OPINION AND PROBABILITY 267 



Or, again : 



&quot; Murderers flee from the scene of the crime ; 

 &quot;A. B. flees from the scene of the crime ; 

 &quot; Therefore A. B. may be the murderer ; &quot; l 



where flight is regarded as a sign of guilt. This by itself is 

 a very weak argument; but it may help to form a &quot;coil&quot; of 

 circumstantial evidence. For example, suppose that A. B. s house 

 is searched, and that his clothes are found to be bloodstained, we 

 may add this item to the evidence : 



&quot; The murderer s clothes must have been bloodstained in the 



struggle of which there are unmistakable evidences ; 

 &quot; A. B. s clothes are bloodstained ; 

 &quot; Therefore A. B. is probably the murderer.&quot; 



Suppose, further, that we can argue thus : 



&quot; The murderer s boots made these fresh foot-marks ; 

 &quot;A. B. s boots fit exactly into these foot-marks ; 

 &quot; Therefore A. B. is probably the murderer.&quot; 



Those three &quot;circumstances&quot; together have considerable weight. 

 Now suppose there is observed something very singular about the 

 foot-marks some altogether peculiar arrangement of the nail- 

 marks, for example, and that the nails of A. B. s boots are found 

 to reproduce exactly this arrangement : we at once feel the enor 

 mous force of such a circumstance. We conclude that A. B. s 

 boots were worn by the murderer, for no other boots could, in the 

 circumstances, have produced the foot-marks in question : 



&quot; The boots worn by the murderer produced these foot-marks ; 

 &quot; The boots that produced these foot-marks are A. B. s boots ; 

 &quot;Therefore the boots worn by the murderer were A. B. s 

 boots.&quot; 



And A.B. alone was seen to flee from the scene of the crime ; 

 and his clothes are blood-stained. Such is a simple example of 

 circumstantial evidence. 



It is clear that all arguments from analogy and example fall 

 into the form of enthymemes in the second figure (234). 



Where a particular fact is alleged as a sign or indication of the 

 truth of some general principle the enthymeme falls naturally into 

 the third figure. For example : 



1 MELLONE, op. cit., p. 258. 



