[ 118 ] TllR PROBLEM OF AUTJIE.
"TICITY 119
CHAPT�R VI
THE PROBLEi\,I OF i\UTI IENTICITY,
OR EXTERNAL CRITICISl\4
So far it has been assumed that the documents dealt
with have been authentic. The problem of authenticity
seldom concerns the sociolog ist or psychologist or an­
thropologist, who generally has a living subject under
his eye, can see him as he prepares his autobiography,
and can aoss-cx;imine him about doubtful points.
Even in the law courts the question of authenticity of
4ocuments becomes a diflicult problem only on rare
occasion,, when the writer or witnC$$CS to tho writing
cannot be produced.' But for historical documents
those occasions are not rare. They are in fact frequent
for manuscript sources; and if .doubt as to authenticity
arises less often for printed sources, it is because usu·
ally some skilled editor bas already performed the task
of authenticating them.
Forged or' Misleading Documents
Forgeries of documents in whole or ia part without
being usual, are oorumon enough to keep the careful
historian constantly on his guard. "Historical docu­
ments" arc fabricated for several reasons. Sometimes
©they are used to bolster a false claim or title. A wcll­
known example IS the Donation of Constantine, which
' W",gn,ore, PP. 326-)6.
used to be cited on occasion to bolster a theory that
the popes had a wide territorial claim in the west. In
14'10 Lorenzo Valla ptoved, chiefly by means of an­
acht0nisms of style and allusion, that it had been
forged. At other times documents arc counterfeited
for sale. Counterleit letters of Queen Marie Antoinette
used to tum up frequently.' A Philadelphia autograph
dealer named Robert Spring once manufactured hun­
dreds of skillful forgeries in ordct to supply the de­
mand of collectors. A recent notorious example of
fotgcry was the Mconcspondcncc'" of Abrnham Lincoln
and Aon Rutledge, palmed off on the Atlantic
Monthly in 1928.
(y Sometimes fabrication .is due to less mercena
siderabOflS. Political propaganda . rgc accounts for
tf;c Frotowls of the Elden of Zion, a "document" pro­
tcodiog to reveal a ruthless Jewish conspiracy to <JUie
the worldMlJ!mctimes historical "facts'' are based only
on some pnctical joke, as inthe case of H.LMcocl:­
en's much· cited article on the "history" of tl1e bath­
tub, or of Alexander Woollcott's moclcing letter of en­
dorsement of Dorothy Parker's hµsband ( of which he
never sent the original to the supposed addressee, al­
though he did send the carbon copy to the cndorsce).'
The M,moires of Madame d'Epinay arc a striking ex-
• Loid Action, Llclwu on tho Fttndl llnoluijon (London,
1910). pp. 361-...
• Sec J. S. Curto, An ilf,p<....t of tlu 1'to1cc<>1, of Zion {New
York, 194,).
• Cl. C. D. Maclloupll, ti.,_ {New Yodt, 1910), pp. ,01"-<1;
Dorothy Pan:,,, !<Viewing A. Woollcott: Hi, Li(• dnd Iii• Wo,14
by S.. H. Acbms (Nc:w Y'"k, 19iS) in the Chica(p Sun Boo.I W,.t
of June 10, 19iS·
 llNDEasTANDINC HISTORY
ample of fubrication of a whole boolc that has beguiled
even rcspccbble historians!
Sometimes quite genuine documents are intended
to mislead certain contem ranes and hence have
misl subsequent 1stonans. A statement supposed
to be thatof Emperor Leopold l l's views on the
French Revolution misled Marie Antoinette and sub­
sequently even the most are!ul historians until it w:is
exposed in 1894 as a wishful statement of some
French cmigrcs.• In days when spies were expected to
open mail in the post, writers of lcttelS would OCC3·
sionalily try to outwit them by turning their curiosity
to the advantage of the one spied upon rather than to
that of the spy or his anploycr.' And when ccnso1S
might conclcmn books to be bumod and write!S to be
Imprisoned, authors could hardly be blamed if they
sometimes signed others' names to their work. For in­
stance, it is bacd to tell whether some wod:s actually
written by Voltaire arc not stjll ascribed to others. It
is thus possible to be too skcptieal about a document
which may be genuine though not what i t seems.
Bernheim bas provided a list oi documents that were
once hypercritically c:onsidcn!d unauthentic bix arc ·
now acocptcd.' Perhaps it was hypcrcriticism of this
• 11ic "c:beoling dacaonmt" is di,amcd witb • -llh "' tbsofl>­
"" debil ha Alba Nevin,, c:.t,wy to HidOl"f (S..tca, 1938).
di. V, pp. "9""l7·
• A<tca. flffldl lwiolocion, p. 119.
' Of. t.b)'ctte to Williun C.nNObacl, Mold> 10, 17Ss, ,ao1cd
'"*""
i,a I.coil Cott,cball;. l.4f'1ftU b,l'o..0 IA, Ml(I • o,I th•
Rnoluticft,(Chics&o, 1910), pp. •SC>-7·
• Er.t Bcmbci ... IA/J,badt dn /wto,il<Mn Mdl>od< v><l .,
C flft1ptloi:pllio (6tla ed.; I� 1908), pp. 3M'·
nm PaOBIAM 0, A11111D111CITT 121
kind that led Vincent Starrett to write his verse en­
titled "After Much Striving for Fame":
It would be rather jolly, I think,
To be the original auth0tily
On some obscure mattct of literature or Eaitb
Upon which, in one's leisure,
One had jotted down an in.accurate pamphlet;
And forever thereafter
'fo be quoted by all post·Vinceotian bonowers
In a pertinacious footnote.•
Occasionally misrepresentations of the o:iturc of
printed works result from editors' tricl<s. It is still
a matter of dispute which of the many writings attrib­
uted to Cardinal Richelieu were in bet written or
dicbtcd by b°im; and little of the ,o.aollcd Mhnoira
de Jf411 de Witt and Testament politiqw de Colbm
were in fact written by John de Witt and ·Colbert.
The memoirs attn"butcd to Condorcet and to Wcbcr,
fostcr:btotJicr of Marie Antoinette, and sevcml works
ascribed to Napoleon I arc by othc1S than their a).
Icgcd authors. Even issues of daily newspapers have
been manufuctured long after the dates they bear.
The Moniuur furnishes some good examples (sec
p. 107 above). Several Didrin.of Napoleon have been
made up by others from his writings. The circum­
stanoes of the forgery or mistcpu:scr,tation of histor­
ical documents may often thcmsclvcs reveal impor­
tant political, ailtunil, and biographical information -
but not about the same �ts or persons as ii they
were genuine.
· "en« Mt. Sbmd. ·
• l2 td br I
 122 UNDF.RSTANl>INC JIISI'ORY
Tesu of Authenucity
To distinguish a hoax or a misrepresentation from
a genuine document, the historian has to use tests
that arc common also in police and legal detection.
Mal:ing the best guess he an of the date of the docu·
men! (sec below pp. 138 and 14']-8), he examines the,
materials to soc whether they arc not anachronistic:
_pa�r was rare in Europe before the fifteenth century,
aiiaprinting was tmknown; pencils did n11t exist there
before the sixteenth century; typewriting was not in·
vented until the nineteenth century; and India paper
came only at the end of that century. The historian
also examines the inlc for signs of age or for anachro­
nistic chemical c,,;;;j;osition. Malcing his best guess of
ffie picm,Ulc aatf101 ofLi'ie document (sec below ·PP·
144-'7), he secs if he can identify the handwriting,
signature, seal, letterhead, or �tcnnadc. Even when
th.e handwriting is unfamiliar, it can be compared
. with authenticated seune�. One of the unfullillcd
needs of the historian IS more of what the French call
"iisographics"_- dictionaries of biography giving cx­
ainplcs of handwriting. For some periods of history,
experts using tcdiniques known as ophy and
�lort14tict, first systcmatiud by alon S in the
· seventeenth century (see p. 127 below), have long
known that in certain regions at certain times.�­
writing and tl1c style and form of official documents
were more or less conventionalu:ed. S&ils have been
the subject of spcci.a) study by sigi1lograpbcrs, and ex·
perts can detect faked ones (sec below, p. 128).
Anachronislic vtyk (idiom, orthography, or punclua·
TUE PROBLEM OF MlTllENTICITY
tion) can be detected by specialists who arc familiar
with contemporary writing.'0 Often spelling, particu­
larly of proper names and signatures (because too
good or too l>ad or anachronistic), reveals a forgery,
as would also unhistoric grammar. Anachronistic ref·
eren= to even!$ (too early or too late or too r�ote)
or the dating of a document .at a time when the al­
kgcd writer could not possibly have been at tl1c place
designated (the alibi) uncovers fraud. Sometimes the
slcillful forger his all too carefully followed the best
historical sources and his product · becomes too obvi­
ously a copy in certain passages; or· where, by skillful
paraphrase and invention, he is shrewd enough to
avoid detection in that fashion, he is given away by
the a&enc4 of trivi4 and otherwise unknown detail,
from h.ls manufactmed aocouot." Usually, however,
if the document is where it ought to be - for ex­
ample, in a family's archives, or .ainong a business
6rm's or bwycrs papers, or 'in a governmental bu­
reau's rec,,rds (but not merely because it is in a li­
brary or in 2n amateur's autograph collection) - its
P.!_ownance (or its custody, as the lawyers call it),"
creates a presumption of its genuineness .
,. Cf. M-1 Cobcn, '-C-roeot oa ptdait le In� m i-,oo,•
L'Eu"""' xxv (•9!7), ,3-23.
i, Cf. Th,q KMW t11, WMinpnr, lAftm from d Prffldi Sol-
4;., with '41•yctt. dnd f,om HII F"""'1 in Vilpnut, lt. Princai
R.-ld,,.,;u (l•dionapoUs, 19,6): and Heoci 8�iaud, My Fmnd f\o.
t>.,p;.,,., tt. Sbtc, 8iown (New Yo,k, 1928).
,i Wigmore, pp. JJ()wl.
 UNDE.RSTANOINC HISTORY
Garbled Documents·
A document that in its entirety or in large part is
the result of a deliberate effort to deceive may often
be hard to evaluate, but it sometimes eauses less
trouble than docs the document that is unauthentic
only in small part For such parts are usually the re­
sult, not of studied falsehood, but of. unintentional
error, They occur most frequently in copies of docu­
ments whose originals have disappeared, and are genet­
ally due to that lcind of enor of omission, repetition,
or addition with which anyone who has ever made
copies soon becomes familiar. Sometimes they are the
result, however, not of carelessness but o� deliberate
iutention to modify, supplement, or continue the
original. Such a change may be made in good faith in
the lint instance, care being exerted to indicate the
differences between the original text and the glossary
or continuations, but future copyists arc ofttn less
careful or more confused and make no such distinc-
. tions.
This probl'em is most familiar to classical philolo­
gists and Bilile critics. For ther seldom have copies
less than eight centuries and several stages of repro­
duction removed from the original - that· i.s to say,
copies of copies of ies, and sometimes copies of
� not iu otheis. Again the questjon arises: Are those
translations of oopies translations of copies, and so
on. The philologists give to this problem of estab­
lishing an accurate text the name tatual �
and in Biblical studies it is also called lowrr criticism.
