APPLIED TO HISTORY 245 



can be got. This result, perhaps, seems painfully obvious, 

 but I would urge that it is also rather startling. For it 

 means that when we really believe a historical statement 

 we yield credence to the character of some man whom 

 we have never personally known ; and that things being 

 as they are, no historical statement can be so completely 

 proved beyond all possibility of cavil as to dispense us 

 from the necessity of this act of confidence in human 

 testimony. But I should go further than this. When 

 we come to think of it, it is the few rather than the many 

 among historical statements which permit of verification. 

 Some have entered so largely into the fabric of history 

 that the chances of their being false are comparatively 

 slight. For instance, the fact of the murder of Julius 

 Caesar is as nearly indisputable as a fact can be, because 

 of the variety of ways in which it is involved in history, 

 and its connexion with the whole plan of things as we 

 understand it. But the statement that he died on the 

 Ides of March, or by so many wounds, must be accepted, 

 if at all, on the strength of the main fact and the generally 

 excellent character of our authorities on the subject. No 

 doubt all these details have their link with the main fact, 

 and, if we knew all, might be seen to have been inevit- 

 able. But all their links with the general order of things 

 are gone. We can never be said to have proof of them. 

 To us they do not matter. We may believe them on the 

 strength of the character of those who report them, or we 

 may adopt towards them the attitude of easy acquiescence 

 which we adopt towards so much of contemporary 

 history. 



I have laid emphasis upon the element of acceptance 

 of human testimony in my exposition, because this seems 

 to me the distinctive mark of our relation to historical as 

 opposed to other evidence. And I would call attention 



