Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/84

 70 A. F. EAVENSHEAE : The mathematical theory makes the evaluation of con- current testimony depend upon the previous evaluation of individual assertions. It will, however, be submitted in the following pages that, to make the most effective use of corroboration, the reverse procedure should be adopted. We ought to start from the fact of corroboration, when we have it, and employ it as a means for distinguishing how far the conditions of trustworthiness have been satisfied by the individual witnesses. The inference is to be drawn from the nature of the corroboration. This method of dealing with concurrence of testimony, and with conflict, will, it is hoped, be found to be entirely free from the objec- tions that may so forcibly be urged against the mathemati- cal treatment. Conditions of Trustworthiness. It should be here noted that although for the sake of brevity the terms " witness " and " testimony " are employed, they are intended to apply to the conveyance of information of all kinds and in any form. The works of authors past and present, the deliverances of authority, writings and assertions of specialists and other investigators, the reports and descriptions of travellers, and recorded information from all quarters is to be kept in view. It does not seem easy to suggest a pair of terms that will fairly indicate all this ; and the required extension of mean- ing must therefore be pressed into the somewhat specialised pair of terms here proposed. It may further be noted that testimony and capacity of particularly high value arecommonly said to possess " authority " ; and in what follows this latter term and its derivatives will be employed in accordance with this usage. The first step, before tracing the bearings of corrobora- tion, must evidently be to pass in review the conditions of trustworthiness of ' witnesses ' considered singly. These conditions are not far to seek ; the only point requiring re- mark being that the mode of derivation adopted must be capable of guaranteeing the completeness of the list. In our examination of 'credence,' or the critical accept- ance of testimony, we must take account both of the giver and receiver. Error must assuredly arise unless each of the two parties, the assertor and the hearer or reader, per- form correctly the part of the operation that falls to him. Not only must the assertor speak truly, but the hearer must rightly understand. A presupposition to a consideration of the conditions that must be satisfied to justify us in relying on the statements of others is, then, that the assertor' s meaning must be correctly ascertained.