254 THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC 



Criteria of human testimony. By testimony (testimonium) 

 we mean the sensible or visible manifestation oral, written, or 

 otherwise of one s knowledge to others. If the knowledge com 

 municated be doctrinal or scientific, its communication constitutes 

 what is called the teaching office (&quot; magisterium &quot;), and the com 

 municator is called a teacher or master (&quot; doctor 1 or &quot; magister&quot;} ; 

 if it is knowledge of fact, its communication may be called 

 narration (&quot; narratio &quot;), and he who communicates it a witness or 

 narrator (&quot; testis,&quot; &quot; narrator&quot;}. 



The authority (&quot; auctoritas &quot;) of the person or persons com 

 municating the knowledge, is, of course, the value of their 

 testimony as a motive for assenting to what they teach or narrate. 

 The firmness of our intellectual assent or belief should be in 

 proportion to the ascertained value of the testimony ; if it is in 

 excess of this, it is not belief but credulity. Our assent may, there 

 fore, vary from mere opinion or probability in some cases, or 

 practical certitude in others, to strict moral certitude, which latter 

 may sometimes be as firm in its own order as physical or meta 

 physical certitude in theirs. 



Quite a number of the practical rules laid down for testing 

 the knowledge and truthfulness of the source of our information 

 are obvious dictates of plain common sense. For example, in 

 regard to the knowledge possessed by our witnesses or narrators, 

 (a) we prefer, ceteris paribus, the testimony of an eye-witness to 

 that of one who testifies on hearsay ; (fr) that of a contemporary 

 (with the facts) to that of a subsequent writer, (c) that of a 

 number of independent (or, better still, mutually hostile) 

 witnesses, to that of interdependent or co-operating witnesses in 

 fluenced by the same point of view. Furthermore, we must (d) 

 ascertain from every available source, and take into account, 

 the attitude of the narrator in regard to the events narrated, and 

 everything that bears upon his powers of observation : whether 

 he ia prudent and painstaking, or credulous, or imaginative ; 

 whether he is influenced by unconscious prejudice or attachment 

 to a special &quot; point of view,&quot; or by an apologetic purpose. It 

 is extremely important, if extremely difficult, to distinguish 

 between the facts narrated and the personal views, or theories, or 



published) ; IDEM, Hagiography (art. in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VII.) ; 

 KIRSCH, History (ibid, with authorities there referred to) ; CAUCHIE, Introduction a 

 Vhistoire ecclesiastique (Louvain) ; O MAHONY, The Alleged Epoch in Historical 

 Criticism at the Close of the Seventeenth Century, in the Record of the Maynooth 

 Union, 1911. 



