Verifiability

“ It is not improbable that no human being will ever be able to verify or falsify it, but what philosopher would be bold enough to declare the sentence to be devoid of meaning! — I think it must be clear that we have nothing to do with this use of the term "verifiability", and that we must have had something else in mind when we said that the Meaning of a Proposition was its Method of Verification. ”

“ Thus, in so far as physics is an empirical and verifiable science, it must assume or prove that the inference from appearances to matter is, in general, legitimate, and it must be able to tell us, more or less, what appearances to expect. It is through this question of verifiability and empirical applicability to experience that we are led to a theory of matter such as I advocate. ”

“ What greater Proof can Innocence require? What greater can it admit! Who is there among ourselves that might not, by the same Artifice, have been accused, and by the same Evidence convicted of the Crime? ”

“ And as the evidence is given to you step by step the presumption stands as a guard between innocence and the evidence that is being given, until at last, when your mind is satisfied, when your judgment has come to the conclusion that the men are guilty, the presumption is wiped out, and you are no longer to presume the man innocent. ”

“ So, also, for opinions of parties possessing special learning or knowledge upon the subjects in respect to which their opinions are given, as of a mechanic upon the working of a machine he has seen in use, or of a lawyer upon the title of property which he has examined. Opinions upon such matters are capable of approximating to the truth, and for a false statement of them, where deception is designed, and injury has followed from reliance on them, an action may lie. ”

“ If there be error, it lies with the deceiver, not the deceived. And you, my sons and disciples, banish from your faces and your breasts every expression and every thought unworthy of your honest companion, and your upright sect. For remember, if to abhor falsehood and vice be noble, to distrust truth and innocence is mean. ”

“ He who, for favour to one side or malice to the other, gives in a false evidence, or makes an affidavit of that which he knows to be false, or at least does not know to be true, if it be discovered, his reputation will be ruined. A man may tell a lie perhaps in his haste; but he that gives a false testimony does it with deliberation and solemnity, and it cannot but be a presumptuous sin, and a forfeiture of man's credit. ”

“ It was very strange that a solid truth, backed up by abundant and irreproachable evidence, presented under the strict rules of law and the solemn sanction of an oath, should be upset and shattered by a flimsy falsehood told by an unknown adventurer, heard unawares by a listening child, and denied a proper entrance into court. ”

“ What if falsehood be also one of these embryonic forms of conviction?—Sometimes all that is needed is a change in persons: what was a lie in the father becomes a conviction in the son.—I call it lying to refuse to see what one sees, or to refuse to see it as it is: whether the lie be uttered before witnesses or not before witnesses is of no consequence. ”

“ Falsehood. Falsity, lie, fabrication, untruth, fiction, fib; imposture, counterfeit, cheat; fallacy, error, sophistry, forgery, deception.
Ant. Truth, verity, correctness, fact, genuineness, honesty, honor, reality, authenticity.
Falsify. Misrepresent, counterfeit, belie, misstate, garble; disprove, show unsound; violate; mistake, misinterpret, betray.
Ant. Verify, rectify, correct, check, certify, justify, expose, declare, exhibit, publish. ”

“ Proof, say you?—can that be proof, I appeal to you judges—that which, however false it may be, or however mistaken by the witnesses, cannot, in the very nature of things, be explained away nor contradicted; that which calls upon a poor creature worn out with age and misery—an idiot—for of a truth she is little better—I pray you judges—I pray you—on me let your displeasure fall ”

“ Even a court of judicature, with all the authority, accuracy, and judgement, which they can employ, find themselves often at a loss to distinguish between truth and falsehood in the most recent actions. ”

“ Let me first speak of witnesses and their testimony. It is sometimes supposed that the desire to be veracious is the only quality essential to form a trustworthy witness—and an essential quality it is beyond all doubt—but it is possessed by many who are nevertheless very unsafe guides to truth. In the first place, this general desire for truth in a mind not carefully regulated, is apt to give way, oftentimes unconsciously, to impressions which overpower habitual veracity. ”

“ What say you to the other side of the question,—that of the man against whom nothing is proven, but who, out of the mere obscurity that involves a crime, must live and die a criminal, just because there is no saying what morning may not bring an accusation against him? As a man who has had to struggle through a whole life against adverse suspicions, I protest against the doctrine of not proven! ”

“ My last and firm determination is, that I refuse to confess as erroneous the articles which have been truly extracted from my works, and that I refuse to abjure those which have been attributed to me by false witnesses; for to abjure implies that one has held erroneous opinions—it is, in fact, to reject them, and adopt others of a contrary tendency. ”

“ Still, his interest in this particular defendant had become visible.
"Have you any idea of the consequences of perjury?"
"No, sir."
"Do you understand what perjury is?"
"It's to lie."
"Do you tell lies?" ”

“ For to err is human:—Who has not been mistaken on one point or another, whether he had fresh or pickled cabbage for dinner, and about innumerable things more or less important? But the difference of more or less importance disappears if everything turns on the subjectivity of conviction and on persistency in it. But the said noble illogicality which admits error to be possible, when it comes round to say that a wrong conviction is only an error, really only falls into a further illogicality—the illogicality of dishonesty. ”

“ Concerning himself, the judge must continually remember that his business is not to fit all testimony to the already furnished confession, allowing the evidence to serve as mere decoration to the latter, but that it is his business to establish his proof by means of the confession, and by means of the other evidence, independently. The legislators of contemporary civilization have started with the proper presupposition—that also false confessions are made,—and who of us has not heard such? ”

“ So, too, the verification and confirmation of conviction by means of the repetition of the experiences gained of the way to truth, must appear to be necessary in order to counteract the infinite possibility of deception and error which, on the other hand, lurks in the way to truth. ”

