Fallibility of
Evidence.

CHAPTER XXI

THE NATURE OF HISTORICAL EVIDENCE

IN the description and criticism of the various kinds of historical material it has been necessary continually to be drawing conclusions and passing judgment upon smaller groups of facts. The processes of historical reasoning have been applied to particular cases which must be combined later into the general narrative. Before proceeding to this combination it will be well to formulate conclusions as to the nature of the operation, and as to the relative value of historical materials.

First, as to the fallibility of evidence. In order to avoid the pitfalls which beset the path of the investigator it has been necessary to call attention to many sources of error and many malicious distortions of fact. If placed together these frailties make a long and painful list. Knowing well the natural weaknesses and fallibility of mankind under the best conditions, men are inclined at times to throw the whole thing overboard. There have always been those who declared history a pack of lies, or a "fable convenue," which a fond world upholds because entertaining, or because it bolsters up the pride of man and excuses existing institutions. Even the Psalmist said in his haste all men are liars, and never seemed to find leisure to take back the

statement. Indeed, it has been seriously maintained that all historians are miserable offenders and there is no health in them. Attempts have been made to explain this as an inevitable phenomenon due to natural reasons. Laplace contended that a fact by being transmitted several generations lost clearness in the same way that the vision is obscured by the interposition of successive plates of glass. This idea originated with an English mathematician named Craig who published a book in 1699, entitled Theologia Christianæ Principia Mathematica, in which he endeavored to prove that the world would come to an end when belief in Christianity ceased. He argued that with the passage of time the historical evidences of Christianity would become dimmer and dimmer, and finally when these were reduced to zero all earthly things would cease to be.1 An absurdity like this requires no answer. Even the general scepticism of the eighteenth century is no longer in vogue. The contentions of the present day do not throw doubt upon all history, but only upon particular statements, or the quarrel affects the value of the matter when proved, yet the mere recollection of Craig's theory gives opportunity to formulate our notions of the nature of the science with which we have to deal.

Science.

History, in the first place, is not an experimental, History a but a reasoning science only. All natural sciences Reasoning of course require the use of the reasoning faculties, but they are applied to different materials. When two chemicals are placed in a test-tube one may 1 1 G. C. Lewis. Method, Ch. 7, 15.

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observe them fume, unite, change color, and both lose their identity. The problem is to find the nature of the new substance thus formed, and the experiment may be repeated as often as it may be necessary to observe the law of change. Upon the historical page one does not find the action itself, but somebody's description of it. The event has taken place and cannot be repeated for observation, consequently the first problem is to find out what made your predecessor think he was stating the truth, or by what process he arrived at the given view of the events. This is done by reasoning from one point to another till you have arrived at his position and can see what relation the writer held to other known truths and probabilities. (The

whole aim of historical criticism is to find out what made the witness state the case as he did. It is not a mere matter of addition and subtraction, but a reasoning process dealing with psychological phenomena. Hence all this examination into the mental and moral character of the writer; how his mind has been prepared by heredity and education; 4what were the conditions of the moral atmosphere during his period, through which the image on his mind might be modified or distorted. It is a procedure by which a reflected image is traced back as near as possible to the first surface on which it was cast.

We seek for more than one reporter of an event, not to fortify our judgment by the presence of mere numbers of witnesses, but in order to see if the event made the same impression upon all as upon the one: If the same image appears in two or three

minds we have considerable assurance that there must have been an event of the kind to make an impression. In the case where equally competent witnesses give conflicting testimony it is again a psychological problem to find the reasoning of each. Conflicting reports may be simply two views of the same thing, and from the sum total of all the evidence we may obtain a composite picture of the persons or events described. If a picture is not visible, it is equally important to prove that no such event occurred.

Facts.

After all is said and done, we have assurance Established that there exists a body of certain information which we may call history. This confidence rests upon the reasoning powers with which man is endowed. A problem in logic once solved in the days of Aristotle is just as much solved today as it was then. A piece of good reasoning stands firm because to repeat it is to show it to be true. The human mind. is as capable as ever of adding two and two, and it is likely to remain so as long as the race exists. Consequently, when we examine the great body of matter which offers itself as history we find within it a long connected thread, or a framework, if you please, perhaps not altogether connected, which agrees with the laws of logic and common sense. As in other sciences, many details may in time be changed or pruned away, but a body of main facts will remain, and in the light of human reason it does not appear that these are to be lost.

This is not the place to give an outline of the Axioms. proved history of the world. That part which is

assured and that which is still uncertain should be revealed in the study of the authorities on the various periods. On the other hand one may contemplate with profit the kinds of argument which have led to the acceptance of historical facts. For Г example, there have been formulated certain postulates in historical criticism which may take rank as axioms. These are in part logical conclusions in psychology and in part the accumulated evidence of observation in the moral history of the race. These axioms do not form a connected system, but are more or less isolated truths upon which others may be based. All of them have been touched upon in one way or another in the preceding pages, but it may serve a useful purpose to mass them in a single fundamental group.1

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The first axiom is so well hedged about with conditions that the logic of it cannot well be escaped, yet evidence is continually presented which fulfills the stipulated requirements.

1. When two or more contemporary witnesses independently of each other report the same event with numerous similar details, which details do not stand in any necessary or common relationship to the event, but have only an accidental connection with it, then the reports which thus agree, in so far as they do agree, must be true, provided the facts, together with the aforesaid details, are so clear that no misunderstanding is possible.

2. Every people gives to its dwelling places, its

'Rhomberg, Die Erhebung der Geschichte zum Rang einer Wissenschaft, p. 21 et seq.