§ 6. That which has been described in the previous sections as the ‘individual’ which had to be assigned to an appropriate class or series of statistics is, of course, in this case, a statement. In the particular instance in question this individual statement is already assigned to a class, that namely of statements made by a witness of a given degree of veracity; but it is clearly optional with us whether or not we choose to confine our attention to this class in forming our judgment; at least it would be optional whenever we were practically called on to form an opinion. But in the case of this statement, as in that of the mortality of the man whose insurance we were discussing, there are a multitude of other properties observable, besides the one which is supposed to mark the given class. Just as in the latter there were (besides his age), the place of his birth, the nature of his occupation, and so on; so in the former there are (besides its
being a statement by a certain kind of witness), the fact of its being uttered at a certain time and place and under certain circumstances. At the time the statement is made all these qualities or attributes of the statement are present to us, and we clearly have a right to take into account as many of them as we please. Now the question at present before us seems to be simply this;—Are the considerations, which we might thus introduce, as immaterial to the result in the case of the truth of a statement of a witness, as the corresponding considerations are in the case of the insurance of a life? There can surely be no hesitation in the reply to such a question. Under ordinary circumstances we soon know all that we can know about the conditions which determine us in judging of the prospect of a man's death, and we therefore rest content with general statistics of mortality; but no one who heard a witness speak would think of simply appealing to his figure of veracity, even supposing that this had been authoritatively communicated to us. The circumstances under which the statement is made instead of being insignificant, are of overwhelming importance. The appearance of the witness, the tone of his voice, the fact of his having objects to gain, together with a countless multitude of other circumstances which would gradually come to light as we reflect upon the matter, would make any sensible man discard the assigned average from his consideration. He would, in fact, no more think of judging in this way than he would of appealing to the Carlisle or Northampton tables of mortality to determine the probable length of life of a soldier who was already in the midst of a battle.
§ 7. It cannot be replied that under these circumstances we still refer the witness to a class, and judge of his veracity by an average of a more limited kind; that we infer, for example, that of men who look and act like him under such
circumstances, a much larger proportion, say nine-tenths, are found to lie. There is no appeal to a class in this way at all, there is no immediate reference to statistics of any kind whatever; at least none which we are conscious of using at the time, or to which we should think of resorting for justification afterwards. The decision seems to depend upon the quickness of the observer's senses and of his apprehension generally.
Statistics about the veracity of witnesses seem in fact to be permanently as inappropriate as all other statistics occasionally may be. We may know accurately the percentage of recoveries after amputation of the leg; but what surgeon would think of forming his judgment solely by such tables when he had a case before him? We need not deny, of course, that the opinion he might form about the patient's prospects of recovery might ultimately rest upon the proportions of deaths and recoveries he might have previously witnessed. But if this were the case, these data are lying, as one may say, obscurely in the background. He does not appeal to them directly and immediately in forming his judgment. There has been a far more important intermediate process of apprehension and estimation of what is essential to the case and what is not. Sharp senses, memory,