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ME. CEOOKES’ NEW PSYCHIC FOECE. 
By J. P. EARWAKEE, Merton College, Oxford. 
“QEEINGr is believing ” is an old and much-quoted adage 
O which is by many people so firmly believed in, that with 
them it quite partakes of the nature of a truism. To suggest 
for one moment the possibility of their being either partially 
or entirely mistaken, is to call in question their veracity, their 
powers of observation, and, in fact, their whole moral integrity, 
and is usually met, not by convincing arguments, but by in- 
dignant reiteration. To question the accuracy of their state- 
ments is considered in the light of a personal insult* and for 
anyone to cross-examine their narrations, however strange 
these may appear, is to them unbearable. But just as it is the 
firmest of all legal maxims, that no story can by any possi- 
bility be true which cannot stand the test of cross-examination, 
so it should be the test of all narrations, especially those of an 
extraordinary character, that they in their turn should stand 
the most rigid and searching cross-examination to which they 
can possibly be subjected. 
Few ordinary readers of newspapers can have failed to notice 
how the first published accounts of any special or marked 
crime are so plausible, and apparently so convincing, that each 
reader feels there can be no doubt at all as to the guilt of the 
person accused. They have no means of knowing how far the 
plausible statements they read bring certain facts into undue 
prominence, and cast others equally important, but antago- 
nistic, into the shade ; but notwithstanding all this, they con- 
stitute themselves arbitrary judges on the first evidence that 
is thrust into their hands. When, however, the case is legally 
tried, and by cross-examination the evidence is thoroughly 
sifted, how different the case looks, what an innocent person 
the unfortunate accused is, what miseries he must have suf- 
fered, what imbeciles the police are, and so on, ad infinitum . 
The human mind is the same all the world over, at all times 
and in all ages — grossly credulous, most easily convinced, 
