136 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
Il. THE HARMONIZATION OF DISCREPANCY. 
If it be assumed in Cases 1, 2 and 3 that the discrepant statements 
are recorded without mention of the attendant circumstances, a reason- 
able harmonization in Case 2 will seem impossible. In Case 1 the most 
reasonable harmonization will be that the farmer and the drover bought 
the farm jointly at the auction, and in Case 3 that the discrepant reports 
of B and D concerning the location of the men and women sprang from 
the circumstance that B sat in a part of the church from which the 
exceptions noted by D were not visible. In both these cases the 
harmonizations are contrary to the facts as existing in the actual cir- 
cumstances. 
In order that the reader, if he so wish, may test for himself the 
value of reasonable harmonization, the discrepancy in the remaining 
cases will first be stated in succession without mention of the attendant 
circumstances. Subsequently the discrepancy in each case will be 
repeated along with the attendant circumstances, and the author will 
insert at that point his own attempt at harmonization. The reader, 
by thus postponing his acquaintance with the circumstances, will be 
enabled to attempt his harmonization in a state of actual ignorance 
which the author, being acquainted with the circumstances, could in 
his case only assume theoretically for the purpose of the test. 
The reader, if he enters upon this test, should remember that in 
attempts at reasonable harmonization alternative suggestions are 
inadmissible unless the alternative harmonizations suggested are not 
only reasonable but also equally probable. In reasonable harmoniza- 
tion as practised by many historians with the sanction of books of 
historical method, the most probable harmonization is accepted to the 
exclusion of such as are less probable, though these also may be reasona- 
ble. The same principle accordingly must prevail in the test. The 
effect of the principle may be illustrated by the following case in which, 
for the sake of the illustration, the attendant circumstances will also be 
immediately included with the discrepancy. 
CASE 4. 
The Discrepancy.—B stated that he paid for his villa $4,000, and a 
year later he stated that it cost him $6,000. 
