as true testimony. The points of antiquity were not to be decided, 'In the field, nor at the bar, nor by a majority of voices, but depend upon the comparing of ancient histories, the credibility of testimonies, and a sagacity in searching, and skill in judging concerning them'.^[70]

Empirical evidence or 'matter of fact' was conceived as a sure method of resolving issues in contention. Charles Leslie insisted that serious breaches in both doctrine and discipline could be best healed by appeal to the arbitration of empirical research. He declared that the answer lay in 'matter of fact … for plain matter of fact will not bend, or suffer us to dodge and fence with it, as we may do for ever about poor criticism of words, and speculations of our own inventing . ^[71] Burnet held a similar attitude: he commented, 'The truth is, reason is a tame thing which bends easily to a man of wit and fancy; but facts are sullen things, they are what they are.'^[72] While Kennett in his work against Francis Atterbury, Ecclesiastical Synods (1701), premised his arguments on these very grounds; he wrote, 'matters of notion and bare speculative points, are liable to alternate disputes for ever: but matters of fact and express authorities, are evidence of proof and demonstration'. Kennet suggested that there were only two methods which could undermine the <46> empirical case, 'one to prove a falsehood in the citations, and a wrong term in the application of them; another to represent it as a moot case, and to produce as much evidence on this side, as had been given on that'. Atterbury, according to Kennett, had not attempted to justify his case in abstract terms about the nature of the Church as a society of Christians, but had built his defence upon, 'statutes … Records … rolls and registers'.^[73] His argument was to 'stand or fall upon the truth and application of these authorities': it was to this enterprise that Kennett devoted his work. Historical enquiry was an arena where there was the possibility of a final resolution, but also of certain refutation. Kennett commented on Atterbury's presentation of evidence,

I must needs own, those authorities are so confidently cited, affirmed, and repeated; that I took them long upon content, and believed them very genuine, and fairly thought I could suspect nothing, but the mighty assurance of the voucher; and even that upon first thought inclin'd me to suppose, he was most certainly in the right and might be depended on. Till at length, inclination to be a little curious, and good tolerable opportunities to be well informed, have put me upon searching his margins and references, and upon collecting his multitude of collections with books and papers, from which they were, or ought to have been taken.^[74]

Once again the picture is of an individual being confronted with a mass of marginal references and footnotes, attempting to form his opinions in relation to their content. The superficial attraction of Atterbury's case was, according to Kennett, a carefully fabricated illusion. He criticized Atterbury's scholarly integrity: 'Upon view I am now entirely satisfied, that no one writer ever managed an historical argument with more slightness and superficial touch; or indeed with more falsehood and deceit.'^[75]

The value of historical discourse to Kennett was that it was a superior method of communication since it was firmly rooted in empirical fact, accessible to everyone. He wrote, 'falsehoods in philosophy and speculative points, may have imposed upon successive ages; but a forged history never stood the test of any one generation: people may for a while read, and take for granted; but when they come to examine and compare, they despise the story, and suspect the teller of it'.^[76] Kennett intimated that Atterbury's manipulation of historical writing was symptomatic of the complexion of his devotion, 'for another Church of traditions and legendary Tales; than for our Church, that can be supported by nothing but sincerity and truth'.^[77] <47> Atterbury in turn suggested that Kennett was too reliant upon 'fact' to support his case: he had constructed a factual account to fit with his conceptions of just Church government. He complained that facts were produced 'purely to establish rights on them; and having laid down his historical grounds therefore does, in every instance, proceed to draw his conclusions from them'.^[78]

The dispute over the value and persuasive authority of 'matter of fact' became integrated with the Convocation controversy. The polemical issue was concerned with whether the Convocation, and ultimately the clerical order, had authority and power independent of the civil administration. Traditional scholarship has suggested that the crisis was inspired by the publication of Francis Atterbury's Letter to a Convocation Man (1696). Recent research has relocated the origins of the debate in the earlier 1690s. The crucial publication was Humphrey Hody's The Unreasonableness of Separation (1691). Hody, a Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, had published a medieval manuscript referred to as the 'Baroccian Ms', as an attempt to defend the deprivation of those bishops who had refused the Oath of Allegiance to the monarchy after the Glorious Revolution of 1689. The ancient manuscript supposedly gave precedents for such practice from the early Church. The deployment of the manuscript engendered immediate and outraged replies from such men as the High Church Thomas Browne, Nathaniel Bisbie, Simon Lowth and, most expertly, from Henry Dodwell. Goldie has examined the debate thoroughly, illuminating both the chronology of publications, and the intricacies of argument and counter- argument. Hody's publication was inspired by the need for a 'scholarly defence of the deprivations'. In the course of the exchange this language of scholarship became inextricably linked with the language of polemics.^[79]