The historian has borrowed his technique from phi­
lologists and Bible critics.
The Restoration of Text$
The technique is complicated but can be briel!y
dcscnocd. The first task is to collect as many copies of
the dubious text as diligent search will reveal. Then
they arc compared. It is found that some contain
words or phrases 01 whole passages that are not con­
tained in ot),cn. The question then arises: Are those
words, phrases or passages additions to the original
text that have found their way into some copies, or are
they omissions from the others? To answer that ques-
tioo it is necessary to divide the available oopies into
one or more "families" - that is, gtoups of texts
which closely resemble each other and therefore seem
to be derived, directly or indirectly, from the same
master copy. Then by 2 comparison of the texts wit:Jiin
each family an effort is made to establish the com­
pa1ative age of ca� in relation to the others. If the
=bets ·of the same family are largely copied from
each other, as this anangement in families frequently
shows, the oldest one is in all probability (but not
necessarily) the one nearest the original This process
is continued for all the families. When the copy near-
. est the original in- each family is discovered, a com-
parison of all of these "father" copies will usually
.then reveal words and passages that are in some but
words and passages additions to the copies that have
them or omissions from the copies that do not? 'f!ie
most accurate available wordings of the passages
added or omitted by the respective copyists are then
prepared. Changes in handwritings, anachronisms ia
 126 UNJ>P-'St'ANOINC lDSTORY
style, gmmmar, orthography, or factual· detail, and
opinions or errors unlil<cly to have been those of the
origioal author frequently reveal additions by a later
hand. \\'hen the style and contents cf passages under
discussion may be attributed to the author, it is safe
to assume that they were parts of his original manu­
script but were omitted by later copyists; and when
they cannot be: atuibutcd to the author, it is sale lo
assume that they were not pa1ts of his original manu­
script. In .some cases, a 6nal d'ecision !us to await the
discoveiy of still m ore copies. In m:1ny instances the
angina! text can be approximately or entirely restored.
By a simibr method one can even guess the con­
tents, at least in part, of a "father" manuscript even
when no full copy of it ·is in Cllistence. 'I11c historian
Wilhelm von Gi=brccht, a sluJcut uf Ranke, at·
tempted to reconstruct
f
a text· tl1at he reasoned must
be the ancestor o several elcvcntb<entmy chronicles
ill which h e had noted striking similarities. By adding
together the passages thar appeared to be "descended"
from an �nbiown cl\ronicle, he made a guess as to its
contents. Over a qll3Im of a ceotmy later the ancestor
chronicle. was in met found; and proved to be ateo­
mely like Giescbrecltt's �·
�nces A.uriliary to Hi8iory
The · problem of textual TCStoration does not. fre.
fjllCl'lt1y disturb the prescot-day historian, clticfly be·
Quse many apem; <:ng2gcd in what .the historian
cgooeotrically calls "sciences auxili-ary to hist!lfy,"
provide .him with critically prepared texts. Since
Jean Fransois Cliampollion in 1822 learned to de-
· THE PRO:BLIN Ol' AlrBIIENTICJIY' 127
•
cipher hieroglyphics, part of the �'Ork of Eg-fptologim
and papy,ologists has been to provide the historian
with texts and trnnsbtions of inscriptions and papyri
fo�od in the ancient Nile Valley, whether in Egyp­
tian hieroglyphic or in cursive hieratic and demotic or
in Gree.\:.. The Aasytiologilts, since Sir Henry Rawlin­
son in 1847 deciphered Old Persian cuneiform :ind
in , 850 Babylonian Cldncifonn, ha� been publishing
and banslating the texts found on the clay tablets of
the ancient Ttgris-Eupbllltes civilizations. Biblicdl
cn"ticis111, even before Erurn\1$, was dlt:ectcd to the
clfort of bringing the text of bo!h the Old and the
New Testament as close as possible to the original
wording and of explaining as fully· as possible the
Hebrew and Hellenistic civilizations which they IO­
llected. Philolot:f, as aLeady explaiu-c:d, dc:ah .unoug
other things with the derivation ftorr1 wriant texts of
the most authentic ones { especially ol: classical liter­
atore). The classical ef1ir/dpher restores and edits the
texts o£ Greek and Latin inscriptions found on the
gravestones, monuments, and buildll!gs of mcient
Greece and Rome. The paleog,apher, since the time
that MabilloD (see J'· 122) first fonnalized the prin­
ciples of poleogrdphy and diploma1ic$, bas been able
to autl\entitate medieval charter& and other docu­
ments by thelt handwritings, which have been found
to vary from plaoe to pla.ce and from time to time, and
by. their variant bot highly styli.zed coovmtions and
fonns, and to puf>lish C11Sl1y legible printed versions ol:
them. The archeologisl excavates ancient sites and
provides the historian with infounation derived from
artifacts such as statues, mausoleums, pottery, bwld-
128
in� aod building materials. The sec.nee of nutnis·
matics has enabled Lite numilmatist to authenticate
and date coins and mcbls and to decipher and cxphio
their inscriptions. Sphragistics (or sigillography) has
done the same thing with regard to seals, and in so do­
ing has provided an additional test for the autlientieity
of the documcuts whose seals th ey antha,ticate. 'fbc
scicnctS of herllldry ar.d gene,ilogy authentic:ite coats
of arms and lines of descent. and genealogists put
forth dictionaties of genealogy and genca:logical tables.
The bibliogrdpher lvmislles information with regard
lo boob and authois, provides bibliogr.iphies, cata·
l ogues, and didionari¢1 of authOfS, authenticates in­
cnnabula, fint editions, and me items, detects hoaxer,
and identi&cs ano n)mities. The k:.cicographer pre­
P"'es dictionaries of words, gi� their deri"4tion, and
the histcny and enmples of their variant usages; much
iateresting historical l.nowlcdgc will disappear i_f m­
cograpbers mould ever fail to r«ord the derivation of
IIUJIIC100$ wools like bonfi;•, ch.ruvinilm, chitld, boy­
cotl, lynch, 1od mocod4lniu {which 'll'ill ICJ)QY loot.
ing-up in the dictionary). Of late, social scieotisb
such as the �nilf, the imthropologj,t, the p,y.
clKilogi,t, and the IOCiologj,t have been _publishirig
questionnaires, public opinion pons, statistics on pop­
ubtioas and rocial change, etc. Conclusions obtalood
horn such materials and so-called "penooal docu­
ments" or autobiographies coJlccted by social !cien­
tisti hare been or will be useful to the historian. So
loog as the historian's work deals with printed ma·
tc,ials prepared by skillful specia lim in ''the sciences
auxiliary to histoiyn le is saved from the gta\ffl dm,
TD& lltOBLDI 01' AUTIIP.lfIICITY • 1Z9
p of the historical hoax or the garbled dorument.
He may analy7,c their publications on the cheerful as.
sumption that they arc authentic as documents, aad
he need only determine the credibility of their oon­
tenh.
ChrOMl.ocY tJI an Au:r:ilimy Science-
The study of chronology simplifies for the historian
the vital problem of time m�suremcnt. The chrouoJ.
ogist clarifies the various calendars that have been
in use in different places at different tima and makes
it pru:sible to translate datiugs from one calendar into
the others. This is no simple ta:sk, because there have
been many different ways of reckoning time iD the
world'" history. Even whm --tern Europe was 10-
llgiously united mider the. O.tholics and widely .a�
ctpted the ( erroneously dated) birth of Jesus as a
zero point hom whkh to count time for-d and
baclcwaro, various localities celebrated New Yea:'s
day on different dates and so, for part of Ilic year
at lease, did not agree as to what year it was. Pope
Gregory XIII in the sixteenth century, refoimcd the
curious: mixture of Egyptian, Roman, and Christian
reckonings used t,11 then· and known as the "Julian
Calcn'1u," and brought it into greater £Onformance
lrith the latest astronomical knowledge. But by tbat
time Christendom was split into Greek Orthodox,
Catholic, and Protestant fractions, and .his rcforrn at
lint ptevailed only in the Catholic countries. Protes­
tant countries adopted it one by �- In the British
possessions it was not accepted until 1752, when the
Old Style of dating was elevro dap b¢hind the �
 130 11N'OERSTANDINC JllSTORY
gorian (or New Style) calcnd3r, and "'hen· from Jan,
ua,y I toMarch 24 the Old Style Calendar was one year
earlier, because it rcckOfled the new year :is not be­
ginning until M:nch 25. 11lllt is why we cclebrntc
Washington's birthday as of Februaiy 22, 1732., al,
though his family Bible records it- as of Fcbruaiy 11,
1731. The countries w,der Orthodo.t in6ucnee did
not gcnaally accept the Gregorian calendar until
the twentieth centuiy, when their Old Style calendar
was thirteen days bcl,ind the Crcgocian. That ex­
plains why the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 is still
referred tu as the "October Revolution" although tlic
Russians celebrate its annivusaiy on what is now No­
\'l!:Jllber 7·
Al least two common errors can be a•oidcd by bear,
ing in mind that the Ctcgomn calendar oontains no
year o. The lirst century A.D. r.m ftoin the )(:;Ir 1 to
the y«ir 100, and the nineteenth century from 18o1
to 1goo; and the twentieth ceutmy will run ftom
1901 to 1000. Hence the first: half of the nineteenth
ffllluty did not end until midnight, December 31,
�850 (not 1819), and the same holds true for·ear!itt
oenturics as well as fol our own. For the same reason
a calculatios, of the lapse of time between a year B.C..
and a year .Lo. reqaires subtncooo of 1 from their
sums. TI1us, the lapse of time between 1 •.c. and
.o.o. 1 was not two years (more or less) but ·one
year (more or Jess}, and that bch'CCII 63 B.C. and
A.O. 14 (the dale! of Augustus) 'll"OOid be J6 years
(not 77) .
All Christendom and many othtt p<X?ples under
\Vestcm ioBucnce n<r,r U4C the Gregorian calendar,
TH); JR08J:.['.M, OF A\1Tllllh"TICJ1'Y 131
but some noa.Cbristi,i'n peoples ( e.g., the �1oslems
md the Jsiacli) still use calend.11:s dcrh'Cd from their
intl t.pcndcn.t religious h:lditions. The attempt of the
fircnch Revolutionary assemblies to adopt a scientific
calendar cnoonntcrcd religious opposition and failed
(1mlike their refoan of weights and measures by the
iotrocluctioo of the metric system). The preparation
of coucordanccs for tbc different styles of reckoning
time is the business of the chronologist. He a.bo pro­
vides tables and thesauri of penons and events with
dates in order to make "!he art of verifying dates"
simpler.
