“ No man can judge what is good evidence on any particular subject, unless he knows that subject well. ”
George Eliot, Middlemarch (1872). copy citation
| Author | George Eliot |
|---|---|
| Source | Middlemarch |
| Topic | evidence subject |
| Date | 1872 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/145/145-h/145-h.htm |
Context
“said Lydgate, “legal training only makes a man more incompetent in questions that require knowledge of another kind. People talk about evidence as if it could really be weighed in scales by a blind Justice. No man can judge what is good evidence on any particular subject, unless he knows that subject well. A lawyer is no better than an old woman at a post-mortem examination. How is he to know the action of a poison? You might as well say that scanning verse will teach you to scan the potato crops.”
“You are aware, I suppose, that it is not the coroner’s business to conduct the post-mortem, but only to take the evidence of the medical witness?””
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