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II
The likening of bibliography to science is understandable viewed in the context of English studies as a whole. The extent to which one can make objective literary critical pronouncements is limited and a technique that attempts to demonstrate something, however modest, which can be checked and agreed against tangible evidence, must seem not unlike a scientific demonstration to those unaccustomed to science and perhaps a trifle envious of it. This, of course, does not make bibliography scientific and a responsible editor (and a responsible reader) will bear in mind Fredson Bowers's words in Textual and Literary Criticism:
Nevertheless, as Bowers's quotation suggests, there is advanced by bibliographers a claim to operate a scientific method and there is no doubt that some bibliographers have deceived themselves into imagining that what they do is scientific. Editors can easily imagine that bibliography is a scientific tool. The desire for objectivity, the attempt to put back the moment of conjecture, the awesome achievements of science, have all contributed to this assumption. It would be surprising if bibliographers could entirely escape the influence of what is, in P. B. Medawar's words, "an immensely prosperous and successful enterprise."[6] And to those seeking objectivity, the scientific method — a scientific method — must have seemed the way ahead.
It is, therefore, not difficult for James Thorpe to select seemingly definitive statements by the most distinguished textual critics — Housman, Greg, Bowers — which bluntly state that textual criticism (or bibliography) is a science.[7] La 'Pataphysique est la science. . . .
But Thorpe's selection of quotations do less than justice to their authors. He himself indicates, in a passage included in a note (a device he justifies by explaining somewhat ingenuously that the passage originally appeared in one of Greg's footnotes: but when Greg made his comment it was a genuine aside, whereas it is central to Thorpe's argument) that by 1950 Greg had modified his claim made in 1932 for "the science of the transmission of literary documents" to the point that
The most striking discrepancy between utterance and quotation is to be found in the use made of Housman. Thorpe writes:
Rather than quote selectively in order to support such an argument, it might have been more profitable to have considered why scholars of no mean distinction should have presented this apparent paradox. Might not Housman, a textual critic and creative writer of considerable
Earlier I quoted P. B. Medawar. I should now like to continue that quotation:
It is not difficult to find in the writings of as distinguished a scientist as P. B. Medawar a description of the scientist which, in its generalized form, applies with equal validity to the textual critic:
But Medawar also presents the contrary case. In his introductory essay to the whole collection of essays, The Art of the Soluble, he quotes from Arthur Koestler's The Act of Creation, which he had reviewed:
McKenzie is of course right to protest at the use of unexamined evidence. But, and it is a very significant 'but,' if science is concerned with the soluble, and the hypothetico-deductive method is its Method (even if, as Medawar correctly puts it, "rightness" that lies beyond the possibility of future criticism cannot be achieved by any scientific theory'[13]) is this applicable to textual criticism? Is textual criticism only concerned with the soluble in the sense that Bernard and Medawar imply? I think not. Kuhn states that "with scientific observation . . . the scientist can have no recourse above or beyond what he sees with his eyes and his instruments" (p. 113); can the textual critic be so limited? Must he not, by the very nature of his subject, venture beyond what is before his eyes? Can the relationship of the texts of Hamlet be verified by experience? Can the lost manuscripts that underlie those we have of the Oresteia or of the Epistles of St. Paul be restored and tested in a way that is scientifically acceptable? The answer must be 'No.' But the non-scientific nature of the problem is even more striking in those cases where we may have most, or even all, the texts. Can we scientifically demonstrate an edition of The Prelude — an ideal text of the kind, say, proposed by De Sélincourt?[14] Will hypothetico-deductive reasoning and tests for falsification produce a text for Murder in the Cathedral, complicated as it is by conflicting authorial versions?[15] Will we not in these cases have to go beyond what we can see with eyes and instruments? Contradictory occurrences are so prolific in these texts that the temptation to turn to enumerative bibliography is very strong.[16]
But is not the temptation to run away based on a misunderstanding of the nature of bibliographic studies? Scientific research may be based solely on the art of the soluble but it should be obvious that bibliography poses problems that are not soluble in the Bernard-Medawar sense. It is not inferior because of that: but it is different. McKenzie seems to be implying that although bibliography is not a science, a specific scientific method — the hypothetico-deductive method — is essential to bibliographic studies and, where it cannot be applied, these studies should not be pursued. (There is here, I think, a discrepancy between his opening in which, among other things, he seems to accept Bald's conclusion that bibliography cannot claim the same validity as is appropriate to the exact sciences (pp. 2-3) and the tenor and conclusion of most of what follows.) Furthermore, McKenzie, in his advocacy of the hypothetico-deductive method seems under the impression that there is a scientific method, and that this is it and, indeed that science itself is all of one kind. Medawar has argued, far more authoritatively than can I, how erroneous it is to imagine that there is any such thing as a Scientific Method.
Pointing out the manifold errors of our colleagues, salutary though it is for them, does not, of itself, demonstrate the efficacy of the hypothetico-deductive method. McKenzie's strictures point to no more than the invalidity of specific arguments and they have less to do with general principles than he, or those such as the reviewer of his paper in the T.L.S., 22nd May 1969, imagine. Perhaps I might take an editorial
The problem concerns the notes to be played by the timpani in two places in Bizet's Symphony in C. I refer to the Edition Eulenburg, edited by Hans-Hubert Schönzeler; it is undated but the Editorial Comment is signed from London, June 1961. The text is in English and German and I refer only to the former.
