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matters in the paper. But I come to some things of great importance which 
have been stated with considerable clearness. As confirmatory .of such 
statements as may constitute the body of a particular author, Mr. Forsyth has 
said that the consistent and concurrent testimony of independent witnesses 
adds very much to the claim of such testimony upon our belief ; and X would 
add to this unquestionably correct, canon, that if it is known that 
those witnesses are not only independent, but of an opposite bias, 
there is much greater reason for giving credit to their statements. For 
example, if we should discover some statement with respect to a 
matter of fact made both in the Standard and in the Daily News, the fact 
being one in regard to which they had some inducement to take an opposite 
view, nothing could be more conclusive than that such evidence related to 
an absolute fact. Another thing mentioned is the recognition of such 
statements in contemporary authors, besides those who have actually advanced 
or expressly made them. The allusion of a contemporary author to a state- 
ment as embodying a fact, is a very great confirmation of that fact, upon 
whosesoever authority it was originally made ; and sometimes the more delicate 
and indirect the allusion, the greater is the evidence it affords of the 
historical truth of the statement. These are the primary and essential 
grounds of historical truth — conditions which our intellect and reason must 
demand as the grounds of belief in any statement with respect to the past. 
My only complaint with regard to the paper is, that it does not distinguish, 
with sufficient clearness, between the primary evidences and those 
which are indirect and secondary. Reference has been made, with 
great propriety, to the truth - likeness of a statement ; its con- 
sistency with general experience, and with known and admitted facts, 
whether ascertained by our own experience, or sifted and tested and esta- 
blished by others. Then, the moral tone of the authors ; the consistency of 
the statements with the characters of the persons by whom they were made ; 
and the apparent motive with which they were made : these things, taken 
together, constitute a very formidable body of internal evidence, which, in 
the absence of external evidence, have almost conclusive weight in the mind 
of any intelligent inquirer. That of which I complain in the paper is that it 
has not, with sufficient precision and definiteness, and not in sufficiently logical 
order, stated these canons of historical credibility, if I may so call them, and 
thus put the matter before us in a way which we could remember, so as 
to be able afterwards to make proper use of the conclusions to which the 
arguments of the paper really lead. One word with regard to the question 
of the last speaker, as to the use of historical conjecture. It seems to me 
that the past and present make, in combination, wbat you may call historical 
phenomena, — facts about which the mind is naturally curious and desirous of 
explanation. Now, according to my view, it is just as legitimate for the 
student of history to form a theory by which these phenomena or facts may 
be accounted for, as it is for the student of natural science to form a theory 
which accounts for the phenomena of nature. Such theories are called pro- 
visional, or working theories, and, as such, they are of great value ; and, if we 
