576 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



in fact, is that recorded utterances are more stable than the verbal; 

 they may be studied with more accuracy; and their trustworthiness or 

 untrustworthiness may be determined more definitely according to 

 their exemplification or non-exemplication of the 5 requisites in general 

 and all proper amplifications of these in detail. And just as the verbal 

 statements of a person adjudged trustworthy in actual intercourse 

 are accepted as a basis of action, except where we have contrary 

 grounds, so the statements of records, in so far as the records as a 

 whole, or in specific parts, or in specific statements, are adjudged trust- 

 worthy, ought to be accepted by the historian for the purposes of his 

 own narrative unless he has contrary grounds. The former practice 

 results universally in essentially correct results in actual intercourse, 

 and the corresponding practice will result with equal universality 

 in essentially correct results in historical research and narration. 

 This is the only scientific test of trustworthiness in men and in 

 records, and in its application no line can be drawn scientifically 

 between contemporary and later records. The contemporary 

 historian must judge wherein his fellow men and available contem- 

 porary records exemplify the requisites; the later historian 

 must judge wherein earlier records exemplify the requisites. The 

 tasks are essentially the same; and if the later historian's com- 

 pleted narration itself exemplifies the requisites, we have no more right 

 to believe that he would depend on earlier records without the corre- 

 sponding requisites, than would a contemporary historian on contem- 

 poraries or available contemporary records without these requisites, 

 or than would a trustworthy man depend on an untrustworthy in 

 actual intercourse. This ought not be taken as true of an uncritical 

 compiler of bare annals, who seizes upon notices here and there as he 

 may accidentally find them in earlier annals, and especially where 

 he seizes upon such merely to add a sort of ornamental introduction 

 to a fuller, independent, chronicle of his own time; but an historical 

 narrative of genuine merit, and with a good perspective, covering an 

 extended period of time or an important group of earlier events, is one 

 of the supreme tests of intellectual capacity and literary acumen. A 

 work of this rank, if it exemplifies itself the requisites of trustworthi- 

 ness, establishes the author's ability, though he be anonymous and un- 

 known, to judge trustworthily of the earlier records and documents 

 quite as well as a contemporary historian can judge trustworthily of 

 contemporaries and contemporary documents; and this is equally 

 true whether the work be the product of ancient or of modern times. 



IV. Is a trustworthy record contradicted ? 



(1) If the contradiction be by an untrustworthy record, the state- 

 ment of the untrustworthy record is disregarded. 



