But the narrator has other arguments to offer. Compare, he says, the following passage from Cervantes:

. . . truth, whose mother is history, rival of time,
depository of deeds, witness of the past, exemplar and
adviser to the present, and the future's counselor. . .

with this one from Menard:

. . . truth, whose mother is history, rival of time,
depository of deeds, witness of the past, exemplar and
adviser to the present, and the future's counselor. . . .

Since Cervantes wrote in the 17th century, his passage is "mere rhetorical praise of history." The passage from Menard, on the other hand, originating in the 20th century as it did, is "astounding." Menard takes history to be the mother of truth, not "an inquiry into [truth's] origin. Historical truth, for him, is not what has happened; it is what we judge to have happened. The final phrases—exemplar and advisor to the present, and the...