Yariants Among the Sou:rces
Oftci,, the hi.stori2n runs into• two or more different
text, of the Slime doa.11ncnt published by 1<:>pousible
t1Xpem. And in modern history, where thousands of
archives and libraries, and the stacl:s, vaults, and
liling..:ases of lawyers, courts, doctoo, psycboan:.rlysts,
business firms, ,ociaf agencies,. autograph collectotS
and dealer$, mnili cs, kings, presicknts; governors,
ministries, legislatures, annics, navies, oommitt�
chu1coc'S, schools, teachers, county and municipal olli­
cials, tax and police authorities, ucwspapcrs, clubs,
academies, lodges, commissions, etc. are cammed
with unpublished documents, be sometimes comes
upon two ar more manuscript or typewritten copies
of the same docwnent tliat are not identical. The
blocbde by the Etiglish of the Amcriam coast dur.
iug the Americin War of lndepenclcnce nccessil:llted
sending three or·four copies of important Jcttcis from
Alnc:rica to f:rdnoe and those copies did not alwayi
132 UND£Rs:r,\J'tDL'-C 11lSJ'0:RY
agree in detail In the warehouses full 'Of paper on the
Second World.War, there arc bound to be-several
drafts or copies of the sam': document that neverthe­
less will show discrepancies. In such instances the
historian has to try, like the philologist, to determine
which copy is the nearest to the original in time; that
usually makes it easier to determine additions and
omissions and thus to explain the discrepancies.
Sometimes, too, published versions arc incorrect,
and comparison with the original manuscript is re­
quired." More often paraplirascs and descriptions of
the sources are faulty. One must always remember the
lesson of the heresy trial of Professor C. B. Foster of
the University of Chicago Divinity School. When he
was brought up before an cccksia�-tical conference on
the chorge of having· eollcd those who believed in the
Bible k,un,es, it was found by reference to the proper
page in his book that what he bad in fact said was,
"He who calls himself a Bible belie>'er is a lldiw." "
No less astute a person than the Russian diplomat
Andrei Vishiosi:y in 1()18 aononnced before the
United Nations that an American map existed of
"the Third World War, Pacific theatre of military
opetations;' but reference to the map itself revealed
it was entitled "War Map 111 Featuri ng the Pacific
" Fo. ocamplc, !fie pobllsbod ttnion of an impo<laot clocu,
...,.. in d,e ,o.a,llcd "Co-, cabal" =d«cd ., "tho be" _,.,
that _,, in the oripaal "Mr. Let," l!IOs loog oh:u1ing the port
l'l>odt Lightfoot Lee pby<d in the "cabal" Soc Louis Cott,chaJI:.
14-,.tu foin, IM &,.,.,.. Amy (Chicago, !9l7), p. uo and
... Cf. Loais Cott,cb,llc and Jo,q,bi .. l'caacn, "Duer and' the
·cc,,,...,,y Cobol,"' Ai,,,,;,.,, Hi,torioolllmn,, LU (19i6), 81-1)6.
,. wpore, � ,19-JO.
TUE rROJlLE)I OF AUTllf!'TICrrY 13$
Theatre." It was nothing more fhan the third map
,elating to the war (the first two were of the Euro­
pean theatre} published by a certain American map
company during the Second \Vorld War."
The Probkm_ of Meaning: Seman.lies
Having procured as nearly aocurate a text as his
sources will ptovide, the histo,ian is then faced with
the task of dctennioing its meaning. This is the prob­
lem that in Biblical criticism is called hermeneutics
and exegesis; It sometimes involves the v:irying signi­
fication of words - or semantics. Such ptoblcms may
call only for the nse of a dictionary, but that means,
wherever possible, lexicons contemporary to \he au­
thor of the document or, at least, a dictionary arranged
on historical principles; for the meanings of words
often chang e horn generation to generation. The
words liberty and right seldom mean more than (JriYi·
lege in feudal documents; and the word (Jroletllritln
meant little more than vile or vulgar before the nine­
tc:enth century. lm(Jerialist was a more laudatory tClln
in the 188o's than in the 195o's; and today democracy
changes meaning as one flavels east or west of the
Oder River. Failure to n:alize web chapges in mea!r
ing may lead to thorough misundeistanding of irn­
�nt historical developments.
The semantic ptoblem also involves the exploita­
tion of all the knowledge that the historian possesses
concerning the period and the witness. For frequently
witnesses, particularly illiterate ones, do not use die-
" New Y«k Tima, Ocloba j, 1918, icproduca the hon! I'"&<
ol d,e map.
134 UNDP.IUT.\NOl"C lllSfOKY
tional)' words, or use dictional)' words in senses �nd
in combinations not authorized by. tlic dictionaries.
Moreover, failure to appreciate the intellectual cli­
mate in which the witness lived may make words con­
veying his aspirations, superstitions, or other ideas
JOiie some ol their ovc1toncs. Knowing that witches
arc real to some people, that the divine intervention
of the gods is no less real to others, that devils, imps,
and fairies inhabit various worlds, tliat private prop­
erty is sacred to some and anathema to others, that
Cod saves some by _inner grace and othen by good
worl:s, that mi<aclcs arc signs of holiness to some and
of credulity to others - knowing such patterns of
thought and hundreds more lilce them, contradiclol)'
or supplementary, enables the historian of each era
to gmp nuances that might otherwise escape him.
'The historian's task is to understand not only what
a dorumcnfs words may formally mean but also what
bis witness ,,;,;Jy intenaed to say.
' Des boys navigateuu 6nira fodyss6c;
The Problem of Meaning: Hermeneutic.,
When one encounters language that is ambiguous,
an additional query arises since the ambiguity might
or might not have been accidental. What, for CX·
ample, did the man mean who wrote to an autl1or,
"I sllall Jose no time reading your bool:"7 Did he
mean that the book was well worth reading, or that
it would be a waste of time to read it and he therefore
would not do so, or that be would hasteri to read it?'
And was. the ambiguity unintentional? If, as is some·
times said, the man was the cynical Benjamin Dis·
aeli, it probably was not, but without any context
na; PJ.OBLl!M Ot' /\Ut11>:N'l'l(;ff\'. 135
one might assume the remark was intended to be
polite though unhappily phr�.
.
111e Jicrmencu!ic problem becomes cspec,ally acute
when a deliberate intention to hide the meaning is
suspected. The deliberate hiding of meaning involves
not merely the problem of code and cyphet and the
danger of reading one's prejudices into a document;-''
it involves also a certain amount of skill with riddles,
puzzles, and word-tricks. � Ne:" York T(mes,
shortly after the 194e> invasion of Frdntc, published
an octave · ( tronslatcd on p. 1 J6) which, appearing
originally in Paris&ir, seemed lo indicate some
Frenchman's great admiration for Hitler and con­
tempt for the English:
Aimons ct admirons le Chancelier Hitltt
L'l1crucDe Angletcnc est indigne de vivrc;
Maudissons ct ccrasons le people d'outrcmer;
Le Nazi wr la �e sen scul a survivre.
Soyons done le souticn du Fuehrer allemaod,
A eux sculs appartieot un justc ehJtimcnt;
La polme du vainqueur attt:nd la Croix Cammee.
· But any historian · would have been thoroughly de­
ceived as to its meaning and purport. and thctefote as
to the writers and publisheis traits and attitudes, if
he· bad taken it at its face value. For these arc Ab­
andrine verses, and by separation on the caesura, two
stanzas of eight Jines each are produced that lm·e an
altogether opposite meaning. as the Timu's transla.
tion showed:
" Cf. M. R. Ccl,cn ond Ernest N,gd, An ,..,,o4,..tio,, to Logic
-1 Scw,IIJ$c Mdltod (New York. 1931), pp. 3'9-31·
 ...
\Vith love lct us pmitc Hitler, tJ,c Ch:mccllor,
E,ulasting Eoghud ls unw01tby of life,
'The trans-Channel mentor­
l..ct US Cll!SC, let US r:IZC
On earth, the Nazi i,Qnd Sok survivor i)! stole -
Let us then bear suppo1! For the German Cbicfbin
For the OO)'S plowing the
sea Shall the Od)-sscy fade,
By whose sole effort Just punishment obtain,
1'hc victory shall bo For 11,c Swasti\:a gbive.
llistorical-MindedneJs
Closely related to t!ie semantic and hermeneutic
problem is that of undeistanding and appreciating be,
havior io its contemporary setting. To jlldt;e c:irlict
societies by more advanced codes of ethics; to expect
balanOC4 judgments and normal conduct in times of
war, xcvolutioo, C1t upheaval; to !Olnslate the folk­
ways, conventions, and st.:mdards of one country t-0
· another; to con�emn an individual's act without at­
.tempting to comprehend his nonns or environment;
to be intoletant of an �ignoran<:e'' which is 'in fact
· a 00111pre�ve knowledge of and a healthy adjust·
�t to a dillctcnt a,lture -· these and other failun:s
to·place peisons and eveub in their OVID historical
setti�g would often lead to failore to �d the
sumving docwnents and nearly always to misjudg·
. WCl!!s of the persoruililics and more, of that setting.
The ability to put oneself in the place of ot.hci in·
dr.idoab of other times and to inte,pICI. docrunarts,
�vents, and persoualitics with their eyes, standards,
and sympathies ( without ncccs.sarily surrendering
oae's own standards) has sometimes bE:en called 1ti8-
CSSel psychologists c.JII empainy auu ..... -....... . .
requires a deliberate dfo,t to cont.wl and.to correct
another skill that, while of a similar natute, may easily
worlc in an opposite direction - �� ability to in\g·
rct the ast in le111JS oi analo to one's e ience
(see Chaptei X ough a historian's quemons
about any cailicr period that he studies arc more or
less bound to arise frmn his own present - his owg
frames of reference, st111da1d1, institutions, situations,
traditions, and aspirations, nevertheless �e hastheo!>,
ligation a�_a historian to �sr them in terms <?ihis
�it11atinns and �1.ogy..n
flisrorictJ!.minded11ess reqnires the investigator to
shed his own isonali , and to tuc on, as far as
�
i ,that of hi� subject in the effort to un__e�
t\clattct�ge, ideaTh,.interom, attitudes, baeits,
motives, <lrives, and traits. This may be hard to do
and tlie historian may rarely succeed in d-oing it thor­
oughly, but the -0bHg;ition upon him is obvious if
lie is attempting to understand and imwrtially judge
rathet than 'to critici1.e others' acts and personalitx,.
· Historical-nundedncss SOIJICtimes requires the histor­
.ian to mah: a better case for a subject than. the sub,
ject could have made for himself, without necessarily
believing it He should pot into his'pcrsonality studies
something of lhe undei:stand:ing. but mot necessarily
forgiving, quality that a psychiatrist might give to the
study of a patienl This is much the same kind of
understanding that Actoo admired in George Eliot's
character portrayals: "Each of !hem should say that
she displayed him in his strength, that she gave 11-
 UNOf.RSl',\NOJNC l.llSTORY
•tional lonn to motives he h;1d i1npcrlcctly analyzed,
that she laid oore features in his cliarnctcr he had
never: realized."" If l\1orris R. Cohen is right, "To
widct1 our hori1.0n, to malcc us sec other points of
view than those to which we ore accustomed, is the
grcatest service that can be rendered by !be bistotian,
and this he can do best by concentrating on the spc·
ci2l field which he studies to understand.""
l<kntification of Author and of Dale
Some guess of the approximate date of the doc,,.
mcnt and some identification of its supposed author
(or, :1t least, a s11nnise as to his location in time and
space and as to his habits, attitudes, cbarnctcr, lc.1m·
ing. associates, etc.) obviously fom1 an essential par!
o( otenuJ criticis,,,. OU\ctwisc it would be i.-11pos$il.,lc
to prove or ditprove authenticity by anaclironisms,
handwriting. style, alibi, or other tests that arc as­
sociated with the author's mi.lieu, personality, and
actions. But similar knowledge or guesses arc also nee,
C$satJ' for internal criticism, and therefore the prob­
m of author-idcnti6cation bas been left for the next
chapter (pp. 1,i1-8).
