JB_806_216.xml

Title: [4 Oct. 1815 Jug. True Ch. Imperfections]

Description: 4 Oct. 1815

Jug. True

Ch. Imperfections

3

§. Length of time

4. The longer the interval in question, the longer the time during which, the greater the probability that during that time in the place of or in addition to such reports as may or might have been furnished by percipient witnesses themselves, or by witnesses removed by a less number of removes or degrees from the seat of perception, reports from witnesses removed from that same standard by a greater number of removes or degrees.

5. The longer the interval, the greater the length of time in the course of which death or other accidents or changes may have removed out of the way any given number of those who having received information to whose knowledge such facts have presented themselves or enabled them to expose and rectify any such incorrect or deceptively incompleat representations or statements in relation to the matter in question may have been made.

The longer the interval the more time there is for any or all such persons to go off as if they had remained would by their knowledge of relevant facts have been in a way to rectify any misrepresentation of erroneous reports which the matter in question may have been the subject.

Let the interval be of a certain length, the time of those persons will have expired: and when once the stage is thus cleared, misrepresentation has full swing, and circumstantial evidence or self-contradiction on the part of the witnesses whose testimony constitutes the mass of direct evident self-contradiction or mutual contradiction remain the sole sources from which any correction to the misrepresentation or recourse against deception can be deduced.

5.

4. Chance of remoteness by extinction of percipient witnesses and intermediate reporting witnesses of degrees near to the percipient and first reporting witness.

6.

5. Chance of extinction of those by whom correction might have been administered to reports of percipient and intermediate reporting witnesses.

7.

At the end of a certain interval, all such chance being at an end, misrepresentation by reporting witnesses of all sorts has full sway: sole chance of correction then is by self-contradiction or mutual contradiction on their parts.

JB_806_214.xml

Title: [9 Aug 1815 Jug. True D + ]

Description: 9 Aug 1815

Jug. True

D +  [?]

I Prolego

Ch. Time of penning

1

§.1. Length of time

 N.B. the question to the time of penning is subservient to that of the trustworthiness of the penman. It goes not to probity but to intelligence viz. in respect of [...?] of information.

Causes of diminution of trustworthiness by time 1. Author known, 2. Author unknown.

When the [...?] i.e. Reporting author is known—viz. more or less perfectly 1) The supposed percipient witness mentioned by the author 2) The supposed percipient witness not mentioned

II. When the Author is unknown

§. Interval between the fact and the penning of the history—how by the length of it trustworthiness is diminished.

The greater the distance between the times at which the events and states of things reported as having had place, and the times at which the reports made of them were respectively penned the less trustworthy is the report: and this for several reasons.

For that diminution—in the degree of trustworthiness several causes may be assigned.

Note in margin at this point: ‘ Go on and assign them.’

1. The most favourable case—the case in which the loss of trustworthiness produced by the length of the interval between the time of the supposed action and the time of committing to paper the statement made of it is at its minimum—is that when the supposed percipient witness is himself the reporter or reporting witness by whom the account of what passed or is supposed to have passed is penned. In this case the sources from which misrepresentation is liable to flow are MS alt. ‘reducible’. no more than three viz: 1. Diminution of the retentive power of the memory, thence want of correctness or compleatness, or both in the appropriate pictures which had been [made] in and by the memory: pictures of the events and states of things of which in and by the narrator, a description is undertaken to be given.

2. In the first instance supposing the intention of maintaining these quantities [of] the correctness and compleatness, chance which there may be, that by some change in the state and condition of the narrator in respect of his connection with the events or states of things in question in the way of interests. Note in margin at this point: ‘ Oct 1815 Go on.’

1.

By length of interval between the fact and the penning of the narrating witness’s history trustworthiness is diminished.

2.

Causes of diminution.

1. In the most favourable case loss by length of interval a minimum. Supposed percipient witness, the reporting witness. Sources of diminution here, three 1. Diminution of retentive power, thence want of correctness or compleatness in the picture retained. 2. Chance of a supervening mendacity-prompting interest or interests begotten prejudice.

JB_139_452.xml

Title: [1817 Oct. 13 Not Paul Heading]

Description: 1817 Oct. 13

Not Paul

Heading for

II History

§. 2 Matthias vice Judas

§ 2. Matthias chosen

§. 2 Choice of Matthias to be an associate of the Apostles

Acts I. 13 to 26

{a witness with us of his resurrection} As to /In regard to/ this transaction no reason presents itself for questioning either the existence of the transaction itself or the correctness of the account here /there/ given of it: in its nature, in all Christian eyes it could not but have been of the most notorious. No length of time was likely to obliterate or in any considerable /very material/ degree obscure or lead astray the recollection of it.

To a first glance, the term witness of his resurrection applied to the function of an associate of the apostles may be liable /apt/ to present the idea of impropriety /inappositeness/: on a closer view it will disappear /vanish/.

A witness is either a percipient witness a reporting witness or both in one: of course no person so fit for a reporting as a percipient witness. Of percipient witnesses to a past transaction the number is not an object of choice, of reporting witnesses, yes: since there is no limit to the encrease[?]. Every person by whom a transaction is spoken of to others who had not before heard of it, is thereby with relation to it in some sort a reporting witness: in this sense even at this time of day a Missionary who preaches the Gospel among the heathen is thereby a witness to it.

In the case /instance/ in question, attached to the function of preaching the Gospel to those without doors appears to have been that of bearing a part with administration managing the concerns political and financial of the spiritual company. According to Luke a ׀ ׀ as above to the ascension of Jesus the eleven apostles were not the only percipient witnesses: two others are spoken of of whom Cleophas by name: of the two persons here in question viz. Joseph Barrabas and Matthias had been /were/ partakers /sharers/ in the same inestimable privilege, they were unquestionably by so much the better qualified for the situation of an associate to the apostles, considered in respect of their function of reporting witnesses of that concluding and crowning portion of the acts and sayings of Jesus.

a