Kitap 12
12
For example, in the case of a carpenter’s rule, though it may be too short or too narrow for your purpose, yet if it have the essential feature of a rule, that of straightness, you may still call it a rule; but if it has not this quality, and deviates from the straight line, you may call it anything you like except a rule. On the same principle, says he, historical writings may fail in style or treatment or other details; yet if they hold fast to truth, such books may claim the title of history, but if they swerve from that, they ought no longer to be called history. Well, I quite agree that in such writings truth should be the first consideration: and, in fact, somewhere in the course of my work I have said that as in a living body, when the eyes are out, the whole is rendered useless, so if you take truth from history what is left is but an idle tale. See 1, 14. I said again, however, that there were two sorts of falsehoods, the ignorant and the intentional; and the former deserved indulgence, the latter uncompromising severity. . . . These points being agreed upon—the wide difference between the ignorant and intentional lie, and the kindly correction due to the one and the unbending denunciation to the other—it will be found that it is to the latter charge that Timaeus more than any one lays himself open. And the proof of his character in this respect is clear. . . .
