But these cases are most rare. Even a study of the text
of Beowulf, or a history of Norman law, will be influenced by the
personal emotions of the investigator, and must be so criticized.
Men choose their philosophy according to their temperament; so do
writers write; and so must critics criticize. Which is by no means
to say that criticism is merely an affair of temperament, but
rather to assert that temperament must not be left out of account
in conducting or interpreting criticism.
Ideally, then, the editors of a catholic review should have
definite convictions, if flexible minds, established principles,
if a wide latitude of application. But although a review may thus
be made catholic, it cannot thus attain comprehensiveness. There
are too many books; too many branches upon the luxuriant tree of
modern knowledge. No editorial group, no editorial staff, can
survey the field competently unless they strictly delimit it
by selection, and that means not to be comprehensive. Yet if the
experts are to be called in, the good critics, the good scholars,
the good scientists, until every book is reviewed by the writer
best qualified to review it, then we must hope to attain truth by
averages as the scientists do, rather than by dogmatic edict.
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