Hody insisted that the evidence of the 'Baroccian Ms' ought to have been persuasive to those men who considered the practice of antiquity a valid model. Hody directed this accusation in particular at Henry Dodwell, 'who before was so full of his history and examples, begins now not to esteem them … He is now for rules, not examples: and he has good reason for it for rules he makes of his own, but examples he cannot'.^[80] We have already encountered Henry Dodwell declaring his appreciation of the didactic uses of history. Dodwell was a scholar, appointed Camden Professor of History at <48> Oxford in 1688. The deposition of the Catholic James II saw Dodwell refuse the Oath of Allegiance. After he was deprived of his Professorship at Oxford in 1691, he turned his scholarship towards a defence of those clergy who had suffered similarly deprivation.^[81]

In his A Vindication of the Deprived Bishops (1692) Dodwell objected to Hody's profligate use of 'Instances'. Hody's work had simply been a list of all precedents that favoured his case. Dodwell's complaint was that Hody had assumed a de facto rectitude to anything that had happened, simply because it had happened. He wrote:

Whether they did well or not in it, is not here so much as attempted to be proved; only as it is presumed to be well done, barely because it was done in so many instances, and no publick opposition made against it. But if matters of fact so nakedly mentioned must be urged for precedents, it will be impossible to make any thing of this way of arguing from history. What history is there, that in a succession of nine hundred years, does not afford examples against examples? And how can it be understood which are rather to be followed as examples, if no more be considered concerning them but barely this, that they were examples? How easy were it for the historian, by this way of reasoning, to justify, as our Brethren do, the wickedest things that can be.^[82]

Dodwell suggested that the truth of historical example came not from the de facto quality of the action, but through conformity with an external standard of rectitude. Dodwell dismissed the value of the 'naked matter of fact' and instead sought prescriptive value in the connections between principle and actions. Valuable historical example was derived from the history of men of 'true' principles. Dodwell rejected Hody's examples as malicious, because they enshrined incorrect theological principles.

The imperative was to find 'matters of fact' which embodied true opinion which could thus become persuasive. Simon Lowth, another non-juror, in his Historical Collections Concerning Church Affairs (1696) and Ekalogai: or Excerpts from the Ecclesiastical History (1704), set out to provide a detailed collection of counter examples to Hody's scheme. He wrote that his 'method' was to relate 'naked history' and 'bare matter of fact'.^[83] In the earlier work Lowth had accepted Hody's criticism that the issue should be conducted in terms of 'Instances'; he qualified this with Dodwell's point that the 'Instance' employed should be moral.^[84] The value of historical example had reached such an authority that Hody issued a challenge, in his Case of Sees Vacant (1693), to his non-juring opponents to produce 'one single instance' in favour of their case.^[85] The challenge was repeated in his later work Reflections on a Pamphlet (1698) where he reiterated the 'argumentativeness <49> of such facts'; he restated the challenge thus, 'the Dr. challenges Mr Dodwell and his whole party (… and desires they take notice of it) to produce him any one single instance from the time of Aaron, the first high Priest of the Jews, or a Bishop disown'd by the generality of the Catholick Church, for this reason, because put into the place of another deposed by civil authority'. If they could do so Hody declared that he would 'own myself obliged for the instruction'.^[86]

Hody had reviled Simon Lowth's work: he was a 'foul mouthed collector' whose work was a 'long wild rage of impertinences'. According to Hody, Lowth had attempted to impose upon readers with 'tricks and shuffles'. Hody advised the reader to examine his work side by side with the execrable Lowth's: it would be apparent to the impartial man that Hody's work contained the 'phænomena of history'. This notion of the 'phænomen ' of history indicates the appeal to the idea of empirical resolution of ideological disputes. Gilbert Burnet insisted that Hody's scholarship had provided this factual resolution to the debate, he commented on Hody's Case of Vacant Sees, 'Dr Hody has fully ended the argument that he had begun, from the practice of the Church; and that in so convincing a manner, the matter of fact seemed not capable of a clearer proof … We know the reason why it is not answered is, because it cannot be answered. Men may wrangle on eternally in points of speculation; but matters of fact are severe things, and do not admit of all that sophistry.'^[87]

Dodwell (and the non-juror scholars in general) was insistent that Hody's 'sacred instances' were nothing of the sort. Dodwell's attack was to undermine Hody's credit, by suggesting that he had manipulated his evidence. Hody rested the authority of his case on the relevance and antiquity of the 'Baroccian Ms'. Dodwell, Thomas Browne and Nathaniel Bisbie questioned both of these assertions. Dodwell argued that the manuscript was too inconsequential to be classified as 'evidence'. He doubted the integrity and competence of it as testimony. The issues presented in the ancient manuscript extended no further than the Greek Church of the fourth century. Dodwell insisted that the text could therefore have no application to the model of the ancient Catholic Church. Dodwell suggested an alternative: the correct model and precedent ought to be derived from the actions of St Cyprian, 'not only because they are the ancientest, indeed the first we know of … but because we have withal in him the most distinct account of the sense of the Church in his age of such facts, and of the principles on which they proceeded.'^[88]

