nished with sure criteria for distinguishing witnesses whose testimony is worthy of credit, from those whose testimony is suspicious or false.() $ 3 Now the leading maxim which ought to govern his ' judgment in classifying the witnesses whose accounts are before him, is to give the first place to the original witnesses; to the persons who were present at the transaction, and who describe the impressions made upon their senses of sight and hearing. All hearsay evidence, all evidence derived from the repetition of a story told orally by the original witness, and perhaps passed on orally through two or three more persons, is of inferior value, and to be placed on a lower degree of credibility.(1) It is true (9) La science historique n'a pas d'autre source que les témoignages, et pas d'autre instrument que la critique, appliquée à reconnaître l'authenticité, le sens précis, et la verité, de chacune de ces dépositions.'-Daunou, tom. i. p. xviii. (10) Polybius states that, on account of the choice of the time included in his history, he is enabled to narrate events which he and his contemporaries had witnessed, or which, having been witnessed by the fathers of the existing generation, he heard directly from original witnesses. To go further back (he says), so as to write the report of a report, appeared to me unsafe, both as to the conception of the fact, and the judgment upon it.' Τὸ γὰρ ἀνωτέρω προσλαμβάνειν τοῖς χρόνοις, ὡς ἀκοὴν ἐξ ἀκοῆς γράφειν, οὐκ ἐφαίνεθ ̓ ἡμῖν ἀσφαλεῖς ἔχειν οὔτε τὰς διαλήψεις οὔτε τὰς ἀποφάσεις—iv. 2, § 3. The expression axon é aкons exactly corresponds to the meaning of hearsay evidence, in the historical sense of the word. Hearsay evidence is characterized by Lucretius in the following verses, which describe the disadvantageous position of kings, in respect of personal observation : 'Quandoquidem sapiunt alieno ex ore, petuntque Res ex auditis potius, quam sensibus ipsis.'-V. 1132-3. A similar preference is given to original over hearsay evidence in the verse of Plautus 'Pluris est oculatus testis unus quam auriti decem.' Trucul. act ii. sc. 6, v. 8. By an oculatus testis is here meant an original witness; by an auritus testis, not an ear-witness, but a person who has heard the story told orally, and repeats it; whose evidence is merely hearsay. This verse differs from the dictum of Horace : Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures the meaning of which maxim is, that the narrative of an event, even by a personal witness, makes a less powerful impression on the mind than the actual sight of it. The principle involved in this difference is wholly inapplicable to history, though it is applicable to the drama, to which it is applied by Horace. Herodotus introduces the dictum, that the eyes are more believed than that evidence proceeding from an original witness is often false, particularly in cases where interest is concerned. The accounts of original witnesses, as is well known, often conflict, so that one or the other account must be false. On this subject, however, no general maxims would here be of any use: where the best testimony of which the case admits (viz., the testimony of original witnesses), is contradictory or suspicious, the historian must, in estimating its value, be guided by his experience of human affairs, and the peculiar circumstances of the case: he must apply to such testimony the maxims which are recognised for testing the truth of evidence in the practical business of life. § 4 Hearsay, secondary, derivative, or traditionary evidence, is of two sorts: namely, contemporary and non-contemporary. For example, we may be informed of a recent event by a rumour, which has passed through several mouths; or the knowledge of a fact which occurred many years ago may reach us by means of a family tradition, handed down through several generations. These two sorts of hearsay are distinguished by Thucydides, when he remarks that the accounts of ancient events at home, and of contemporary facts abroad, are equally falsified by their oral transfer.(") In strictness, all oral tradition implies a lapse of time; but where the report relates to an event of fresh occurrence, it may be considered contemporary. (12) the ears-ὦτα γὰρ τυγχάνει ἀνθρώποισιν ἔοντα ἀπιστότερα ὀφθαλμῶν, i. 8, (seeing is believing,') which Polybius expresses thus:-opaλuoi yàp Tŵv Twv akρibéσTEрot μáprupes.-xii. 27. Other instances of this saying are cited by Leutsch, Param. Gr. vol. ii. p. 744. In the Institutes it is remarked: Magis veritas oculatâ fide, quam per aures animis hominum infigitur.'-iii. 6, § 9. On the maxim, that the eyes are more to be trusted than the ears, see⚫ Mascardus de Probationibus, quæst. viii. n. 20. (11) Thuc. i. 20. Contemporary history is called by Plutarch, Tv πράξεων καὶ τῶν βίων ἡλικιῶτις ἱστορία.—Per. 13. (12) Historical memorials, considered with reference to the time when they have been reduced into writing, may, according to M. Daunou, be distributed into the following eight classes : 1. Procès-verbaux of public proceedings, or daily official registers, kept by the proper recording officers; 2. Private diaries or journals; Hearsay, or secondary evidence, can at the best only be equal in value to original or primary evidence: inasmuch as it only professes to repeat and reproduce that evidence. A hearsay report is simply a repetition of the oral account of a percipient witness, and the utmost at which it aims is to repeat that account with fidelity. (13) In the vast majority of cases, however, the repetition is not faithful; and the chances of error increase with the number of repetitions which the story undergoes.(") When the process is multiplied on a large scale, the effect resembles the description of Ovid, in his image of the abode of Fame :Veniunt leve vulgus euntque, Mixtaque cum veris passim commenta vagantur Crescit, et auditis aliquid novus adjicit auctor. (15) Or, as the same process is described by Pope :- vii. The flying rumours gathered as they rolled, Scarce any tale was sooner heard than told; 3. Printed newspapers; 4. Personal memoirs ; 5. Contemporary histories; 6. Histories written one or two centuries after the events described; 7. Works of ancient historians, relating to remote periods; 8. Histories of antiquity by modern writers.'