I certainly do not deny that, if the books of the ancients who wrote
about the art of painting still lay before our eyes, my design might be
open to the false interpretation that I thought to find out something
better than what was known unto them. These books, however, have been
totally lost in the lapse of time; so I cannot be justly blamed for
publishing my opinions and discoveries in writing, for that is exactly
what the ancients did. If other competent men are thereby induced to do
the like, our descendants have something which they may add to and
improve upon, and thus the art of painting may in time advance and reach
its perfection.


II

Whether we should exercise our intellects or logical sense alone upon
the records and remains of past ages, or whether they may not be better
employed for the exercise and edification of the imaginative faculties,
would seem to be a question which, though they did not perhaps in set
terms put to themselves, modern historians have very summarily answered;
and I think answered wrongly. The records of the past, the records even
of yesterday, are necessarily extremely incomplete; to make them at all
significant something must be added by the historian. The 'perception'
of probability is never exact; it varies with the mind between man and
man; in the same man even before and after different experiences, &c.
But even if the perception of the highest probability were practically
exact, it would never suffice; for, as Aristotle says, "it is probable
that many things should happen contrary to probability." From these
facts it follows that the man who has the most exhaustive knowledge of
what has actually survived, and what has been recorded, will not
necessarily form the truest judgment on a question of history; it might