In his An Answer to a Treatise (1691) Nathaniel Bisbie thrust an even <50> more damning counter argument against Hody's use of the manuscript in suggesting that Hody had deliberately suppressed an appendix to the original work, which directly contradicted the principles he wished to draw from the account. Hody claimed that the manuscript presented evidence for obligation to a bishop who had replaced another (unjustly deprived by either ecclesiastical or secular authority). Bisbie showed that the probable author of the 'Baroccian Ms' was Nicephorus Callistus, 'the worst greek author extant, till Mr Hody is pleased to publish some other'. Even if this research was not enough to neutralize the value of the text for Hody's case, Bisbie published a set of canons which were formerly appended to the manuscript. With this addition the manuscript became relevant only to the legality of obligation in the case of synodial deprivation. It had been Hody's intention to defend obligation in actions of civil deprivation. Bisbie sarcastically complimented Hody's prudent concealment of the canons, since they in themselves were a 'sufficient answer' to his claims.^[89] Dodwell in the second part of his Vindication had also identified this deliberate suppression of evidence. Dodwell proved that the manuscript had been written in the context of the schism originating in the deprivation of Michael Palælogus by Patriarch Arsenius employing synodical methods. The precedent of the work could have no application to the disputes of the 1690s which were about the validity of lay deprivation.^[90] The non-jurors attempted to assimilate the authority of the manuscript to their case. The suppressed canons appended to the 'Baroccian Ms' became 'approved facts' which contradicted Hody's arguments. The value of Hody's scholarship was repeatedly undermined by the non-jurors' persistent republication of the canons.

Humphrey Hody, with his impartiality under public threat, replied to these charges, not in terms of the legality of his case, but with arguments defending his scholarship. In the Letter from Humphrey Hody to a friend (1692), Hody declared

when I transcribed our treatise out of the Baroccian Ms. I did it as an historian, or a philologer, or whatsoever else you will call it not imagining then, I should ever send it abroad upon such an occasion; if therefore the aforesaid Canons do truly belong to the treatise, it is to be imputed to an error and mistake of my judgement, and not to an ill design, that they are omitted.

Hody was still insistent that the canons were no part of the original text: the two different parts were written in distinct hands. The canons were not relevant to the main issue since they only dealt with the regulation of private conventicles, rather than deprivations.^[91]

<51>

Hody was well aware that the authority of the manuscript was central to the legitimacy of his defence of the deprivations of the 1690s. He reversed the charge of manipulation against his opponents, commenting acidly: 'Five hundred to one, but a month or six weeks hence we may have a report spread abroad, that advice has been sent from Paris, that the aforesaid canons are found in the Ms. there in the self same manner as at Oxford. A spurious letter, as from some considerable man, the librarian himself, or some other, will do very well for the purpose.' Hody stalwartly insisted that even if this did happen it was still not persuasive evidence, because both works could have been copied from a single defective source. Hody attempted to deflect assaults upon his credit, while still upholding the value and relevance of the manuscript to the debate. The non-jurors' objections, as far as Hody was concerned, were a result of their stubborn spirit of contrariety. As he lamented, 'it is not your carrying a light that will make a man follow you; not the shewing him the road, that will make him go right, unless he has a will to be directed'.^[92]

The controversy of the early 1690s over the status of non-juring Churchmen was framed in terms of historical evidence. Rational theological debate was supplemented by the display of manifold empirical histories. The authenticity of manuscripts, the identification of handwriting, schemes of evidence and testimony were central to the mechanics of polemical discourse. Hody's challenge to the non-jurors to produce one 'instance' in their favour was readily accepted by such men as Atterbury, Lowth and Jeremy Collier. The early eighteenth century saw the hierarchy of the Church of England filled by clerics of Gilbert Burnet's complexion: historical defences of the Anglican establishment flooded the printing presses. The works of White Kennett, William Wake and Edward Gibson were to provide erudite, complete and interminably lengthy justifications of their model of Church government.

This chapter has focused upon the metahistorical principles of the early modern period. Placing the developments in theories of both reading and writing history within the context of religious polemic and apologetic, the intention is to challenge the received Whiggish idea of an historical revolution. From the variety of sources (from Braithwaite's handbook for the gentry, to Leclerc's eighteenth-century orations on history) I have suggested that the changes, and perhaps sophistications, in historical writing were not progression towards the modern idea of history as an autonomous mode of discourse, but evolutions of an acknowledged humanist tradition adapted to the controversial needs of the age. From one viewpoint, the modern could argue that a revolution had occurred (new methods of philology, manuscript, discoveries, and citations, were apparent). Douglas and Momigliano have <52> discussed the scholarly and antiquarian developments of the discourse. However, even honorary moderns, like Locke and Toland, were committed to history as an instrument of humanist edification. The significance of the epistemological status of historical method should be assessed not in terms of its contribution to 'progress', but placed firmly in the context of religious debate.^[93]