Self-evidence

“ A rigorous demand for self-evidence in our premises is a valuable protection against the misleading influence of our own irrational impulses on our judgments: while at the same time it not only distinguishes as inadequate the mere external support of authority and tradition, but also excludes the more subtle and latent effect of these in fashioning our minds to a facile and unquestioning admission of common but unwarranted assumptions. ”

“ Russell, that there is such a thing as non-inferential knowledge, the conception that a thing offers evidence for itself needs analysis. Self-evidence is merely a convenient term for disguising the difference between the indubitably given and the believed in. ”

“ Self-evidence.--Some of our beliefs seem to be peculiarly indubitable. One might instance the belief that two and two are four, that two things cannot be in the same place at the same time, nor one thing in two places, or that a particular buttercup that we are seeing is yellow. The suggestion we are to examine is that such: beliefs have some recognizable quality which secures their truth, and the truth of whatever is deduced from them according to self-evident principles of inference. ”

“ One important point about self-evidence is made clear by the case of memory, and that is, that self-evidence has degrees: it is not a quality which is simply present or absent, but a quality which may be more or less present, in gradations ranging from absolute certainty down to an almost imperceptible faintness. ”

“ To remove all risk of error, we shall need an endless series of more and more complicated self-evident beliefs, which cannot possibly be realized in practice. It would seem, therefore, that self-evidence is useless as a practical criterion for insuring truth.
The same result follows from examining instances. If we take the four instances mentioned at the beginning of this discussion, we shall find that three of them are logical, while the fourth is a judgment of perception. ”

“ What we firmly believe, if it is true, is called knowledge, provided it is either intuitive or inferred (logically or psychologically) from intuitive knowledge from which it follows logically. What we firmly believe, if it is not true, is called error. What we firmly believe, if it is neither knowledge nor error, and also what we believe hesitatingly, because it is, or is derived from, something which has not the highest degree of self-evidence, may be called probable opinion. Thus the greater part of what would commonly pass as knowledge is more or less probable opinion. ”

“ We must be prepared to accept temporary, not fixed, judgments, based upon the evidence which we have. We must be prepared to reverse those judgments in the light of new evidence. We must be careful not to reject this evidence merely because we do not like it. ”

“ The rule of common sense is primâ facie to trust a witness in all matters, in which neither his self-interest, his passions, his prejudices, nor that love of the marvellous, which is inherent to a greater or less degree in all mankind, are strongly concerned; and, when they are involved, to require corroborative evidence in exact proportion to the contravention of probability by the thing testified. ”

“ One important influence that may cause a witness to give false evidence is self-interest. Not only individuals, but social and industrial organizations, political parties, communities, and states are frequently swayed by this emotion to the extent of deliberately perverting the truth. ”

“ After all the evidence is collected from every quarter, then it is the proper business of the understanding or judgment to compare and balance evidence, and to form a decisive opinion or belief, according to apparent truth. We have no more right to judge without evidence than we have to judge contrary to evidence; and we have no more right to doubt without, or contrary to, evidence, than we have to believe without, or contrary to, evidence. We have no right to keep ourselves in a state of doubt or uncertainty, when we have sufficient evidence to come to a decision. ”

“ When we come now to consider how we establish facts, whether single or complex, we find that, both to aid our own judgment and to convince other people, we rely on evidence. We have seen that evidence falls roughly into two classes: either it comes from persons who testify out of their own observation and experience, or it comes indirectly through reasoning from facts and principles already established or granted. ”

“ Is belief the result of that which to us is evidence, or is it a product of the will? Can the scales in which reason weighs evidence be turned by the will? Why then should evidence be weighed? If it all depends on the will, what is evidence? Is there any opportunity of being dishonest in the formation of an opinion? Must not the man who forms the opinion know what it is? He cannot knowingly cheat himself. He cannot be deceived with dice that he loads. ”

“ If those whose business it is to judge are not at one as to the authenticity of the only evidence of that kind which is offered, nor as to the facts to which it bears witness, the discussion of such evidence is superfluous. ”

“ And, fourthly, can it be a matter of indifference to any of us what evidence the mind offers concerning its own moral nature, and what is the value of that evidence, and the laws deducible therefrom? How true it thus appears that "know thyself" lies at the root of all knowledge, and that the man who receives no witness from within can know nothing as he ought to know it! ”

“ Were not these, I say, discovered by experience to be qualities, inherent in human nature, we should never repose the least confidence in human testimony. A man delirious, or noted for falsehood and villany, has no manner of authority with us.
And as the evidence, derived from witnesses and human testimony, is founded on past experience, so it varies with the experience, and is regarded either as a proof or a probability, according as the conjunction between any particular kind of report and any kind of object has been found to be constant or variable. ”

“ In brief,—since they loiter about and make a profit out of it, it is no wonder that in giving evidence they also loaf and bring to light only approximate truth. Nor is it difficult to indicate analogous persons in the higher walks of life. ”

“ The examination and cross-examination of the witnesses are carried on under rules of evidence which are the result of centuries of experience, and which give many a man as he sits on a jury his first lesson in the fallibility of the unobserved and uncontrolled inferences of the human brain. The 'said I's,' and 'thought I's,' and 'said he's,' which are the material of his ordinary reasoning, are here banished on the ground that they are 'not evidence,' and witnesses are compelled to give a simple account of their remembered sensations of sight and hearing. ”