The editor makes what to most contemporary textual critics will seem a curious statement about his editorial procedure:
Later in the Editorial Comment the editor refers to the special problem posed by the timpani part. Choudens and Philharmonia vary widely from the autograph and the editor has "as in all other respects," considered the autograph as final.
Two bars before figure five they are certainly given D to play in the Edition Eulenburg. As the cellos, basses, and horns are all playing concert D, it is possible that, if the timpani is to play, it should be D, in which case there is no mistake — though retuning would be necessary. But it could be we have here our old friend, "attraction to a word or letter previously copied."[16a] However, at the fourth and fifth bars after figure six, where in the autograph the "notes unmistakably are D," we find that the timpanist is given C to play (as in the second and third bars). Here also the cellos, basses and horns play concert D for all four bars and it could be that a discord is intended — and is required before figure five also.
Clearly the editor has not done what he said he would do (even if that is what he should have done). Obviously D should not appear in one of these places and C at another — but which note ought the timpani to be playing, D or C? Will the hypothetico-deductive method help? I doubt it. If one hypothesises C it can be argued that the autograph clearly has D, and that is certainly "one contradictory occurrence;" if one hypothesises D, one can argue that the part is clearly marked in C and G and there is no indication "muta in D."[17] If one hypothesised that the notes should not be played at all, apart from the fact that notes are written down, one would have to explain the appearance of notes in the second and third bars after figure six. (From five onwards there is a reduction from ff to f which might account for the cessation of the timpani at the sixth bar). Both notes played simultaneously is possible but extremely unlikely — and that, too, would require retuning. A variety of hypotheses can be advanced but, even though we have a holograph, none can be 'proved true.' Now this is not to suggest that the hypothetico-deductive method is without its uses here. It can help us to discriminate between hypotheses, but it cannot itself provide an answer.
It may be that the deliberately heavy weather I have made of this little crux will illustrate the limitations of the application to humanistic problems of a technique appropriate to science or logic. Demonstrating Schönzeler's error (as McKenzie has done for many of our colleagues) will not itself solve the crux. Suggesting that the hypothetico-deductive
In practice editors, or those acting in that capacity, have to provide answers even if evidence is insufficient or contradictory. Thus, to remain in the sphere of music, Ansermet, Karajan, and Munch include the trumpet fanfares which Debussy omitted from the second edition of La Mer because he was hurt by the suggestion that they were reminiscent of those in Puccini's Manon Lescaut. Some conductors, including Toscanini and Bernstein, follow the second edition. Which approach is truer to the music? If one adopts the composer's second thoughts as being, after all, his final (even if mistaken) decision, how will one be placed in presenting Bruckner's Second Symphony at the point the composer substituted a clarinet for a horn solo, though there is no doubt the horn is much more effective — especially if it is correct that the substitution was only made because at the rehearsal for the first performance the horn player could not manage his solo? It is not responsible, if one cannot 'prove' a solution in such cases, to turn to enumerative bibliography. That will hardly serve the best interests of the music — which is surely its performance.
It is sometimes argued that if an editor provides all the evidence, as the editors of the Ohio Browning set out to do, the reader can be left to make decisions for himself. It does not matter greatly, it can be argued, which text is given 'above the line' provided that, below it, a full register of variants is supplied. Quite apart from the effect that differences of typography between main text and notes have on the reader, the invalidity of this argument is at once apparent if performance is involved. One cannot perform simultaneously several variant readings of music or a play without doing serious damage to the author's creation. (A note omitted in one version and replaced by a rest but included in another version would present a particularly intriguing problem in such simultaneous performance!) The duty of an editor can surely not be less than that of a conductor or a producer and he ought to be in a much better position to make a judgement.
If the hypothetico-deductive approach cannot solve this little crux in Bizet, how will it resolve the problems posed by Piers Plowman, or Hamlet, or even Murder in the Cathedral, where we have all the evidence? The short answer is that it cannot be more than a useful tool which may help us avoid the avoidable. Thus, in practice, one often has to choose between various courses, none wholly satisfactory, and
I am not implying a weakness in the hypothetico-deductive method but simply pointing to its relative inadequacy in dealing with the insoluble — that is in a field for which it is not designed. Thomas Kuhn, however, does argue that the hypothetico-deductive method is limited in use in scientific research itself. He concludes that "If any and every failure to fit were ground for theory rejection, all theories ought to be rejected at all times." It is the very "incompleteness and imperfection of the existing data-theory fit that, at any time, define many of the puzzles that characterize normal science." If only
The best procedure, as I see it, in the practical dealing with texts, is a combination of probabilistic theory and falsification tests, endeavouring, where the hard evidence permits, to ensuring that this is subjected to a process of rigorous logic and being fully conscious of the moment when one is departing from the demonstrable and falsifiable, and into the realm of the subjective and unverifiable.
One cannot, as a bibliographer, avoid sharing a certain fellow feeling with Bishop Butler when he says in the Introduction to The Analogy of Religion (1736), "but to us, probability is the very guide of life." If this seems inappropriate — perhaps even immoral — in so scientific an age, it might be worth noting that this is a position akin to that adopted by the great physicist Werner Heisenberg, the author of "The Principle of Uncertainty:"
That describes, for me, exactly the position in which a bibliographer and an editor is likely to find himself. It does not mean logic can be disregarded; it does not licence woolliness; but it does recognize the realities of bibliography and editing in a way which, with all respect to Dr. McKenzie's learning, I think he fails to do.
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