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The true student of history, when confronted for the first time with a statement of what purports to be an historical fact, weighs at the outset, as all-important, the evidence of its accuracy. If there be at hand no means of verifying the statement, the only ground of assurance is a knowledge of who is speaking, how likely he is to know the truth, and how well fitted he is to tell it; for to be a writer of accurate history one must not only know facts, but must also be truthful, and so far above bias upon his subject as to be able to treat it fairly, openly, and without false coloring of any part. It is therefore the first canon of historical criticism to accept as authority no statement unless it be known who is making that statement.

The greater our interest in a given subject, the more important to us becomes the question of the authority for all statements concerning that subject. As the field of history is narrowed down to a single state or to a single