“ Lie not at all, neither in a little thing nor in a great, neither in the substance nor in the circumstance, neither in word nor deed: that is, pretend not what is false; cover not what is true; and let the measure of your affirmation or denial be the understanding of your contractor; for he who deceives the buyer or the seller by speaking what is true, in a sense not intended or understood by the other, is a liar and a thief. A Perfect Master must avoid that which deceives, equally with that which is false. ”

“ Whoever is able to correct the witness’s apparently false conceptions and to lead him to discover his error of his own accord and then to speak the truth—whoever can do this and yet does not go too far, deducing from the facts nothing that does not actually follow from—that man is a master among us. ”

“ GENERAL APOLOGY FOR THE PRODUCTION OF THE SHAKSPERIAN MANUSCRIPTS. I have been thus particular in every statement concerning my production of the papers, in order that it may be perfectly understood I did not act upon any premeditated plan of deception, but was as it were unwittingly led into the error; and when a man has yielded to falsehood in a single act, I believe it will invariably be found that he seeks a veil from detection in a continuation of the same impropriety. ”

“ But let such know that the errors of the witness are not here reckoned as the acts of the court; ignorance, error, prejudice, partiality, and presumption, may be said to be faults of the officers of the court, or of the attendants of the judge (as the mind, the will, appetite, passion, sensual disposition, or disordered brain) , or of the jury, who give a false verdict, not of the judge itself; conscience— syneidesis, is properly self-consciousness. Acts of ignorance and error are not acts of self-consciousness, but of some mistaken power ”

“ But in deference to an authority for whom we have the highest respect, who considers that the evidence at present obtained does not justify a verdict either way, we are content to leave the question open. ”

“ If instantaneous contradictions appear, there is little damage, for in the absence of anything certain, further inferences are fortunately made in rare cases only. But when the observation is that of one person alone, or even when more testify but have accidentally the same amount of knowledge and hence have made the same mistake, and no contradiction appears, we suppose ourselves to possess the precise truth, confirmed by several witnesses, and we argue merrily on the basis of it. ”

“ Truly I will lead you from these witnesses nor will I allow the truth of this trial, which in no way is able to be changed, to be conveyed in the will of the witnesses which is able to be fabricated, changed, and twisted with trouble at all. We will make our case with arguments, we will refute their charges with proofs clearer than all light; facts will fight with facts, causes with cause, and reason with reason. ”

“ You may explain it perhaps on the theory of an honest mistake, or a case of forgetfulness; but if there is a conflict as to material facts between his statements and the statements of the other witnesses who are telling the truth, then you would have a contradiction that would weigh against the statements of the defendant as coming from such witnesses. You are to consider his interest in this case, you are to consider his consequent motive growing out of that interest, in passing upon the truthfulness or falsity of his statement. ”

“ The difficulty of judging concerning the truth of evidence increases, when we take moral causes into the account. If we had any suspicion, that a man who told us that he had seen an apple fall from a tree, had himself pulled the apple down and stolen it, we should set the probability of his telling a falsehood, and his motive for doing so, against his evidence ”

“ XL. Let us now consider, that the falsehoods and deceits, with which tribunals are environed, make the investigation of truth so difficult, that in some causes it is come at late, and in others never. This is a most pernicious injury to the public, for the tediousness and difficulty of the verification, gives breathing-time for the ill intentioned, to devise and concert all sorts of wickedness. What remedy then can you apply to this evil, but that of punishing rigorously every kind of judicial deceit? ”

“ On this issue the jury, on ample evidence that respondents were without belief in the statements which they had made to their victims, found a verdict of guilty. The state of one's mind is a fact as capable of fraudulent misrepresentation as is one's physical condition or the state of his bodily health. ”

“ Among the false assumptions that are made by many of the advocates of the "lie of necessity" is the claim that in war, in medical practice, and in the legal profession, the propriety of falsehood and deceit, in certain cases, is recognized and admitted on all sides. ”

“ Our business is to do justice, and you, in particular, have to weigh the evidence calmly and deliberately; and, should you doubt of that evidence being sufficient to bring the present charge home to the prisoner, to give him 633 the full benefit of that doubt. But, to entitle you to do so, these doubts must be well considered, and the circumstances on which they are founded deliberately weighed. To doubts that are not reasonable, you have no right whatever to yield. ”

“ Skilled in the law yourself, thoroughly familiar, with the rules of evidence, it's more than possible that you might have reviewed matters and decided that there were things which, if they were known, would do harm instead of good—obscure the truth, perhaps ”

“ Men lie, women lie, children lie. Have you watched a band of girls playing at the imitation of school? How cunningly the teacher feigns anger, the pupils naughtiness and sad repentance. Have you observed the plausibility in the inventions of toddling babes to escape imminent chastisement? Falsehood is a normal faculty and equipped with its protective armor, plausibility. ”

“ In their mutual accusations, so evidently do they aim at exhausting every topic of obloquy, without the slightest regard to veracity, that it is impossible for the acutest judgment, by the most careful examination of the odious mass of their allegations, to distinguish truth from falsehood. ”

“ The fact exists, and your neighbors seem to believe it true; and whether true or false, the consequences will be the same, unless you can, by your conduct and arguments, convince them of your innocence. ”

“ Upon these terms the argument is easily disposed of; and if it were not that truth is in all matters better than falsehood, it would be idle to reopen a question which cannot be justly dealt with. No evidence can affect convictions which have been arrived at without evidence—and why should we attempt a task which it is hopeless to accomplish? ”

“ If you have done that and someone has had a wrong judgment given against him because of your falsehood, you would be obliged to repair all the harm that has been done and to compensate the person concerned, whether in his pocket or in his reputation, and to the fullest extent that you possibly can ”