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lies underneath the story of the apple, and the rejection of the anecdote 
need not affect the historical fact. It is of great importance that we should 
put aside those parts of history which form merely the adornments of its 
earlier days. We know "that former ages were far less critical than the 
present, and that anecdotes then formed a considerable part of history. 
But we can dispense with many of these anecdotes without losing the 
substantial facts. I would, therefore, lay stress upon the difference between 
anecdote and history. Mr. Forsyth has introduced into his paper certain 
passages from Dr. Newman’s Grammar of Assent ; but, with regard to 
them, it seems to me that we ought to draw a distinction between 
assent to the statements of history and to propositions relating to natural 
phenomena ; the grounds, for instance, on which we believe that the sun 
will rise to-morrow, or on which we believe we shall die. I do not consider 
that such questions bear very much on the laws of evidence as appli- 
cable to the credibility of history, and I cannot but think that the intro- 
duction of these passages from Dr. Newman’s Grammar of Assent tends to 
confuse our apprehension of the laws of evidence with regard to history. 
These laws need to be clearly stated. The first ground of our belief in 
history must be, the evidence of contemporaries, as stated by Sir George 
Cornewall Lewis in a passage which Mr. Forsyth has quoted, — a forcible 
passage, no doubt, but making rather too much of an obvious truth. 
There is no great discovery in the fact that we must rely on contemporary 
information for our historical facts ; but if we say that we are to believe 
nothing but the evidence of contemporaries, we shall destroy history alto- 
gether. We must believe those things which, although not stated 
by contemporaries, are stated by persons who had information which 
can be traced up to contemporary sources. And then the question arises, 
what ground is there for believing that the historian in a particular case 
had the means of obtaining such information ? We believe, for 
instance, the statements of Hume in his History of England; for we 
know that he had many documentary sources of information, which he made 
use of. 
Mr. Forsyth. — Hume is full of errors. 
Dr. Ctjrrey. — I am not saying that I believe everything he said ; but I 
say that we accept his statements as historical because we know there were 
many documents open to him, which he carefully examined, and therefore, 
on the whole, he produced a true history, though he lived long after the 
times of which he wrote. Errors he may have made either from carelessness 
or prejudice. The critic may examine and discover these, but he does not 
reject the whole history because it was not written by- a contemporary. 
That is the method we pursue, I suppose, in any history. We first examine 
what were the sources of information which the historian had at his command. 
In modern history this is not very difficult, but in more remote times it is 
not always easy to ascertain what sources of information were open to an 
historian. There must have been many with which we are not acquainted, 
and which are not in our possession. This is clearly shown in the case of 
