164 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
for the incidental discrepancy, especially in unrecorded conversation, 
to disappear and to be lost in the surrounding harmorty. 
A further hindrance to the easy discovery of such discrepancy is 
its location. It has been shown that the bulk of legitimate discrepancy, 
where it occurs, lies not between statements made by the same persons, 
but between statements made by different persons. In this wider area 
of statements made by different persons, the chances of discovery, by 
reason of the mere inability to cover the field, are remote in any event, 
and apart from search, there are practically none. Conflicting state- 
ments made by the same persons form a less extensive, but more fruitful, 
field of discovery. Especially may the searcher, by careful observation 
and comparison of his own statements, detect in them instances in 
which later and earlier utterances conflict for legitimate and necessary 
reasons. 
In the particular field of one’s own statements, the chief hindrance 
to successful search is a too familiar acquaintance with the circumstances 
from which the discrepancies spring. In the remarks upon the category 
of Whole and Part, or Rule and Exception,' it has been shown how every 
exception to a general statement involves the elements of a discrepancy, 
which, however, is not recognized as such, because the exception is 
expressly made in connection with the general statement, and con- 
sequently the circumstances of the discrepancy are quite clear. The 
same feature prevails in a less marked degree with all the discrepancies 
of all the categories. Perfect familiarity with the attendant circum- 
stances robs the discrepancy of its discrepant appearance, and tends to 
create in the searcher a remarkable degree of obliviousness to the 
contradiction. Even such a notable case as the statements that a 
person is a Lutheran and a Presbyterian at the same time (involved 
in Case 22) may be overlooked for twelve months by a searcher, if he 
himself made the statements and consequently had full knowledge of 
the circumstances of the resulting discrepancy. 
The same hindrance of a too familiar acquaintance with the at- 
tendant circumstances militates also, in a lesser degree, against the 
discovery of legitimate discrepancy in statements made by different 
persons, if, as in the case of trustworthy witnesses in courts, such 
persons make the conflicting statements in each other’s presence. If 
the discrepancy be legitimate, the circumstances which make it so are 
ordinarily so clear that the discrepant nature of the conflicting utter- 
ances is not even recognized by the hearer. On the contrary, if the 
discrepancy is due to an unintentional error in either witness and is 
