136 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
in five general groups which for convenient identification are designated 
in the ensuing discussion as the five requisites for trustworthiness. 
At the opening of the fourth section it is shown that the five 
processes corresponding to these five requisites, 1.e., the processes by 
which these requisites are exemplified in verbal or written statements, 
are in point of fact correct processes in the scientific sense: they are 
processes that rightly followed lead necessarily to correct results. The 
remainder and bulk of Section IV is devoted to a discussion of four 
principles, called for convenient identification the applicative principles 
because they deal with the results and conclusions that necessarily 
follow from the exemplification or application of these five requisites 
and the corresponding five processes in historical records. With respect 
to these results and conclusions which are concisely stated in the 
definition of these principles in the table of contents and more fully 
discussed in Section IV, it is of interest to notice that the attitude toward 
trustworthy individuals in actual intercourse and experience, as found 
in the test described in Section III, is invariably identical with the 
requirements deduced from the fundamental principles of science. This 
agreement is satisfactory. It should not, however, occasion surprise. 
On the contrary it would be strange if this were not so; for these funda- 
mental principles are themselves necessary deductions from common and 
universal experience, and therefore disagreement could arise here only if 
experience can belie itself. 
In the use of the word “fundamental” in the title of this paper and 
as part of the designation of the four general requirements or principles 
of science, no reflection is intended on the relative importance either of 
other processes in historical science or of other principles of science in 
general. In scientific treatment of a record found in proper custody, 
the historian indeed must determine first of all whether the record is 
essentially trustworthy, and processes that relate to this primary and 
important decision may be termed not improperly fundamental. More- 
over those requirements or principles of science which apply to the 
sciences in general may also be reasonably called fundamental. The 
term, however, is used only as a convenience, not with a view to 
comparison. 
To Professor Buchholz, the author’s instructor in historical method, 
an acknowledgment of indebtedness similar to that made in the paper on 
discrepancy printed in the Society’s transactions for 1911 ought to be 
repeated here. The essential distinction drawn in Section I of the 
present paper is taken bodily, so far as the author is concerned, from 
his teacher’s instruction. That distinction lies at the base of all the 
ensuing argument; and in this respect as well as in respect of the 
question ultimately at issue in the argument itself, the author’s debt 