“ In common affairs, where nothing is asserted but what is probable, and possible, according to the usual course of nature, a reasonable degree of evidence ought to determine every man: for the very probability, or possibility of the thing, is an support to the evidence; and in such cases we have no doubt but a man's senses qualify him to be a witness. ”

“ In the case of a person whom I have lived with from his birth, and seen every day, the evidence, to a great degree, is sense and memory. Sometimes the sameness of an individual is proved in a court of justice, by evidence, such as is applicable to any other matters of fact; by written documents, marks on the body, articles of property found 168 with the child, and the testimony of those whose knowledge has been uninterrupted from one time to another. ”

“ Disagreeing widely on other and far less important departments, all schools, and languages, and ages—writers on law, on logic, on science—agree in accepting what is called the evidence of the senses, although, as we have seen, the senses of themselves can give us no evidence of anything whatsoever; and in this, likewise, there is passive if not active agreement—that the first qualification of a witness is honesty, and that the concurrence of testimony of large numbers is a solid basis for belief. ”

“ The opportunity for cross-examination, for finding out the bias of the witness, the advantage or disadvantage of his point of observation, the accuracy or inaccuracy in his recollection of the details of what he saw, are all means of reaching the real truth that the introduction of hearsay evidence would entirely exclude. ”

“ Thirdly, a sound and calm judgment, which will subject all inferences and generalisations, both one’s own and other people’s, to a searching review, and weigh in delicate scales their validity. These two last-mentioned qualifications taken together make up what we call the critical faculty, i.e. the power of dealing with evidence as tending to establish or discredit statements of fact, and those general conclusions which are built on the grouping of facts. Neither acuteness alone nor the judicial balance alone is enough to make the critic. ”

“ It will be necessary.'
'As it may be necessary, I wish to know whether you will acknowledge that these reports have come from you?'
'You want me to give evidence against myself. Well, for once in a way I don't mind if I do. ”

“ A proposition of fact is proved, when its truth is established by competent and satisfactory evidence. By competent evidence, is meant such as the nature of the [pg 022] thing to be proved requires; and by satisfactory evidence, is meant that amount of proof, which ordinarily satisfies an unprejudiced mind, beyond any reasonable doubt. ”

“ And in proportion to the greater chance of our detecting the inconclusiveness of our evidence, will be the increased reliance we are entitled to place in it if no such evidence of defect shall appear. ”

“ We have, therefore, to assume that their perceptions will vary with the number and manner of their accomplishments, and we may almost convince ourselves that each examinee who has to give evidence concerning his sense-perception should literally undergo examination to make clear his scholarly status and thereby the value of his testimony. ”

“ He is one whose mind is so constituted that what the Christian calls evidence is not satisfactory to him. Is a person accountable for the constitution of his mind, for the formation of his brain? Is any human being responsible for the weight that evidence has upon him? Can he believe without evidence? Is the weight of evidence a question of choice? Is there such a thing as honestly weighing testimony? ”

“ For even where at first sight you might think it most out of place, I mean in relation to that kind of truth whose primary evidence is the consciousness of the individual, so that the competent witness of truth is necessarily but one person, there is oneness of opinion, there is unanimity, and the testimony of the one competent witness is not contradicted or doubted by that of any other presumably competent. ”

“ Again and again we are taught, in the deposition of evidence, that only facts as plain sense-perceptions should be presented; that inference is the judge’s affair. But we only appear to obey this principle; actually, most of what we note as fact and sense-perception, is nothing but a more or less justified judgment, which though presented in the honestest belief, still{5} offers no positive truth. “Amicus Plato, sed magis amica Veritas.”
There is no doubt that there is an increasing, and for us jurists, a not unimportant demand for the study of psychology in its bearing on our profession. ”

“ To ease the step from ideas to their expression, to estimate motive and intention, to know and appraise at their proper value the logical weaknesses and personal foibles of all kinds and conditions of offenders and witnesses,—to do this in accord with high standards, requires that men as well as evidence shall be judged. Allied to this problem which appeals to a large range of psychological doctrine, there is yet another which appeals to a yet larger and more intricate range,—that of human character and condition. ”

“ But, once separated, it is manifest that the internal evidence drawn from the works themselves, however satisfactory as to the one question, is utterly incompetent as to the other, and that it is by purely external—that is to say, by circumstantial evidence, by history, and by the record—that the question before us must be answered, if, indeed, it ever is to be answered at all. ”

“ The alterations in the minds of men, which the tendency of modern thought has effected in respect of evidence, may be summed up under two heads: First, the nature of the evidence required is altogether altered, and a great many arguments, that would in former days have gone to the jury, are now summarily suppressed. Fact can only be proved by facts, that is, by events, instances, things, which are submitted to experience and observation, and are confirmed by experiment and reason. ”

“ The piecing together of the loose bits of evidence which we hunt up, a bit here, a bit there, arguing upon it, drawing conclusions from it, rejecting what will not fit, filling up the empty spaces, until we present the whole case without a crack in it for a guilty man to slip through--that is what we call circumstantial evidence, and it is really a science, doctor. ”

“ With this qualification, that human observation is always fallible, good direct evidence is on the whole the most convincing evidence that you can use. If you can establish a fact by the mouths of trustworthy witnesses, making your readers recognize that these witnesses had good opportunities of observation and a competent knowledge of the subject, you will generally establish your point. ”

“ They are accustomed to look only for one species of evidence; a species of evidence of which the transactions of life do not admit. When they come from certainties to probabilities, from a syllogism to a witness, their superiority is at an end. ”