-Tom. i. p. 64-71; tom. P. 186-93. The four first of these classes are an imperfect enumeration of the materials for history. The sixth and seventh are two ill-defined classes, intermediate between contemporary histories, derived from original information, and histories compiled from existing records. (13) Thucydides remarks that, even with respect to their domestic annals, the Greeks repeated traditionary stories without inquiring into the original evidence; οἱ γὰρ ἄνθρωποι τὰς ἀκοὰς τῶν προγεγενημένων, καὶ ἢν ἐπιχώρια σφίσιν ᾖ, ὁμοίως ἀβασανίστως παρ ̓ ἀλλήλων δέχονται.—1. 20. If, therefore, the original version was false, the most faithful repetition could never cure the defect. (14) Bayle (Dict. art. 'Balde,' note C) says that a hearsay report should be recorded only in one of two cases: 1, if it is very probable; 2, if it is mentioned in order to be exploded. He again points out the danger of trusting to hearsay reports in historical questions,-Art. 'Chigi,' note G. On the uncertainty of hearsays, see Volney, Leçons d'Histoire; Fuvres, ed. 1837, p. 564-6. The English word hearsay appears to be borrowed from the old French oui-dire, used as a noun. (15) Met. xii. 53-8. And all who told it added something new, And all who heard it made enlargements too, In every ear it spread, on every tongue it grew. (16) § 5 The causes of the inferiority of hearsay to primary testimony are not obscure. An oral account is sometimes imperfectly understood, and almost always imperfectly remembered. Many persons are so habitually loose and inaccurate in their narratives, that even without any bias or motive to distort the account, they alter a story in the repetition; they omit material parts; they transpose others-thus altering the chronological series, and perhaps the sequence of cause and effect: they unconsciously supply motives and reasons, and add ornamental touches of their own. Where, however, there is a strong bias in the mind of the repeater; where the account excites in his breast lively feelings of sympathy or antipathy, of admiration or disgust, of fear or wonder; where it relates to circumstances in which he, or those connected with him, have or believe themselves to have, a strong pecuniary interest; where it strikes on a chord of political or religious sentiment-there the probability of a more serious perversion of the facts, unless the person be of strict and conscientious habits as to veracity of narration, is to be apprehended. The temptation to colour, to exaggerate, to extenuate, to suppress, to interpolate malicious or apologetic glosses, to insert inuendoes, to give a sinister meaning to innocent expressions, and to convert accident into design, is, in a case of this kind, almost irresistible, and certainly is not resisted by the great majority of mankind. In an age, or in a class of persons, whose canon of belief still includes supernatural events in the contemporary order of nature, there is a further danger of marvellous incidents being engrafted upon a plain fact, while it is travelling (16) Temple of Fame. Nunquam ad liquidum fama perducitur; omnia, illâ tradente, majora sunt vero.'-Curtius, ix. 2. Any prevailing passion, and especially fear, vitiates the truth of rumour. Sic quisque pavendo Dat vires famæ, nulloque auctore malorum Quæ finxere timent.' Lucan, i. 484-6. from mouth to mouth. (") Lastly, oral statements, made casually, or in private, by original witnesses-which often are the foundation of hearsay reports are not uttered with the same care, deliberation, previous refreshing of the memory, and reference to notes, attention to completeness and order of events, and sense of responsibility, as written accounts, or as oral depositions in courts of justice or on public occasions, taken down verbatim in writing at the time. The diminution of accuracy by oral repetition is akin to the effect produced by successive transcriptions of the account of a historical fact. Everybody accustomed to historical investigations knows the importance of going to the fountain-head, of not trusting to second-hand quotations, and to the statements of writers who rely upon ulterior authorities.(18) If, however, compilers who write either with the book open before them, or after a recent inspection of it, are often inaccurate, how much greater is the danger of error from misconception, exaggeration, carelessness, or defect of memory, when statements are repeated by word of mouth! The perversion, mutilation, and distortion which a fact generally undergoes when it is once fairly committed to the keeping of popular rumour, without any controlling or verifying influence-when it is sent down the stream of popular tradition, to drift wherever chance may carry it-may likewise be compared with the changes which a foreign or a learned (17) When mythical accounts grow up in a historical age, and consist in a mere embellishment of facts, the true and the altered version can sometimes be compared. Thus, Livy tells us that the Romans, in the year 205 B.C., in consequence of oracles, applied to King Attalus for permission to remove to Rome a sacred stone, called the mother of the gods, from Pessinus, in Phrygia, which he willingly gave.-xxix. 11, 14. Also Herodian, i. 11. Ovid, in his Fasti, in narrating the same story, says that Attalus at first refused the application, but afterwards granted it, in consequence of a miraculous speech of the goddess.-iv. 265-72. : (18) Chacun se mêle de changer quelque circonstance dans ce qu'il cite par ce moyen les faits se gâtent, et se pervertissent bientôt entre les mains de ceux qui les citent.'-Bayle, Dict.; art. Tanaquil,' note D. Some remarkable examples of the errors introduced into historical statements by successive transcribers and compilers may be seen in the Memoir of Sebastian Cabot, (London, 1831,) by Mr. Biddle. |