Having est:ablisbcd an authentic text and discov­
croo what its aulilor really intended to say, the his­
torian has only established what the witDcss's testi­
mony is. He has yet to detcnnine whcthc, that
testimony is at an credible, and if so, to what extent
That is the problem of internal criticiun.
1'Jano,ry ,,. 188t, J.tcrbm P•l (ed.), Lcttcn of l,o,d AdON
o, Ma,7 ci.drt- (New York, •90i), p. 159.
.. Tn. M,.,.;,,, o111....... w
•.,, 11.. s.11., ,a. 1<>1il, p. ,a.
[ IS9 J
CIJAPTEII Vil
THE PROBLEM OF CREDIBILITY,
OR INTERNAL CRITICISM
TuE msro"""" first aims in the examination 0£ tes­
timony to obtain a set of particulars relevant to som e
topic or q,iestion that he has in mind. Isolated par·
ticulars have little meaning by themscl�'CS, and unless
they have a context or fit into a hypothesis they are of
doubtful value. But that is a pcoblcm of synlhe:sii,
which will be di!cusscd later.' Whal we arc now
eooccmed with is the anal)'tis of documents for cred­
(blc details to be 6ttod into • hypothesis or ooniiit.
'Ifhat ls lli.storical Fact?
l.n the process of analysis the historian should con­
st:intly l<ocp in mind the relevant particulars witbin
the document rnthct than tl1c document as a whole.
Regarding each particular he asks: ls it credible?' It
might be well to point out ag:iin that what is meant
by calling a particular credible is not that it if actll41ly
wh4t h<If>Perld, but that it is as clou to what actually
hgbt,entd as we Cd11 k<lm from ocnliciil ex,munafoon
of the.bat nailabk source..• This means wri$imild,
at a high level. It connotes romcthing more than
merely not being prepostvous in itul/ or even than
pl4ufible and y,;:t is .short of meaning =rately cfe.
• Sec Clu!*< x.
' Cl. aboY< PP· 4S"'1·
1-10
.«:riptive of past actuality. In other words, the histor­
ian establishes verisimilitude r.1i11cr than obiectiYe
trulh. 1noug1, there 1s a htgb correlation between the
two, tl,cy are not necessarily identical. .As for as mere
particulars are concen1erl;histori,ms ,lisagrce relatively
seldom regarding what .is credible in this spi,cial sense
of "confnnning to a critieal cxanii,ution of the
sources." It is not inconceivable that, in cleiling with
the same doLunient, two historians of e<Jual ability
3nd toining wo11ld extract tl1e same isolated "facts"
and agree with each other's findings. In that W3Y the
ekn1enl3ry data of history are subject to proof.
A historical "fact'" thus may be defined as awrtic-
1Jar cleri•1cd <lir�ctlyQ!. indirectly frcw l1istnti.ca.l..d.Q£u­
mcots and regarded as credible after careful testing
.in aoeo.rdance witlt tl)c canoni of l,is-torica1 11\ctl1od
(sre below p. 150). An infinity aud a multiple variety
of facts of .this !:ind are accepted by all historians:
e.g, that Socrates really existed; tl1at Alexander in·
vaded India; truit tlte Romans built ·the Pantl1eon;
that the Chinese have an ancient litcn,ture (but heie
we inLToduce a complexity with the word <1ncie11t,
which needs definitiou before its factual quality can
be considered ceitain); th:it Pope Innocent Ill ex­
communic.ated King John of England; that Michel­
:ingelo sculphued ul\1oscs"; that Bismarck modified
the dispatch from Em$ of King William's secretary;
that bank$ in the United States in 1933 were closed
for four days by prcsidcntiQI procfamation; and that
"the Yanke(:$'' woo the "World Series" in '919· Sim­
ple and fully atte$ted "facts" of this kind arc rarely
disputed. 'fliey are easily ob6etved, easily re<.'Orded (if
"l'IIE PROBLRM OF CRtl'.>l21IJ"l'Y 141
not self-evident, like the Pantl1eon and Chinese litein­
ture ), involve no judgments of value (except with
re1,,ard to the antiquity of Chinese literature), contra­
dict no other knowledge available to us, seem other­
wise logic.1lly acceptable, and, avoiding generali7.ation,
deal with single instances.
F.vcn some appurcntly simple· :md concrete sratc­
ment:., however, �re subject to question. If no one
cfispntcs il1c historicity of Socrates, there is less ag,ce­
ment regarding Moses and earlier 6g11rcs of Hcbn.-w
folklore. If no one cloubts !bat l\,f icl,clangelosculptuccd
his «Moses," a few still think that Shakespeare's plays
were in fact written by Francis Bacon. Doubt regard­
ing concrete particulars is likely to be due, however,
to fack of testimony ooscd on 6tSt-hand observation
'l'atl,ct tha.11 to di:»:agrer:111t;:.J.tl 44111011g tl1c witnesses. In
gener_a), on simple and concrete matters whe1e testi­
mony of direct obsef'llltion i., available, the testimony
can usuaUy be submitted to te.sts of reliabilit� that
will be convincing eitl1cr pro or con to most competent
and impa1tial historians. As �ooo as abstrnctions, value
judgments, generalizations, and other comple:rities en­
ter into testimony the. possibility of contradition and
debate cuteis with them. Hcnoe, alongside the mul­
titude of facts generally accepted by historians, exists
anotJ,c, multitude debated (or at least deb:itable) by
them.
The lnterrogaiive Hypothesis
In analyxing�a clocmnent fo1 its isolated "foci.,n
the historian should approach it with a question o,
a set of que,;tions in miud. The questions ,nay be J�la-
 UNOF.RST.o\.NOJNC lllSTORY
tivcly noncommittal. (E.g.: Did Saul try to 3ss,assi.
11:ite Dnvid? \Vhat were the details of Catiline's life?
\Vho were the crusading companions of Tancred?
\'lhat was the date of Erasmus' birth? llow many
meu were aboard De Grassc's fleet in 1781? What is
the correct spelling of Sicyts? Was H1111g Hsui-chu'an
a Christian?) It will be noted that one cannot aslc
even simple questions like these without knowing
enough about some problem in history to :isk a ques­
tion about it, and if one knows enough to ask even
the simplest question, one already has some idea and
probably some hypothesis regarding it, whether im­
plicit or explicit, whether tentative and Acxible or
formulated and fixed. Or the hypothesis may be fuJI.
Ocdgod, though still implicit and in interrogative
form. (E.g.: Can the Jews be held responsible for
the crucif1Xion of Jesus? Did the medieval city de­
velop from the fair? Why did the Anabaptists believe
in religious liberty? How did participation in the
American Revolution contribute to the spread of Ii�
era! ideas among the French aristocracy? Why did
Woodrow Wilson deny knowkdgc of the "secret
treaties"?) In each of these questions a ocrtain im·
plication is assumed to be tnic and further clarific:I.
t!® of it is sought on an additional working assump­
tion.
Putting the hypothesis in interrogative fonn is more
judicious than putti ng it in decL,rative form if for
no other reason than that it is more noncommittal
before all the evidence has been examined. It may also
help in some small way to solve the delicate problem
of relevance of subject matter (sec Chapter X be-
'fllE PltOl)Lt:U OF CR•�OIIJILl'rY
low), since only th�c materials arc, relevant which .
lead directly to an answer to the question or indicate
that there is no snti.sfactory answer.
The Quest for Particular Details of Testimony
As has· already been pointed out, every historical
subject has four aspects- the biogtaphical, the geo­
graphical, the chronological, and the oocup-•tional or
fw,ctional. \Vith a set of names, dates, and key,words
in mind for cacl1 of these aspects, the historical in­
vestigator combs his do�'Umcnt for relevant particulars
(or "notes," as he i.s more likely to call them). It is
gcncr:illy wise to take notes on relevant matter
whether or not it at first appears credible. It may tum
0111 that even false or mistaken testimony has rele­
vance to an undcrstandi11s of one', problem.
Having accumulated his notes, the investigator
must now 5eparate the credible horn the incredible.
Even from his "notes" he has sometimes to extract
still smaller details, for even a single name nuy reveal
a comp,inion of Tancred, a single letter the correct
spelling of Si�s. a single digit the exact number of
De Grasse's etew, 01 a single phrase the motives of
\Vilson's denial. In detailed investigations few docu­
ments are ,ignific-•nt as a whole; they serve most often
only as mines from which to extract historical ore.
Each bit of ore, howcvtt, may contain ftaws of its
own. The general reliability of an author, in other
words, has significance only as establishing the prob­
able credibility of his particular statements. From
that process of scmpulous analysis emerges an im­
portant general rule: for each particuklr of a docu-
 U4 UNOMRSCA.>,OINC IUS'l'ORY
ment the process of C$fablishing credibility should be
.,eparawly undertaken regardlll$t of th2 ge11eral credi­
bility of tl,e author.
ldenti/ictuwn of Autlwr
k has already been pointed out (p. 138), some
idcnti6calion of the author is 11!!'C(:SS:1ry to test :1 doc­
ument's authcutidty. In tl1c subseqo<:nt process of
determining the credibility ol its particubus, c,·en the -
most gamiuc of documents should he regarded as
guilt it until roven innoocnt. 11,e impor·
lance of first CStabJis 1ing C aut 10 $ Cnet'3} yefj.
ability is thercfmc obvio11!. \Vherc the name of 11:e
author can be dctennincd and he is a person about
whon1 biou,iphical dnta are aVllilable. identification
is a relatively easy task. Because, in most legal and
social science inves�tiOIU, the wimess or the author
of a document is pe,-sonally known and available to
the inYe$tigator, u�t question gcoer.Jlly presents no
insunnountable ditlicultics to lawyers aod soci:il sci­
entists.
The historian, h-r, is froquently obligoo to use
documents written by persons about whom nothing or
relati�ly little is known. Evm the hundred$ of bio­
gmphal dictionaries and encyclopedias already in
cxisteoee rnay be of no help because the author's
narne is unlcnown or; i f known, uot t.o be found in
the reference worlts. The historian must the refore de­
pend upon the document itself to teach him 11i1at it
can about the autbC){. A single brief documcut may
tc!ach him much if lie asks the rigb't questions. It may,
THE PROBLP.Al OF CRtDJBU.ll:� 145
of. coutSe, contain explicit biographical details, but
to assume that would be begging the question. Even
where it is rela tively free from lirst-pecson aUusions,
much may be learned of the author's mental proc­
esses and personal attitudes from it alone.
