A Treatise on Judicial Evidence Author:Jeremy Bentham General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1825 Original Publisher: J. W. Paget Subjects: Evidence (Law) Law / Civil Procedure Law / Evidence Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this ... more »book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER VII. OF THE (iROUNDS OF POSITIVE PERSUASION, OR THE REASONS OP BELIEF. What is the cause of the belief produced by testimony ? Why do we believe on the authority of others? The most usual answer to this question resolves it by experience. In the habitual intercourse of life, affirmation and negation about a multitude of facts present themselves under an infinite variety of forms. We find, most frequently, that assertions concerning the existence of such and such facts, are agreeable to the truth. Having found testimony true, in the greater number of cases, during the past, we have an inclination to trust to it for the present and the future. Hence, in a word, the disposition to believe. On the other hand, there are cases, and they are not very rare, in which we have found ourselves deceived by testimony; hence the disposition to doubt or disbelieve. But as the true assertions greatly surpass the false in number, the disposition to believe is our habitual state ; disbelief is the exception. To make us refuse our belief, there must always be a special cause, a particular objection. Were it otherwise, social business could not go on; every'move- ment of society would be paralyzed; we would not dare to act; for the number of facts, falling under the immediate perception of each individual, is but a drop in the ocean, compared with those of which he can know nothing, except from the report of others. We believe in testimony for the same reason that we believe in the existence of matter, that is, on...« less