3 July 1812

Evidence Introd

Introd

Ch 23 Technically appropriate

Of the subjects which seemed with propriety to belong to the design of a work on Evidence the following is if not a /an altogether/ compleat list, at any rate, a very extensive sample /ample [...?]/ - 1. Probitive force in what way capable of being measured by what circumstances encreasaed and by what diminished - 2. Causes of trustworthiness and untrustworthiness, in witnesses thence of belief and disbelief - 3. Securities for trustworthiness - 4. Mode of making use /application/ of these securities to such their purpose, on the occasion of the reception and extraction of evidence by judicial authority - 5. Circumstances by which the probative force of a species of evidence is diminished - viz such as the comparative untrustworthiness of the source - the remoteness of the evidence in question from the /its supposed source - viz. the seat of supposed perception/ source - the circumstance of it not having been subjected to the docimastic action of the securities for trustworthiness and the circumstance that as in the case of circumstantial evidence of the fact directly spoken to by the evidence is not the very fact in question, but some other fact, from its supposed connection with which the existence or non-existence of the very fact in question is inferred. 6. Means proper to be taken for securing the existence of evidence, evidence /means/ properly adapted to the purpose of securing in the breast of all persons whom it amy concern a belief /the persuasion/ of the existence of all such facts of which for the purpose of giving due effect to such rights and obligations as the legislature has thought fit to create it is necessary that a persuasion of their existence should be entertained.