Let us take the usual text of Liocoln's Gettysburg
Address, and BSSumc for the sal:c oi example that we
h�ve no �nowledgc of it except for what its own con-
tents may reveal:
Fourrcore and seven years ago om fathers broiidit fort!,
on tlu$ coutinent a new ... tion, conceived in liberty, and
d«licrted to the proposition that all men are creattd
eqoal. Now we are c11g,aged in a gr<'•t civil war, testi ng
whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so
dodicatc:d, can long endure. \Ve arc met on a great battle,
Jield of that war. We have <OIIIC to dedicate a portion ol.
thit field, as a final resting-place for those who hcie gave
their lives that that natioo might live. It it altogelha fit·
ting and proper that we sl1ould do thi9. But, in a la,ger
scrue, we cannot dedicrte- we cannot conseaate- we
cannot l1allow- tl1is ground. 'l'hc brave mc:o, livi ng and
dead, who struggled here; rewe consecrated ii, f:u ab<wc
our poor power to add ct detuct. The world 'will little
note, ndr long mnembcr, what we say here, but it can
never foiget what they did htte. It is for 1is the livi�
rather, to be d<,dicated here t.o the unlini!bed wod wluch
they wbo fo11ght here have thus far so oobly advanced. It
is rather for us to be hete dedicated to the g,eat task
remaining before us, - that from these honored dead we
talc increased devotion to that cause for which they gave
the last hill measure of devotion - that we here highly �
solve tb;lt these dead ,hall oot have died in V3in - that
146
tl,is nation, under C.,d, sliall h•vc a new birth of fieedom
- nnd that government of' tl,e people, by the people, for
the people, shall not perish from the c:ulh.
Even a hasty examination will suffice to make cleat
that the nnthor, at the time of writing. w.1s planning
to use it as a speech ("we are 111et," "what we sny
here"), thal he wrote English well. tl,at l,is add,css
)Y:IS a funeral oration ("we have come to dedicate a
portion of that 6dd as a final rcsti11g plllce"), that
he was prooobl)' a prominent citr1,CJ1, that he pre­
n,mably was an Amctican ("our fathen,'' "this con­
tinent," "new nation," "four score Mid St.-Ven years
ago"), that he v.-as an adVOC1te of liberty and equality
(or at least desired his hearer, to think so), that he
lived during tl"' Amcric:,n Civil \V•r, th•t he wu
speaking at Gettysburg, or possibly Vick�burg ("great
battlefield," "four KOrc a11d seven years ago"), and
that he wanted his side iu the war to be thought of as
fighting for democracy ("govann1eot of the people,
by the poop le, for the people"). If we forget the con·
trovcrsy among historians as lo whetlier the words
under God were actually deliveted or were only aftet·
ward inserted, we may assume that he subscribed, or
wished to appear to subsaibe, to the belief in a Su­
preme Being.
Fron, a short documeut, it would thus appear, it is .
possible to Jeam much about the author without
knowing who he was. In the ease of the Gett)'sburg
Address a lnlined histor'.an would probobly soon de­
tect Lincoln's autl,cnhip, if it were unknown. llut
<:v<.'ll if he !,ad never heard of I.inroln, he would be
i4'7
able to tell that, in attempting to judge the truth
of the particulars stated in that address, he would have
to coosjder it as probably a public exhortation by a
prominent antislavery Northerner after a major vie·
tory over the Confedc,atc States in tl,c American
Civil War. Mauy documents, being less mode.�t and
less economical of words than the Gettysburg Ad­
dtcss, give their autbots away more readily.
Determination of Approximate Date
It would be relatively easy, even if the Gettysburg
Address were a totally strange document, to establish .
its approximate date. It was obvioo.sly composed
"four·score and seven yean" after tbe D<:da,ation of
Independence, henoe in 1863. But few strange docu­
ments arc so easily dated. Oue has !tcqucully tu re­
sort to the conjectures known to the historian as the
terminw non ante quern ("the point not before
which") and the termirim non pwt qiumi ("the point
not after which"). 'These termini. or points, have to
be established by internal evidence - by dues given
within the document itself. If the date 18.63 were not
implicit in the Gettysburg Address, other references
within the speech eouJd point obl'iously to the be­
ginning of the American Civil War as its termimu
non ante quem, and since the war was obviously sb11
going on when the document was composed, its ter­
minus non fml quem would be the_ end of the Civil
War. Hence its date could be fixed app,oximalely,
even if the fim sentence had been lost, as somewhe1c
between 1861 and 1865; and if we were (oabled by
other data to guess at "the great battlefield," we
148 UNJ)�RS f A.NDfNC IIIS1'C)lt\'
might CV(;tl 113!TOW U1;,t nurgin. Some documents
might uot permit e.-cn a remote guess of their tcr·
mini, but where U1c author is known; one has at
lc:ist the dates of his birth and death to go by.
The Personal. Eqrl.lltum,
This analysis of the Gettysburg A<ldrcss (onder
the false assumption that its authorship is urtl.'1IOW1J)
indicates the type of question the historian asks of
both ano11ymous and avowed rlocumenb. Was the
�uthor au cycwitu� o! the Cl'alts he narrJtes? If not,
what were his sources o! infonnation? When did he
write the document? How much ti1nc elaps ed I»
1woen the event and the record? What was his por·
pose in writing or spe.,ling? \Vho were his audience
•ml why7 Such qucotion• enable the hi,torian to an·
swer the still more important question,: Was the
anthor of U,e document able to ten the truth; and if
able, was he willing to do so? The ability and tl1c
willingness of a wiincss.to give dependable ·testimooy
,re dctennincd by a UtJmbn of ,fai;tor, iu bi$ per
sonality and social situation that together arc some,
times called his "pc�,'' a tci111 applied
to the oorrectjon required in aSiT(lllOUlical observa­
tions to allow for t�c babitnal inaccuracy o[ individ·
naJ observm. 'The personal equation of a . l1istoria11 is
sometimes also called his ''ha.me ol reference," but it
probably will be found more expedient lo restrict the
latter tenn to his conscious philosophy or philoso­
phies of life in so [ar as they can be rlivorctd from
personality traits and biases of which he may or may
not be awan:.
ntI l'ROBLl!M OF CREJllB!Lt£Y
General Rules
In a law coult it is heqututly assumed that all the
testimony of a witness, tl1ough under oath, is susped
if the opposing la�_can i�__bis_eeml cluu.
acter or by examinatioo and cross-examination create
doubt of his vcrocity in some regard. Even in modem
Jaw courts the old maxim falsus iJz 1mo, falsus itt om-
. · nwus tends to be overcmphasi7.cd .' ln addition, heat·
say evidence is as a general mlc excluded; • cerhlin
kinds of wit.ncsStS are "privileged" or "unqualified"
and therefore are not obliged t o testify or ate kept
from restifying; • and evidence obtained by certain
·means regarded IIS h:insgressing the citizen's rights -
such as ''third de gree;• dro� wire-tapping, or lie·
uclcclor - ore mlcd out of some courts. n,c kgal
Sj'Slem of evidence, says James Bradley 11'ayer, "is not
concemcd · with nice delinitions, or the exacter aca­
demic operations of the logicru faculty.... Its mies
•...are seeking to detennine, not what is or is not,
in its nature, probative; but rather, passing by that
inquiry, what amoog teally probative =tters, sba1�
nevert1ielcss, for this or that practical reason, be ex.
eluded, and not even heard by the jmy.'' • Courts of
law, in the AngJo.Saxou system at least, go on the
assumption that if one side presents an. the pennis·
siblc testimony in its favor and if the ofher si<le pre·
sents all the pennissible testimony in its, the truth
o \\ligmore, p. 181.
' 11,;d•• Pl' 'Jil-45.
• lbi!J.• pp. us-,. aod 35-1-60.
o PnU1ulnt1ry Tn:.dtit:t on Evidcw:c d'.t tl,e C,<utu1Wn Lt:.,
(8""on, 1896), pp. J--t,
150 UND£ASTANOJNC IJlSTORY
will emerge plainly enough for judge and jury from
the conflict or harmony of the testimony, even if some
kinds of testimony arc not permissible; and possibly
where much and recent testimony is available, the
innocent suffer less often by such an assumption than
tlie guilty escape.
The historian, however, is prosecutor, "ltomey for
the defcqsc, judge, and jury all in one. But as judge
he rules out no evidence whatever if it is relevant.
To him any single detail of testimony is crcdible­
CV'1t if it is contained in a document ohtained by
force or fraud, or is otherwise impeachable, or is
based on hearsay evidence, or is from an interested
witness - provided it can pass four tests:
(1) Was the ultimate source of the detail (the
primary witness) able to tell the truth?
.(•) Was the primary witness willing to tell the
truth?
(3) Is the primary witness accurately reported with
regard to· the detail under examination?
(4) ls there any independent co"oboration of the
detail under examination?
Any detail (regardless of what the source or who the
author) that passes all four tests is aedible historiail
evidence. It will bear repetition that the primary
witness and the detail are now the subjects of exam­
ination, not the source as a whole.
Ability to Tell the Truth
(1) Ability to tell the truth rests in part upon the
witness's nearness to tl1e event. Nearness is here used
in both a geographical and a chronological sense. The
TllE PROBLt:.M Of CREDlBILITY 151
reliability of the witness's testimony tends to vary
in proportion to (a) his own remoteness from the
scene in time and space, and (b) the remoteness
from the event in time and space of his recording of
it. There are throe steps in historical testimony: ob­
servation, recollection, and 1ecording (not to men·
tion the historian's 01111 petccption of the witness's
rcco,d). At each of these steps something of the pos·
sible testimony may be lost. Geographical as well as
chronological closeness to the event affects all throe
steps and helps to detennine both how much will be
lost and the accuracy of what is retained.
(2) Obviously all witnesses even if equally close to
the event are not equally competent as witnesses.
Competence depends upon degree of expertness, state
of m�utal and hysical health, age, C<lucalion, mcin­
�
x
ory, ruirraftve s ll, etc. 1'he ab1l1ty W C:Stit11atc 110111 4
tiers ,s especially subject to suspicion. The size of the
anny with which Xerxes invaded G1eece in 48o 11.c.
was said by Herodotus to have numbered 1,700,000,
but it can be shown to have been considerably less
by the simple computation of the length of time it
would have taken that many men to march through
the Thermopylae Pass even unopposed. More re­
cently by a similar computation doubt. was thrown
upon the veracity of a newspaper report from Moscow
that one million men, women, and children paraded
through the Red Square in celebration of the thirty·
second anniversary of the October Revolution (No­
vember 7, 1949) in a five and one-half ho11r demon.
stratiou, for it would require more than fifty persons
a second to march abreast p-ast a given point to com·
1.52 UND£ki>,'Al<VINC lllSl'ORY
plcte • parade of one miliion iu five and . one-half
hours; With some .nottble exceptions, such as the
Domesda)• llook of William the Conqueror, histo r ­
iAns have been warned against using ony source of
nnmbcn before the cud of the l\·liddlc Ages.' Tiic
c,rcful keeping of vital statistics W\lS :a 1clatively late
itinovatiou of the end of the cig.'itccntb and tl,e be­
ginning of the llinctecntb century. Previous to. th:it
time t�< rolls and incomplete p:irish rctorcls of oop­
tisms, marriages, and burials were the best in·
dicalious. Even battle casualty statistics before tl1c
ninctw,th century are SllSpc<:t, aod histori:lns sb11
disag,ee on the cost in human life of w:ni up to and
including·tbosc of Napoleon I, and, ill some instances,
beyond. . .
