deposes. And this leads me to consider the difference between 
historical and judicial evidence. The late Sir George Cornewall 
Lewis says in that most valuable and learned work, The 
Credibility of the Early Roman History (Preface, p. 16), 
“ Historical evidence, like judicial evidence, is founded on the 
testimony of credible witnesses. Unless those witnesses had 
personal and immediate perception of the facts which they 
report, unless they said and heard what they undertake to 
relate as having happened, their evidence is not entitled to 
credit. As all original witnesses must be contemporary with 
the events which they attest, it is a necessary condition for the 
credibility of a witness that he be a contemporary, though a 
contemporary is not necessarily a credible witness. Unless, 
therefore, a historical account can be traced by probable proof 
to the testimony of contemporaries, the first condition of 
credibility fails.” If, however, it is meant to be asserted that 
the same degree of certainty ought to be required in historical 
that is required in judicial evidence, it would be exacting too 
much, and carrying scepticism too far. In the first place, 
the thing is an impossibility, and the consequence would be, 
that we should be logically compelled to withhold our belief 
from nine-tenths of so-called historical facts about which we 
have really no doubt at all. But, secondly, the circumstances 
are wholly different. Judical inquiries relate to minute and 
special facts in dispute, where two parties are opposed to each 
other, and it is the duty and interest of both to adduce the best 
evidence of which the thing to be proved is susceptible. And 
in all civilized communities, their systems of jurisprudence lay 
down technical rules of evidence — in some countries much 
more strict than in others — which circumscribe the range of 
proofs. For instance, in France, hearsay evidence is always 
admitted; in England it is always excluded. In some parts of 
Germany a sort of arithmetical scale is applied to the testimony 
of witnesses. Different countries apply different rules of legal 
presumption, which are really not instruments of truth, but 
technical and positive modes of quieting controversy. But, to 
quote the w 7 ords of an eminent writer on the law of evidence, 
u However widely different codes may vary from each other 
in matters of arbitrary positive institution, and of mere artifi- 
cial creation, the general means of investigating the truth of 
contested facts must be common to all. Every rational system 
which provides the means of proof must be founded on expe- 
rience and reason, on a well-grounded knowledge of human 
nature and conduct, on a consideration of the value of testi- 
mony, and on the weight due to coincident circumstances.” — 
Starkie On the Law of Evidence (Preface). 
