An illusion of the imagination, taking its rise, naturally, from the indistinctness of our individual recollections of infancy, and from the entire obliteration of many of the records of memory, leads us, involuntarily, to attach an idea of obscurity, and of uncertainty, to whatever is remote in time. And besides; if the knowledge of remote facts has been imperfectly, or suspiciously, transmitted, and if there be a want of direct evidence on any point of ancient history, then the distance of time does really decrease the chances of collecting any new evidence; and therefore such facts must always be shrouded in uncertainty.
But whatever has been well and sufficiently proved in one age, remains not less certainly proved in the next, so long as all the evidences continue in the same state. Indeed—as we have before remarked, historical evidence often greatly increases in clearness and certainty by the lapse of time. If in the time of Leo X. it was certain that Augustus ruled the Roman world sixteen hundred years before that period, we have no need to deduct anything from our persuasion of the truth of the fact, on account of the four centuries which have since elapsed. On the contrary, the proof of it has become much greater, both in its amount, and in its clearness, now, than it was then.
The proof of the genuineness of books, even if it should not gather particles of evidence, yet remains, from age to age, unimpaired. Nor is the proof of the genuineness of modern works more satisfactory, although it may be more abundant, than that of ancient books. We could not be persuaded that the Paradise Lost was written in the last century by some obscure scribbler; nor would it be a whit less absurd to suppose that the Æneid was composed in the tenth century, or the Iliad at any time subsequent to the invasion of Greece by Xerxes.
The degree of certainty that is attainable on any point of ancient history, or literature, is regulated—not by distance of time, but by the state of the world at the period in question; especially by the contraction, or the diffusion of general knowledge at that time. This certainty therefore rises and falls—it becomes bright or obscure, alternately, from age to age, and it does so quite irrespectively of distance of years. In sailing up the stream of time, mists and darkness rest upon the landscape at a comparatively early stage of our progress; but as we ascend, light breaks upon the scene in the full splendour of a noonday sun; scarcely an object rests in obscurity, and whatever is most prominent and important, may be discerned in its minutest parts.
III. The validity of evidence in proof of remote facts is not affected, either for the better or the worse, by the weight of the consequences that may happen to depend upon them.
No principle can be much more obviously true than this; and if the reader chooses to call it a truism, he is welcome to do so: and yet none is more often disregarded. With the same sort of inconsistency which impels us to measure the punishment of an offence—not by its turpitude, but by the amount of injury it may have occasioned, we are instinctively inclined to think the most slender evidence good enough in proof of a point which is of no importance; while we distrust the best evidence as if it were feeble, on any occasion when the fact in question involves great and pressing interests. We are apt to think of evidence as if it were a cord or a wire, which, though it may sustain a certain weight, must needs snap with a greater. And yet the slightest reflection will dissipate a prejudice that is so groundless and absurd.
It is very true that the degree of care, of diligence, and of attention, with which we examine evidence, may well be proportioned to the importance of the consequences that are involved in the decision. A juryman ought indeed to give his utmost attention to testimony that may sentence a prisoner to a month’s confinement; but if he be open to the common feelings of humanity, he will exercise a tenfold caution when life or death is to be the issue of his verdict. This is very proper; but no one who is capable of reasoning justly would think that, if the proof of guilt in the former case has been thoroughly examined, and is quite conclusive, it can become a jot less convincing, if it should be found that some new interpretation of the law makes the offence capital.
The genuineness of the satires and epistles of Horace is allowed by all scholars to be unquestionable; and any one who has examined the evidence in this instance, must call him a mere sophist who should attempt to raise a controversy on the subject. Would the case be otherwise than it is, even though the proof of the genuineness of these writings should overthrow the British constitution; or should make it the duty of every man to resign his property to his servant?
The evidence of the genuineness and authenticity of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures has, for no other reason than a thought of the consequences that are involved in an admission of their truth, been treated with an unwarrantable disregard of logical equity—and even of the dictates of common sense. The poems of Anacreon, the tragedies of Sophocles, the plays of Terence, the epistles of Pliny, are adjudged to be safe from the imputation of spuriousness, or of material corruption; and yet evidence ten times greater as to its quantity, variety, and force, supports the genuineness of the poems of Isaiah, and the epistles of Paul.
This violation of argumentative equity, in relation to the Scriptures, has been favoured by the mere circumstance of their having to be so continually defended. It matters little how impudently false an imputation may be; the reply, though, in the most absolute sense, conclusive, is apt to beget almost as much suspicion as it dissipates. Herein consists the strength of infidel writings;—they call for a defence of that which is attacked, and this defence seems to imply that there is a question which may fairly be argued, and that it is in some degree doubtful. Let the genuineness of the most indubitable of the classics be boldly questioned in a popular style, and let it be defended in a form level to the mode of attack—and level also to the ignorance of the middle and lower orders, and the result would produce quite as many cases of doubt, as of conviction.