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But history deals with general rather than particular facts 
— with results rather than details — and from the nature and 
necessity of the case must be content with looser modes of 
proof than is necessary or expedient in judicial trials. All 
that we are entitled to ask from her is such an amount of 
evidence for the truth of the facts which she records as would 
satisfy the understanding of a reasonable man in the ordinary 
affairs of life. Every day we act upon evidence which, if 
offered in a court of justice, would be rejected. Too often we 
act upon very slight and insufficient evidence, especially in 
cases affecting the character of others; but in so far as we do 
this we act wrongly; and in the same manner we act wrongly 
when we accept as true the mere statement of a historian on 
any question where truth is of importance, when we have it in 
our power to examine his authorities and judge of their value 
for ourselves. 
It is part of the constitution of human nature to confide 
in the veracity of others. If this were not so, a man’s belief 
would be limited to matters within his own personal experience, 
and no progress could be made in knowledge, nor would 
improvement be possible. There is a tacit assumption, when 
we yield to the force of oral evidence, of what I may call 
the major premiss of our syllogism, viz., that men will generally 
speak the truth. Experience teaches us, if indeed it is not 
an intuitive impulse, to put faith in human testimony. 
How beautiful is the trusting simplicity of childhood, and 
the absolute reliance which a child places in the word of 
its parents. But as we grow older this confidence is shaken, 
and experience compels us to acquiesce in the truth of the 
melancholy maxim of Lord Chatham, that “ confidence is a 
plant of slow growth in an aged bosom.” That stern monitor 
experience tells us that it by no means follows that because we 
have contemporary testimony to a fact the fact is true. Wit- 
nesses are often mistaken, and their evidence is not unfrequently 
false. We must, therefore, so far as is possible, apply certain 
rules by which to test the probability of its truth. I have 
already alluded to one test of probability, and that is the 
agreement of the fact with other facts known or admitted to be 
true. Another test is the concurrence of the testimony of 
independent witnesses, always supposing that each of them has 
had the means of knowing the fact or facts to be ascertained. 
Of course I exclude all copying from the same original, and 
this, perhaps, is implied in the word independent. As Arch- 
bishop Whately has observed, “For though in such a case 
each of the witnesses should be considered as unworthy of 
credit, and even much more likely to speak falsehood than 
