20 Jan y 1814

Jug. True

Ch.3. Natural Evidence

5

(3)

Admitting this though it be rather too much to admitt that by the consideration of this exposure to temptation a sufficient reason was afforded for trusting to the unofficial in preference to the official witnesses, still this was no sufficient reason, nor any reason at all, for putting a compleat exclusion upon the official class of witnesses: a compleat exclusion for acting as if the weight of both masses of testimony conjoined would have been less than that of one of them had it stood singly.

But even granting how unreasonably soever that in respect of the class of witnesses the testimony of the one set chosen is better than would have been the testimony of that same class of witnesses added to that of the other, still the objection from the absence of the abovementioned securities for correctness and compleatness remains unanswered and conclusive are in no instance either time or place individualized in as far as instances the list of principal witnesses determinate and compleat and at the same time the narrative in which they are spoken of as such, known to have been made public in their lifetime: much less are they, in the tenor of it, spoken of in the character of attesting, and mutually corroborating witnesses.

 Add mention of the case taken in modern times to give to every narrative as far as possible the benefit of these securities.