ABSTRACT
Historical criticism may illuminate or illustrate the choice; but judgment of its correctness lies in another realm, properly that of metaphysics. Criticism is the lifeblood of science, of literature, and of thought itself. The scholar, writer, thinker-an individual-launches ideas into a void, but lacks the means to estimate the accuracy of their course. An act of criticism calls upon the same mental processes as an act of creation. Properly to judge a work is to recapitulate, although not necessarily to repeat the steps in making it. The same pitfalls lie in the path of the unwary critic and the unwary creator. Every type of determinism blunts the edge of historical criticism. Rhetoric, the evidence most frequently used by historians, is the most difficult to assess. Mayor Bill Thompson and his followers refused categorically to accept the degradation of the heroes of American history.