( }) D•g,•• of <Ztlcntion i• oho nn iniporlant factor
in the ability to tell th� lnrth. A wcll-lc.nown story, no
less illustrative if it be apocryphal, tells of· a P5yd101Qgy
professor who deliberately staged a figl,t in his class­
room �n two students, which Jed to a free-for-all.
When peace was restored, the professor asked each
member of tbc class to write an aCCO\mt of what had
happened, There were, of course, conftictiilg state­
ments amorig the accoonts, but, wltit w:is most sig­
nificant. no 1tudent bad noticed that the professor in
the midst of the · pand=onium had taken out a
___
banana and had peeled and eaten it. Obviously the
cntite meaning of the event rested llpon the unno·
.....
_"':'
' 1.dtn of John E. P'r.attf. Novcn1bet9, 1949, Ntw Yo,t Time.;,
rlow:11,hl:r 1), 1919·
• Scigoobo., Mhhodc hotori.,.. "PfJ/i4Uh ou.t '°""'" ,oc;,,ia,
Pl'· '"1-S·
'l'lll! PllOO=t QY Cl<JroJJil1,lTY 15')
ticed act: it was 1111 experiment in tbc psychologi• of
attention. Because each student's interest had been
fixed upon his own· part in the dmmn, each bad given
an erYonoous interpretation oC what had occuncd.
Magici•ns ;imilnrly depend upoo their ability to divc.-rt
attentiou from thing,; they arc doing to perpetrate
some of their tricks. 'The common human inability to
$C<: things clear1y and wliole makes even the best of
witnesses suspect.
(1) We have alrcndy discussed the danger of the
l�ing question (p. 104). Soch questions, by imply·
ing the cxpec.'tcd 31llwct, make it difficult to tell the
whole truth. Lawyers also count the hypothetical
question ("Suppo,i11g you did agtce with n,e, would
you act as I?"), and the argumentative or "loa�d''
<jue&tion {"Have yo" stopped bcaliog your wife?"'),
2nd the coached on,wer as belonging to kindred cate­
gories.' Suell questions are especially liable to be mis­
leading if they have to be answered "Yes" or "No." ·.
Allpor t gives a striking illusttation of the kind of mis­
infonn2tion that can be derived from the witness
whose narrntive is circumscribed by the questiontt.
He mentions an iuvcstig,itor who "secured fifty top.
ical aulobiograph.ies, forcing all writers to tell about
udi,.,.lism and conserv.itism in their lives," and wl10
from those bi ogra phies almO&t ( but fortunately not
quite) came to the conclusion that "radicalism,
oooscrvatism constitutes one of those first·ordc, vari­
ables of which all J)fflOrullities arc compounded.""
- the last inmnce the investigator bcircly
( s) In ·--
• Cf. \Vigmou;. pp. 117-jO :1nd 16,cr2.
.. Allport, p. 137.
 .154 V1<1>6B.�TANJ>TNG lll�TOR�
missc;J reasoning in a circle.- from premise back' to
premise again. It has been coutcndcd also that one of
the rcaSOllS why religious problcn1s and events l't.'CCil-e
so much attention in 1:hc histo:y of the Mickllc Ages
is that its principal sources were v.Titten by clergy,
men. If mc'<lie,.il a1cliitects, fandownetS, soldiets, or
mercl,ants had written more, they might have asked
and answtrt�l different \inds . of questions and given
a diffeient picture of mcdic,.11 life. Possibly, if the
writings of oor own intellectuals should prove to be
the majo1 sourr,e for future accounts of our age. future
historians will be misled into thinking that intellectu­
als had a greater influence upon human affairs in our
time than they actually have. This sort of circular
argument must be especially guarded against when
an effort is being made to ascribe unsir,ncd writin�
lo a supposed author, for it is easy to assume tliut the
ideas of the writings are characteristic of the supposed
author ii those very articles are the basis of the as­
sumptions regarding the author's cl1aracteristics.
(6) One ah!iost ine$Glpable shortcoming of the
personal document is its egocmtrism. It is to be e�­
pected that ever\ a modest observer will tell what he
himself heard and what he himself did as if those de­
tails were the most important things that were said
and done. Often it is impossible for him to tell bis
story in any other tttms, snl-OC that is the only way
he knows it. This observation is a more or less in·
evitable corolla ry of the caution with regard to alter,.
lion discussed above. ·nic famous speech of the
Comte de Mirabeau after Louis XVl's Royal S�ion
of Juue 23, 1789, pro\ides a pat illustration of how
ni,; PRO'BI.EM Ol' C!IJ,:f)IBILITY 155
easily such cgoccntrisnf may mislead the hist.orian.
Mirobeau ( though speaking in the tliird persen) told
how he had said somelhing about the necessity of
force: ''For we shall leave our seats only by the power
of the bayonet." He failed to mmtion that several
others weJe expressing a similar determination at
about the same time, though probably in more mod­
crnte language. Therefore historians trusting too con­
fidently to Mirabeau's testimony have sometimes
made him the heroic center of a desperate eris.is; still
it is more proooble that he was not so conspicuous or
the situation so dramatic as he implied."
In general, inability to tell the truth lead� to errors
o{ omissiCJtl, mther than commission, because of lack
of completeness or lack of balance in observation,
recollection, or nar.rotive. S,1cl1 errors may give a pic­
ture that is out of petspectivc because it subordinntes
or fails to indude some impartant things and ove,.
emphasiies those it does include.
11'illingness to Tell the Truth
The historian also has to deal with documents
whose authors, though otlierwise �ent to tell
th� mllb, conscionsly or unconsciousf1ffalsehoods.
Thete are several conditions that tend especially to­
w:nd untruthlulriess aod against which the experience
of mankind has armed lawyers, historians, and others
who deal with testimony."
u Cf. F. M. •od H. D. Jll;og. Sour<• l'roHtm, of tht l'widr
Rm/ution (New Yo1k, ,913). p. 12<); cf. ,bo pp. u3, ,39, ,41,
and 118,
2: Wigmorc., pp. 1�.
 liNCllSr.\Nl>lNC IOSTOllY
(1) One of tl1c most elementary rules in the anal­
ysis of testimony is that which requires the exercise
of caution against the inlere,;/ed wit11e�. A witness's
interest is obvious when lie himscli m�y benefit from
perversion of the truth or may thereby oondit some
one or some cause dear to him. Certain kinds of f!O/>d·,
_;undg ,uc;. pcrl,aps the worst examples of deliberate
perversion of truth out of a desire to benefit a cause.
fn the sevenlecoth century the word pro{>aganda wss
applied to Catholic missionary work without dis­
porngemcnt. Since the uinctccnth century, however,
it has been 11SCd more or less dcrog;itorily to designate
any lcind of concerted mO\'ement to pcnuadc ind the
instruments or s11d1 persuasion. The word may be
n1odern, but propag.tnda and its rnctl1ods have bc:cn
familiar since efforts were first made to iuffucnce pub­
lic opinion.
(2) Often the benefit to be derived from a petvcr·
sion of the truth is subtle and may not be reali2ed by
the witness himself. In such a case the cause of pre­
v:11icatio11 probably is bids. If the witness's bias is f.n'Of­
able to the subject of his testimQDy, it is frequently
designated :tudiuni. If i t is unfnorabw, it may be
designated odium or ir11. The Latin words are de.
med from a declaration by TacihlS that he would
write history fine itd et sbtdio ( thereby setting a
standard that few historians, including Tacitu; have
been able to achiC\'C). Sttidium and odium, bi:is for
and bias against, frequently de�d upon tl1e wit­
ness's social drcnmst:>nt'CS and may oper-Jte in a fash­
ion of which he himself n,ay uot be aw.ire. lt l,c.
comes important to the historian to lcnow what the
THE PllOlll.EM OP CKEl>lll!Lrrv
•
witness's Weltanschaiumg { or "frame of reference")
may be, ;;s well as bis religious, politi�I, social, eco­
nomic, racial, national, regional, local, family, per­
sonal, and other ties (or "pe.sonal equation"). Any of
these factors may diet-ate a prcdile<:tion or a prejudice
that will shade his testimony with nuances that other­
wfac might ha,e been absent.
(3) The intended hearers or rcadclS of a document,
it has already been remarked (p. <)O), play an im·
po,tant part in determining the truthfulness· of a
statement. TI1c desire to pk(J.,e or to displease may
lead to the coloring or the avoidar.e<: of the tmth.
Speakers at political rallies and at banqueh, write,s
ol wartime rlispatches and communiq,1�s. maka-s of
polite lctte,s anrl conversation are among tl1c numer­
ous producers of documents that may subtly p<'TVert
fact for tbat reason. Akin lo and often associated with
inten,st and bias, whicl1 arc often socially determined,
this motive is nevertheless different from them, being
usually p<?rsonal and inrlividual. It may occasionally
stand alone as an explanation of prevarication.
{4) Literary style somctime8 didal:c$ the s:icrilice
'of tmth. Epigrams and-notoriously-slogans of
war and politics {"L'etal c'est moi"; "Millions for de,.
fense but not one cent for qibute"; "The Old Guard
dies but never suncndcrs")," if properly dis�itcd
in tbe inletests of ac-curacy and truthful reporting.
would b.e robbed of pithiness and color. Autho13 of
autobiographies and letters, especially when they write
1, hi.ti flatsin, Cf'lffln1"1 o• krit l'hi�loite (P.i1i,, 191;; P.ag.
Jis.h •hptatioo, Bcrlcley. 1935) oonr'.1in1 :a.n appeadu: tbu.t cites
• n,n•be, of olm <:>ampl e, ..ib cti�c,J ,naly,is cl rltei, orijin.
 158
for priv:ttc annt1<:mcnl, may feel tempted to stare as
fatt what is only hCftr5a)' or tradition o< even fiction;
and frcquc:ntly narrato,s and Jl'j)Ortcrs ( especially if
they hope for large audiences) seek to appear nmnis­
cie:it rather ll1�11 lo nse the less vigorous word, the
less striking phrase, the ifs �nd buts, tbe there-is-some­
rea;-on·to-belicve and the il·i�.perhaf>s-S<Jf•·lo-say of
more precise discourse.
