[BowMAN] FUNDAMENTAL PROCESSES IN HISTORICAL SCIENCE 157 
there may be a textual error,” or “This is probably a textual error.” 
Were it scientifically admissible to do this with any one statement, it 
would be admissible also, as above mentioned, to do it in succession with 
every single statement in the record, with the net result that the most 
trustworthy record preserved in an excellent text could be totally 
rejected on the strength of a few incidental, textual errors. Such a 
course is, however, scientifically inadmissible. Before a scholar dare 
discredit a statement in an essentially trustworthy record on the ground 
of textual errors, he must prove the actual existence of a textual error 
at that point, and its exact nature and extent. Until he is able to do 
this, he must sacrifice his hypothesis to the unwelcome statement, and 
not the statement to the hypothesis. 
ii. A RECORD EXEMPLIFYING IN ITS STATEMENTS THE REQUISITES 
FOR TRUSTWORTHINESS, IF IT BE THE SOLE RECORD OF THE 
EVENTS WHICH IT NARRATES, IS NOT TO BE THEREFORE IM- 
PUGNED, EITHER AS A WHOLE OR WITH RESPECT TO ANY 
SINGLE STATEMENT, ON THE PLEA THAT THERE ARE NO 
PARALLEL RECORDS TO CHECK OR CORROBORATE ITS STATE- 
MENTS. 
This principle depends on the following seven tests, any one of 
which should be conclusive :— 
1. In the experimental test described in Section III it is 
shown that, where an individual exemplifies in his statements 
the requisites for trustworthiness, his statements are accepted as 
correct save in those points, if any, in which they are disproven 
either by the actual knowledge of the person to whom the state- 
ments are made or by subsequent developments; 7.¢., corroboration 
is not necessary before the statements of such an individual are 
accepted as correct, but disproof is necessary before they are 
rejected as incorrect. If, therefore, a record exemplifies in its 
statements the requisites for trustworthiness, the example and 
practice found in actual intercourse and experience establish that 
corroboration is not necessary before the statements of such a 
record are accepted as correct, but on the contrary, disproof is 
necessary before they are rejected as incorrect. 
2. In the experimental test described in Section III it is 
shown that in actual intercourse where an individual exemplifies 
in his statements the requisites for trustworthiness, set investiga- 
tions are not instituted concerning any such individual in order 
to determine, by a systematic comparison of his statements with 
the statements of others, whether or not he isin point of fact, trust- 
