Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/92

 78 A. F. RAVENSHEAR : There is a close relation between the subject of conflict of authority and the further question : What attitude must we assume towards authorities or groups of assertors that seem to contradict our own personal conclusions or experi- ences ? This embodies in another form the main question that, as it has before been stated, a theory of testimony sets out to answer, viz. : How shall an even course be steered between excessive reliance on self, and excessive dependence on others ? The preceding discussions seem to furnish us immediately with the answer. We must in thought each go down into the crowd and deal with the case as one of conflict of testimony only our own testimony against that of the others. The question is resolved into one of comparison of authority ; and the answer depends on rela- tive opportunities and capacities for ascertaining the matter in hand, considered with reference to the nature of the subject in the manner above sketched out. Authority ; the Expert or Specialist. By the aid of the conclusions arrived at above we may attempt also to define the limits within which the argument from authority is legitimate. Criteria of testimony, as we have seen, rise into primary importance in those cases in which reliance is placed on the statements of others either from necessity or for conveni- ence. How much we shall concede to convenience in any given case is clearly not a question for Logic ; and the logical interest accordingly centres about the claims of necessity. We wish then to distinguish precisely between those cases in which we must of necessity rely upon others, and those in which we may examine the reasoning, criticise the evidence, and trace put for ourselves the dependence of the conclusion upon observation and experiment. This we shall find is easily accomplished by the aid of the obvious distinction between simple facts of observation or experiment, and critical judgments formed on complex con- siderations. The facts of observation cannot from their nature be repeated and examined at will. We must wait an opportunity for observing the event ; and that opportunity may never be ours. In matters of experiment also we are dependent on laboratories, observatories, and on the skill and co-operation needed for making use of them. Therefore must we in matters of simple observation and in matters of experiments often of necessity rely upon testimony. This necessity is in general merely practical as regards the results of experiment, but is absolute as regards specific events in the past or outside our own range of observation.