The anecdote is especially suspc'<:l. Muell too often
ii is a subsequent in,•ention to tJirow iuto humo,ous or
striking relief some spectacular figlue or episode . The
more apposite the anecdote, the more ,tubious it is
hlely to l,e without coaoboration. And yet the ex­
istence of an especially pat anecdote has a historical
significance of its own - as showing the sort of thing
belicv,d of or imputed to tho subject. A well-known
Italian provc,b describes sucl, anecdotes as felicitous
(ben hovato} even if onhue.
{5) Ltws and conventions sometimes oblige wit·
ncsscs to depart from strict verdoity. The !ame laws of
libel and of good bste that have encouraged the hid­
ing of the "resemblance .to persons now living or
dead" UJ fiction and movi ng pictures have preclude,!
complete ac;curacy in some works of histoiy. Some
of the notorious inaccuracies of Jared Sp:irb as a his­
torian were due to his writing of living charactezs
horn testimony by living 1vitnesscs who requested
him not to use certain data.'' EtiqtM:tte in letters
and conversation, conventions and formalities in treat­
ies and public docnmcnts rt-quire politeness and ci-
- �-c;.i;h,lk, l.of•y<lt• ond Cl°"'
.R,"""''""'
tlio of rhe �­
(Chqo, 1942), p. 152.
TI.CE l'RODLJ!M OE' CR'El>lflltrrY • 159
pressions of esteem that are obviously false or empty.
A successful comedy, James Montgomf;ry's Nothing
but the Tnitli (1916), was written around the vali:mt
effort of a young man to go thrcugh a whole day with­
out saying anything that was untmc; it nearly cost
him all his hiends. Religious concepts like the Chri�­
tian Scientist's _interpretation of the ideas of eYi� dis­
ease, and death may lead to mi.�understanding. Cor­
porations, commissions, and socictiES are sometimes
required by their articles of incorporatiou or constitu­
tions to meet periodjcalJy, but when their numbers
arc small, tl1e minutes o f their mtetings may be much
more fornial than the actu•l meetings.
(6) Closely akin to this category are the many in­
stances of i11exoct cfuting of historical documents be­
cawc o{ the conventions ilnd formolitics involved.
Jlor ex:impie, the official text of the Declaration of
Inile pe11dent-e is dated "In Congress, July 4, 17j6,"
To the unwary reader it would appe:u tl1at those who
signed it were present and did so on that day. ln fact,
the formal signing took place on August 2, 1776, and
. some members did not sign until a st.ill bter date.,.
Some 1!1<:<licval ruleis used to date documents as of
certain towns though th ey were not at those towns
on the dates indicated. The modern official's and
bnsinessman's h.3bit of sending lcttcis on office sta­
tio.oery regardless of where they may be or o f dkt:iting
but not reading their letteis, which are signed by a
,ubber stamp 01 a secretary, may male it very diffi­
cult for future biographers to trace their itineraries.
" Cori Beder, DtcW.riQ11 o/ lnd,p,ncte,,a, (New Yoit, 19u),
pp, ,Sf-<;·
 160 IINOUSTANDINC lllSTORY
B:mk checks, having the city of the bank's location
printed on than, may also prove misleading as to the
signer's whereabouts.
(7) Expcctation or anti,ipation fretJUCntly leads a
witness astr•y. Those who count on revolutionaries
to be hlooclthirsty and conservatives gc11tlcmanly,
those who expect. the young to be irn.vcrcut and the
old cmbbed, th05e who )mow Ccrmaos lo be mth­
lcss and Englishmen to Jacl, J,'umor gencully find
bloodthirsty IC\-O)utionaries and gentlemanly con=-
1'3lires, irreverent youth and aabbcd old-age, ruth­
less Ccmians and humorless Englishmen. A certain
fack of precision is found in such witnesses because
t11eir eye$ and cars are closed to fair observation; or
because, wckiug, th ey find; or because in recollection,
they tend to forget or to minimii:e examplrs that do
oot confirm their prejudices and hypotheses. ('This
sort of atlil11dc is only a special kind of bias and lllighl
be regarded merely as a snbdivision of Paragr.iph 2
above.)
• • • for the St. Bartholomew M:1$$3cn:, Bismardc's satis­
Unwiningncss to tell the truth, whether inten­
tional or sulx:onscious, lc::,ds to misstatements of fact
more often th3n omissions of fact When the same
witness is both unable and unwilling to tell tlie truth
(as is mostly the case to some degree at least), the his­
torian has before him a document that commits errors
both of omission and commi.lsion. Yet he must con­
tioue to bear in mind tlJ;Jt even the worst witness
may occ.isionally tell tl,e ttulh and that it is Ilic his­
torian's business to c,ctract every iota of n:lc\'311� truth,
if he can.
l'flE PB.OBI.EM OF CUDIBU.ITY 161
Co1,diJ,wM Favorable to Credibility
Fortunately there are certain conditions especially
favoiable to tiutl,fulness, and students of evidence
easily recognfu them. They are frequently the reverse
of the conditions tlmt create a .n inability 01 an un­
willingness to t:ell the tmtb.
(1) \Vhcu the purport of a statement is a 11UJ!!2J'
of indifference to the witness, he is likely to be uo­
biased.
(2} More dependably, when a statcmc11t is prqu­
Jicial to a wit•ie�. his dear ooes, or his aiuses, it is
. lilcely to be truthful. That is why confessions, if oot
forcibly extracted and if deposed by those in goocl
meotal health, are considered excellent testimony,
sometimes acceptnble in law comu without other
direct lestimouy.'• The historian must be careful,
however, to multe sure that the statement really is
coosidered by the witness to be prejudicial to himself.
Cases like that of Charles IX's claim of responsibility
faction with hi, revision of the F.ms dispatcli, and ex­
' Nazis' or ex..COmµmnisls' contrition over their youth­
ful errolS come all too readily to mind. In ruch cases
the deponent may be engaged in a subtle and per­
h:ips unconscious form of self-pity 01 even of boast­
ing rather than in confession, and other tests of trust­
worthiness mu5t be sought.
(3 ) Often, too, facts a,e so well-lcnown, so much
matters of common knowledge, that the witness
would be unlikely to be mistalco or to lie about
,. Wigmoo,, pp. 3os-4
i02 IINDEIISTA.'IDJNG UISTORY
them: viz., whcth,7 it rained last nigl1t, whether a
prorni11cnt cilir.cn was assassinatc,cl b.st Tuesday,
whcth<:r a famous bishop was a notorious philanderer,
whether a well-known lord liad the largest llC1d of
sheep i,1 the county, etc. \Vhenc..·cr t.hc implications
of such testimony suggest that such ,natters are com·
mon knowledge -and especially when thq• are also
commonplaces - lhc absence of co11tmdictory evi­
dence in other sources may frequently be talcen to he
confirmation. For example, it is a commonplace that
old soldiers arc gru111h)e,s, and, besides, many pcoons
had abun4111t chance to observe tliis phenomenon
jn particuhr armies; hence we are prCJl"<OO to believe
lhe traditioo that many of Napoleon's veterans were
grogmtrrls even on othccwise inadequate testimony. l.f
that kind of slal:<:J!lent hod been incorrectly reported,
it would in .n pcobability have been challenged by
olhet contempomries .,.,iting subsequently.
This procm of reasooing rests, however, upon a
sort of tl1'gumel1lum <tt silentio ("Silence gives COD·
sent"), and such arg111ncnl'S can easily be abused. Care
must be taken to ascertain whether, though apparentJy
commonly known or commonplace, the matter Wider
ciamination was in fact so reg;ndcd by other COil·
temponries, and whether they ever h:id a chance to
learn of and to contr:adict the earlier testimony. In
times of panic, for instance, it is easy to exaggmte
tl,c number of enemies of the state, and the very ex­
istence of the panic may lead to silence on the part
of those who do not diare it. \Vhcrc, on the other
haod, there is any reason to believe a matter extraor­
dinary, th ough commooly known, the argument from
Tll1I PIIOIILl!M OP C&EDIBILIT1' 100
. silence would work the other way: the very fact that
a statement of something extraordinary was not cor·
roborated in other SoUtCCS that m.ight have been ex­
pected to mention it would render ii suspect. The
ambivalence of the argum.entum ex silentio ITllllr.es it
a weak test for most purposes. It is not the silence of
other _passible witnesses but whether an event was
considered commonplace or airnordinary that lends
credibility to or 1emove'J credibility from single state­
ments on matte� of common Liowlcdge.
(4} Even wben the fact in q11estion may not be
well-known, certain kinds of statements are both in·
cidentcd nnd probabl8 to such a degree that crroc or
falsehood seems unlikely. If :111 ancient itUcription on
a road tells us that a certain proconsul built that road
while Auguotus was princcps, it '""'Y be doubted with,..
ollt further corroboration that that proconsul really
bw1t the road, bot it would be harder to doubt that
the rood was ooilt during the principate of Augustus.
If an advertisement il!fol)lls readers that "A and B
Coffee may be bought at any reliable grocer's at the
oousuaJ price of fifty cents a pound," all the infer·
· enccs of the advcttiscment may well be doubted with­
out corrobomtion except that there is a brand of
coffee on the market called "A and B Coffee." Af.
though the opinion that "William .Jones' widow is
a more chamting lady than A-lrs. Brown" may have J.lO
validity as testimony ,�«ling the 1clative merits of
tbe two ladies, it is probably good evidc111X: oo the
phy.;ical condition oi William Jones.
Even the boldest propGganda may be made to yield
credible information by a careful application of the
 164 iJNOP.RSTANDJXG B'JS't'ORY
rule r�gardjng the incidental and Iha probable. Such
a sratcmcs1t iu a propagan,'.:? lcaOet as: "Our aircraft
msily overcame the enemy's," would be, without con­
firmation from more reliable sources, thoroughly $US­
pttl ",th regard to the inferiority of tbe enemy. Yet
it may be taken �t its lace value as evidence that the
cuemy Jwve ai1pb11r.s (c.s pt-ciall y since it is nut only
incidental and /,robablo but al$O contrary• to interest
in tliat reg;ird) . And the $!2temcnt may al;o have some
v.iluc as evidence th:it "we" have ai rplanes (though
that value is 11ot as great as if the cvidcu<:e were here
also contrary le interest). \Vben in a war or a d iplo­
matic controversy ouc side tal:cs the h'ooble to deny
the propaganda of the other, neither the propagimda
nor the denial may be certified thereby, but it be­
eomc• cJ,,ir IJ,at· the propogonda lws seemed worthy
of some attention to the oth er side.
( s) ',','!,en tbe tb<)Ugh t pattern$ 3nd preconcep­
tions of a witness 2rc known and yet he s�tes some­
thing out of keepiug with them - in oth er words, il
sbtements arc contrmy to the witness', expectotio 11s
or an/iciJ>tttioru, they have a high degree of credibility.
11,us, a statement by a Soviet observer regarding in·
stances of wotlang-class contentment in a capitalist
countiy or by a capitalist observ,.,. regarding insl:lnces
of lo}"alty in a Soviet country would be espociafiy im-
. s ource, in the sense of being the "origin" of his knowl­
pressi,e.
