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The fourth sign of a partial disposition in writing of
history I take to be this: When a matter is related in two
or more several manners, and the historian shall embrace
the worst. Sophisters indeed are permitted, for the obtaining either of profit or reputation, to undertake the defence
of the worst cause; for they neither create any firm belief
of the matter, nor yet do they deny that they are often
pleased in maintaining paradoxes and making incredible
things appear probable. But an historian is then just,
when he asserts such things as he knows to be true, and
of those that are uncertain reports rather the better than
the worse. Nay, there are many writers who wholly omit
the worse. Thus Ephorus writes of Themistocles, that he
was acquainted with the treason of Pausanias and his
negotiations with the King's lieutenants, but that he neither
consented to it, nor hearkened to Pausanias's proffers of
making him partaker of his hopes; and Thucydides left
the whole matter out of his story, as judging it to be
false.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 4.
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