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.