It must always be rt'D'lemberod !mt the siillfol liar
can seo.,;e these conditions favorable to credibility as
wen as most historians. Hcrn:c he c:m rnanufacture
an air of credibility that may easily take in the uowary
investigator. The cxutence of conditions favol:!ble to
'rft& PRODLUM OF cg•m�n.tTV 165
craiibility su�·h as these mu-;t ·first be established and
ne,'Cf taken for granted ln :my given in,tance.
Hearsay and Secondary Evidence
'J'1te historiau, let us r<p<:at, uses primary ( U13 t is,
eyewiluess) tcstimouy ••itcnevcr he can. \Vhen he
can find no prim3ry witness, he usc.-s the bei,t second­
ary witness o,onilable. Unlike !be bwyer, be wishes
·
to disc.over as near! as • :it ha ened rather
than who was a , ult. !! t,e $0metimcs has to ma ·e
· judgments, he 90<!$ not have to pass sentence aod
hence he does not have the same hesitation as a judge
to pt1TJ1it evidence that practice has ruled out of
·courtrooms.
fn cases where he uses $eCO!ldary witne.1se., how­
°""'• be docs not rcly upon them fully. Ou the wn­
trary, he asks: ( 1) On whose primary testimony doe.,
ll1e secondary witness oose his statements? ( 2) Di.d
the scccndary witness accurotdy report the primary
tCS'timony as a whole? (3) If not, in what demits did
he accurately report the pri.mary testimony? Satisfac­
tory answers t o the s«ond ond third questions may
provide the histo,ian with the whole Ot the gist of
tbc primary testimony upon which the secondary wit­
ness may be bis only mea,., of knowledge. In such
cases the secondary source is the historian's "origioal"
edge. In so far as this "originar source is an accurate
report of p1ima,y testimooy, he tests its credibility as
he would that of the primary testimony itself.
Thns hearsay evidence would not be discorded by
the bisto.rian. as it wonld be bv a law court, merely
166 IIND&RSTANDINC HlSTOltY
because it is hc:uS3y. It is unacceptable only in so far
as it cannot be established as accurale reporting of
primary tcslimony. A single example will perhaps
suffice lo make that clear. A \Vhitc House correspond­
ent stating what the president had said at a press
confcraice would be a primary $0urcc of infonnation
on the president's words. 111e s.ime correspondent
telling a presidential sectctary's version of what the
president had said would be a secondary or he:nsay
witn�. and probably would be successfully cbal,
lcngcd in a courtroom; and yet if the correspondent
,were a skilled and honorable reporter and if the prcsi­
,lcntial secretary were competent and honest, the cor­
rapondent's ac<:ount might be a thoroughly accurate
statement of what the president in fact had said. Even
the most punctilious historian might n:tain tJ14t kind
of evidence for further· oorrobotation.
Corroboration.
A primary particular that has been extracted from
� document by the pro«sses of exi.emal and internal
o:,iticism so far described is not yet reganlcd as alto-
1:cthcr established as historical fact. Al h then: is
:1 strong presumption that it is orthy, gen­
eral mlc of historians (we sha soon noe exceptions,
however) is to accept as historical only those p:irtic­
nht rs wl,icb res! u lhe dependent wtimolJ!...of
::.:;, � 1
twu oc rrcN=e reVOb_...,AfflM....!.,
'11,c importance of the independence of the wit·
•• Cl. C,,l·· Bmtlocirn, pp. 195-6 and so; c. v. IAngloi, and
< � S.�1,0000, ln1.-..., to Ill< Study of m.tor,, IJ. C. C. Bcny
(1-luo, 19u), pp. ·�
THE PI\OBLF.M OP CREDrBTLITY 167
nesses is obvious. Independence is not, however, al­
w:iys easy to determine, as the controversy over the
Synoptic Gospels well illuslrates. Where any two wit­
nesses agree, it may be that they do so because th ey
are testifying indcpendenlly to an observed fact, but
it is possible that they agree only because one has
copied from the other, or because one has been un­
duly inffuenced by the other, or because both have
oopied from or been unduly influenced by a third
source. Unless the independence of the observers is
established, agreement may be confirmation of a lie
or of a mistake rather than corroboration of a fact.
It frequently happens, however, especially in the
more remote phases of history, that diligent research
fails to produce two independent documents testify·
ing lo tl,e same (acts. It is also evideut that for mauy
historical questions -the lcind that would especially
interest the student of biography- there often can be
no more than one immediate witness. Of the emo­
tions, ideals, interests, sensations, impressions, private
opinions, attitudes, drives, and motives of an individ­
ual only that individual can give direct testimony, un­
less their outward manifestations are sufficiently well
understood to serve as a reliable index. E,-en when
those inner experiences are known from the testimony
of others to whom the subject may have told them,
they rest ultimately upon his own powers of introspec­
tion. The biographer is in this regard no better 9ff
than the psychologist- and worse off if his witness is
dead and beyond intelView. And all history is bio­
graphical in part. The biographer does, however, have
one advantage over the psychologist - he knows what
166 UNDEILSJ'ANOINC H!smaY
his subject is going to do neit. He therefore can
reason fron1 response to sensation, from act to motive,
from effect to cause. 'T11c completed behavior pattern
may give coufurnation to the b !ogmpher of the in­
wa,d psychological prore;scs of his sub1 ect.
It follows, then, that for statements known or
knowable only by a single witness, we are obliged to
break the general rule \Cquiting two indqiendcnt and
reliable witnesses for corroboration. Hence we must
look for other kinds of corroboration. A =n's pro­
fessed opinions or motives will seem more acceptable
as his "hone$t" opinions or his "real" motives ii they
are not in keeping with the 1mttcm of behavior that
would be "!:Jshionable" in the society io which he
moved but at the same time ate in keeping with what
otl,erwise is knO"-'.n of his sener.il ch:u,,cter... The
very silen� (i.e., absence of contradiction) of other
contemporary so.urces upon a mattet appeari ng to be
common lcnowledge may sometimes be a con6rma·
tion of it (s.:e above, p. 162). [n other cases, a docu-:
ment's generol. credibility may have to seIVe as cor­
robotation. The reputation of the author for veracity,_
the lack of self-contradiction within the document,.
the absence of couti:adiction by other soutces, free:·.
dom from anachronisms, and the way the auihots .
testimony fits into the otherwise lcnown facts help to . .
detennine that general credibility.
c;g11(0.uoit1 qr a"'eemmt y,,itl1 other �ll0!!'.11-liti
torical or scientific facts js often the decisive test of
evidence, wbetl,er of one or of n,ore witnesses. Tha_ t.. .
•• Cf. F. H. Ku;ght, "The Sidnm of Liber.al Socidy," Et�;·
. . '
LVI (19t6), �··
THB FROl!LF;i,.t OF CffDl81llTY 169
Cellini saw fue-<lwelling salamandetS, devils, halos,
and othei: .supernatur•l phenomena would hardly
seem credible to anv modem historian, even if Cellini
were otherwise gen::iany truthful, consistent, and nn·
contradicted. And eveu if Cellini's statemcuts were
conlinned by independent witnesses, tlie historian·
would believe only that Cellini and his corroborators
saw thing, they thought were sah.maoders, devils, and
halos. General knowledge of how little effect a thumb
io a hole in a dylce would have upon presexving a dyke
that bad begun to crumble would be sufficient to
destroy credence in a wcll-knowo legend, even if there
had been any witnesses to that Dutch hero's talc.
Doubt can be thrown upon the old story toot the po­
tato was introduced into Ireland by Sir Walter Ra­
leigh and hence to Eogland by merely pointing to the
fact tha.t the Irish potato is of a different varicty from
the English potato... What little we know about the
'time sequence of cause aocl effect induces ns to be­
lieve that if notable contributions to anthropology ap­
peared before and around 1859, the birth of modem·
anthropology cannot be said to be the result of the
publication of D:irwin's th oory of evolution.'" And,
for obvious reasom. it is dillicult to give much cre­
dence to a claim of vi,gio bi1th 1eccntly made in au
English divo1oe case.
· Because the general credibility of a docnmcmt can
rarely be greater th,m the credibility of the sepa,atc
,n W. 11. .._(c:NeUJ, '1'11e lntrocl,1c1jo11 oft-be Pot:ato iuto t,c.
ba,1;· f,,.,,,111 of Motkm Hutory, XXJ i'9i9), »9.
.,, Cl. F. J. T-,t, Tb.ory of Hislo,y (New Hnai, 19,5).
1,p, lG)�
170 tlNO�RST.UWl!'IC HlS'.f'(lRY
deruils in it, oonoboration of the d<:ruils of a witn<:$S'S
testimony by his general credibility is wc:ik corrobora­
tion at best. Likewise the argumenlum ex silentio •nd
conformity or agreement with other h1own fa,ts may
be misleading. 'll,cy are in the nature of circu111-
:tantial evidence, the weakne$$ of which 3ny reader
of cou1t proceedings and detecti,·e stories knows.
\'vl1ile, in the cases under discussion, these tests arc
proposed only for confirmt1tion of the direct tcsti·
mony of one witness and not as cxdusi\'e sources of
evidence, their circumstantial or presumptive nature
renders them suspect even for tl1at purpose. Hence
historians usually insist that particulars which rest on
a single witness's testimony should be so desiguated.
They shonld be labekd by such tags as: '"Thucydides
says," "Plutarch is oar authority for the statemtnt
that,'' "according to Soidas," "in the words of EtaS­
mus," "if Boswell is to be believed,» etc.
Certitude vs. Certaiaty
Since such precautions are not always taken and ..
these single-witness statements are not always treated·
as pn,bcmd4 capable ooly of a lower order of proof, a ·. ·
curious paradox results. For rnany early periods of ..
h.istOJy, lcss disagxeement is found among the sources, i'
because there ate fewer sources, than fOl more req:ut ·.
periods. On what happened one or two thousan d.
years ago, despite the steady increase in archeologica),
epigraphi<:al, papyrological, and paleogiaphical ma·
terials, the SOUil'eS arc few, fairly geneially avail\l,J>I�..,'
and l:nown, arid the contradictions among them· rel.a;
tively familiar if not always reconciled. Oa w� �p';
Tl1£ P80Bl,BM OF CR£1)18JLrtY 171
penoo fast year, the sources are many and not alw:iys
known, and the contradictions among them not yet
familiar or reconciled. It is casieo-, among the enor­
mous colledions of little exploited or totally untapped
materials 011 happenings of recent periods .to find
something unknown to. describe o, to ieinterpret a
fnmili:ir story on the basis of hithetto unused docu­
D\ents than to do either foe cvertts of remote periods.
Hence, as a general rule, the more recent tlie period
of study, the mote difficult it b«omes to '"Y some­
thing that will remain long unchallenged; for both
. th e intensity of controversy and the likelihood of a
new approach tend to increase with the proximity in
time to one's own day. Thus a greater degree: of con­
sensus and certitude may easily exist among historians
where the �stimony is belting than wheze ii ;. full.
PerhaJ?6 nothing provides more el oquent proof than
this that the historian's "truths" are derived !tom
analytical CVllluations of an object called "sources"
r.ithc:r than of an object called "the actual past."